Troops from the Hermann Görin Panzer division, led by Oberstleutnant Julius Schlegel (initionally without the knownledge of the commander of the division), moved the treasures of the Monte Cassino Monastery (incl paintings (da Vinci, Titian, Raphael etc), the remains of St. Benedict, 70.000 volumes and 1.200 original documents) from the monastery to safety in the Vatican, thus saving them from destruction during the battle of Monte Cassino. Schlegel was to spend seven months in allied prisons after the war as a suspected looter and warcriminal before being freed by Field Marshal Alexander and the testimony of the Monte Cassino munks.

http://www.skalman.nu/third-reich/lu...iv-goering.htm

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On 1 July 1938, General Kurt Student organized the "Fallshirmtruppe" into the "7th Aviation Division" in order to conceal their true purpose. The Hermann Goring Regiment was reorganized on 1 October 1939 to include a Parachute Rifle Battalion ("Fallschrimschutze"), which was later absorbed into the Luftwaffe's 1st Parachute Regiment and called "Fallschirmjager". That was the only time the Herman Goring troops were used as paratroopers, EVEN THOUGH they retained the term "Fallschirm" in their title.

http://members.aol.com/Custermen85/R...anGoringRe.htm

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Disney Rocket Bomb

This 4500lb bomb was designed for penetrating the thick concrete U-boat shelters. It was free-fall until a rocket motor fired at 5,000 feet, pushing the missile to speeds of 2,400 feet per second upon impact. It could penetrate 20 feet in solid concrete before explosion and was first used by 92nd Bomb Group on 14th March 1945.

http://www.b17flyingfortress.de/english/bombs.htm

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http://users.bigpond.net.au/wombat1/Chapter1.htm

617 Squadron


The next assignment for the squadron was to help safeguard the important and highly vulnerable Allied shipping in the English Channel going to the landing beaches after D-Day. The ships were being badly mauled at night by skirmishing E-Boat flotillas operating from the harbours of Le Havre and Boulogne, with the occasional submarine using the newly-built pens at Le Havre, which were heavily reinforced with concrete. On 14 June, just before dusk, 617 attacked Le Havre, in company with aircraft from other squadrons and Groups. 617 aimed 11 Tallboys at the submarine pens, and a further 10 were dropped into the harbour anchorages where the E-Boats were fully armed and massed for their evening foray. The E-Boat nests in Boulogne were similarly attacked on 15 June, with the zero hour advanced to catch the E-Boats in harbour before they commenced the longer trip to the invasion area. The Le Havre operation featured in Cheshire's V.C. citation.

The submarine pens at Le Havre were heavily damaged, with more destruction being caused by near misses than direct hits, for the near misses undermined the foundations and thus the tremendously thick concrete roofs became a liability, which caused them to collapse inward some days after the raid, as revealed by photographic reconnaissance. The predators never presented a threat to the invasion convoys again, most of the remaining E-Boats being withdrawn to Ijmuiden on the Dutch coast to lick their wounds.

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On a book on these missions ( the two attacks alone ) the "tallboy" sure showed its power! Approx 133 ships, most of which were E-boats were sunk!!!!!



Martin, got any extra material on these powerful attacks on pens?

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Spitfire production numbers

Mk IA & IB 1566
Mk IIA 750
Mk IIB 170
Mk III 1
Mk IV 1 (Griffon prototype) / 229
Mk VA 94
Mk VB 3923
Mk VC 2447
Mk VI 100
Mk VII 140
Mk VIII 1658
Mk IX 5665
Mk X 16
Mk XI 471
Mk XII 100
Mk XIII 16
Mk XVI 1054
Mk XVIII 300
Mk XIX 225
Mk XXI 122
Mk XXII 278
Mk XXIV 54

Seafire:
Mk IB 166 (conversions)
Mk IIC 362
Mk III 1220
Mk XV 390
Mk XVII 232
45 50
46 24
47 140

Total Spitfires 20,334
Total Seafires 2,556
Grand Total 22,890

http://www.wwiitech.net/main/britain/aircraft/spitfire/



Spitfires in Russia

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SHAEF


The Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) was an alliance of American, British and French forces responsible for planning and executing Allied activities in Western Europe against the Germans. SHAEF, led by supreme commander Major General Dwight Eisenhower, was the organization that developed Operation Overlord. SHAEF was established on February 13, 1944, and later, following the German surrender on May 9,1945, disbanded on July 15, 1945. The SHAEF insignia survives today (in a slightly modified form) as the symbol for the United States Army Europe.

http://www.sproe.com/s-shaef.htm

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Commander C. R. 'Tommy' Thompson RN

Tommy Thompson was one of Churchill's most trusted aides. A Flag Lieutenant at the Admiralty, Churchill had him brought on to the staff of 10 Downing Street. His chief task was to organise the Prime Minister's journeys at home and overseas. Churchill made numerous morale boosting trips to military units and bombed areas in Britain, particularly during the critical years of 1940-1941. He also made thirty visits abroad, covering over 40,000 miles, to conduct negotiations with his allies and visit troops. Most importantly, he attended the 'Big Three' conferences, at which war strategy was decided as well as the shape of postwar Europe. Thompson, whom Churchill called 'My Flag Commander', organised the details of the visits, down to the purchase of gifts for their hosts. Only once during an overseas visit were they separated. Churchill, who had met with Roosevelt in Washington in December 1941, returned via Bermuda in the New Year. A seaplane was organised to fly the Prime Minister back to England. The Captain of the aircraft needed one member of Churchill's entourage to travel by ship in order to reduce weight. Thompson was picked. He was so desperate to accompany the PM that he offered to replace the steward and do the washing up. The Captain refused and Thompson was left to travel back on the battleship HMS Duke of York. On New Year's eve 1940 Churchill's Private Secretary John Colville noted in his diary: 'Dined at the CWR, where General Ismay plied Tommy Thompson and me with brandy and regaled us with stories of the battlefield, and then proceeded to drink to the New Year in champagne'.

http://www.iwm.org.uk/cabinet/chursuite5.htm

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Churchill was not the natural successor to Chamberlain as Prime Minister in May 1940. Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, was the preferred choice of the Conservative Party, the King and Queen and Chamberlain himself. But Halifax recognised that he lacked the necessary qualities to lead Britain in war. Churchill was the only possibility once Halifax had ruled himself out.

http://www.iwm.org.uk/cabinet/churchill/biog.htm

In May 1940 when, following the fall of Norway, a large number of Conservatives failed to support the government on a confidence vote. A national government was imperative but the Labour party would not serve under Chamberlain. If, as was likely, Lord Halifax was called upon to form a government, Churchill felt that he would have to agree to serve under him. Chamberlain and David Margesson, the chief whip, called Halifax and Churchill to a meeting. Before this took place Bracken exacted from Churchill a promise that he would remain silent if it was proposed that Halifax should succeed. This he did when Chamberlain and Margesson put forward the name of Halifax. After two minutes Halifax broke the silence and said that he did not think that he, as a member of the House of Lords, was in the best position to form a government. It was, claimed Lord Beaverbrook who was closely involved, the great silence that saved England.

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/fh113bracken.htm

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What Hitler was planning for London...



1.at Watten, France was a massive concrete complex built in October 1943 using Russian slave labour, of which many hundreds died during the construction. The massive V2 rockets arrived by rail transport which ran directly underground to the storage chambers, there they were assembled using a production line basis. On completion of fitting it’s war head and the necessary parts the rocket would continue on the railway line to the outside launch area where its operational crew would elevate the rocket to firing position on it’s special launch pad and carry out the long dangerous procedure of filling the rocket with its 9,726 kg's of highly-explosive fuels, six hours later it would be ready to launch at the designated target given… London!!!

The V2 site at Watten never launched any V2’s against London as it was bombed on the 25th July, 1944…. had it been able to launch it’s terror weapons, it is estimated that it would have most definitely fired a minimum of 50 V2’s at London every day… (???!!)

http://www.edenbridgetown.com/in_the...phrodite.shtml

2. V3, the third vengeance weapon, consisted of barrages of small rocket projectiles fired from an underground cannon and capable of reaching London from the north French coast at a speed of 1500 metres a second.

Waves of 300 rockets an hour could have been fired by one cannon...one every 12 seconds..

...Hitler had the idea to increase cannons until at least 900 (!) arrow rockets would hit London every hour 24 hrs a day...

Mimoyecques was bombed by Tallboy bombs...

http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-her...mimoyec-v3.htm

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Leutenant Heinz Heuer

The only Feldgendarme (Military Police) to be decorated with the coveted Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was Leutenant Heinz Heuer. 1945 saw Heuer leading a small Kampfgruppe in the defence of Berlin, the city of his birth. On 16th April Heuer and his group were given the task of clearing out a suspected Russian command post. On the night of the 21st, Heuer and his men surprised and overcame the guards on the Russian command post and captured maps and important documents. On his return he helped to destroy 27 enemy tanks, his own score being an amazing 13 tanks, achieved using the 'Panzerfaust' hand-held anti-tank projectile. On reporting to General Krebs, he was immediately decorated with the Knight's Cross and promoted to Leutenant der Feldgendarmerie. Heuer was then ordered to take a personal message from Hitler to SS-General Felix Steiner. He set off by motorcycle, but was captured by Soviet troops. In the style of the best spy stories, Heuer managed to chew up and swallow the message. The Soviets were in no mood to take prisoners and Heuer, together with other captured Germans, was given a spade and told to dig himself a shallow grave. As he smoked a last cigarette, an artillery barrage came crashing in, forcing the Soviet guards to take cover, at which moment Heuer and his comrades made good their escape. At the war's end Heuer once again found himself in Soviet captivity. He was sent to Siberia but with help of a Russian woman doctor was able to arrange repatriation to Berlin - where he was denounced and arrested once again. Severely debilitated and weighing only six stone, Heuer managed to escape once again and made his way to the Western Zone, where he eventually returned to a police career.

http://www.martin.thornton.btinterne...itary_men_.htm

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Nebelwerfer vs. Katyusha

The first use of rocket artillery in World War II is often wrongly attributed to the Red Army, while Wehrmacht was the first one to use it. Four Nebelwefer Regiments of the Wehrmacht were among many artillery units that opened fire on June 22nd of 1941 at 3:15am, beginning the Operation "Barbarossa". Red Army used rocket artillery for the first time on July 14/15th of 1941, firing at the rail station at Orsza (controlled by the Army Group Center) on the Minsk-Moscow route.

http://members.rogers.com/georgepara...s/rockets.html

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Apparently WW2 aces had blue or light coloured eyes, were shorter than average, and, in family life, had more daughters than sons. What all this means is anyone's guess.

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Thoughts on Military History
Cornish Scale Modellers
Ross' Military Modelling and Art

Live Bomb Caught on B17 Wing
Gives Crew Panicky Trip Home
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A U.S. FORTRESS BASE, Dec. 12 1943-- One bomb dropped from a Flying Fortress in yesterday's USAAF raid on Emden never got to the ground. It came all the way back to England swaying dangerously on the wing of a second Fort, whose perspiring crew pinched themselves occasionally today, just checking to see if they really were alive.
2/Lt. Edward D. Martin, 28, of Greensboro, N. C., pilot of the second Fort, explained the stowaway bomb:
"We were directly over the target. All the ships had their bomb bay doors open, their bombs dropping down. A ship flying above and ahead of us had a bomb-release malfunction, and one of its bombs released late and landed on our wing just to the rear of the No. 1 engine.
"The ship lurched down on the wing. I thought the controls were hit. I then saw this bomb, live fuse and all, out there on my wing. It had broken open and a jelly-like substance was oozing from the casing. Why it didn't go off on impact with the wing or ignite from the heat of the engine we'll never know. Someone must have been praying for us."
During the time the Fort was over the target, and for part of the way back home, enemy fighters zoomed and whizzed around. A single bullet from any of them could have set fire to the bomb -- an incendiary. But none hit, and the ship, being handled "very tenderly" by Lt. Martin, continued on its way.
Over the North Sea, the generator on the No. 1 engine burned out. Smoke curled up and around the bomb.
"All of us were really sweating that out, for we were sure it was the bomb," said Martin.
With the crash wagon, ambulance,fire truck and assorted ordnance and armament workers lining the runway, Lt. Martin set down the Fort (a borrowed machine, his own Patricia being in the hangar for repairs to previous raid damage) "ever so gently" and then headed for chow.
Crews quickly made the bomb harmless and wheeled the Fort away.

http://www.stelzriede.com/ms/html/mshwm15.htm

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The SS figured that if it couldn't turn to the Whermacht for weapons, it would go to the weapons manufacturers themselves. The SS traded concentration camp slave labor for weapons with Fritz Todt. For example: the Waffen-SS traded Oganization Todt 20,000 Polish slave laborers for
20,000 rifles
50,000 bayonets
10,000 pistols
10,000 submachine guns
250 field kitchens
artillery & ammunition


throughout the course of the war, the SS supplied ever increasing amounts of slave labor to the German arms industry. And the German arms industry reciprocated, giving the Waffen-SS 5-8% of the gross national war material output.

http://www.wssob.com/weapons.html

Interesting...???!

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In October 1943, German forces evacuated CORSICA; the Free French moved in, France's first province to be liberated.

http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/france/freefrance.html

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Did the SS control all of the concentration camps during WW2? If so were the doctors in the camps SS agents or just German doctors

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Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it- Sun Tzu

Onthefield,

the camps were under SS rule. And the doctors in the camps to my knowledge had all some kind of SS rank. But so did many industrialists and politics as well.

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Erich Kempka on the last days of Hitler
( testimony )

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/imt/nc...nca-06-3735-ps

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SS units in Yugoslavia:

http://www.vojska.net/ww2/germany/ss/default.asp

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