Lesser known details of WW2 part four

Another Blast from the past:

I recommend to read this site "lightly" but some interesting info as well....

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...le.asp?ID=4934

SS chief Heinrich Himmler was known to remark that he regretted that Germany had adopted Christianity, rather than "warlike" Islam, as its religion, and there is a disturbing amount of twisted but very real logic in his remark.

Hitler himself was even given an Arabic name: Abu Ali (!!)

 

One cannon round entered the tail cone of "XTERMINATOR" 131618 YA-V from the far side, struck armor plate and exploded, splinters of which wounded tail gunner S/Sgt. C.S. Johnson and damaged the aircraft as shown on the near side.

http://www.b26.com/historian/chester_klier/025.htm

Ooops!

 

Konrad Zuse's Z3 was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computing machine; whose attributes, with the addition of conditional branching, have often been the ones used as criteria in defining a computer. The Z3 was built with 2,000 relays. (A request for funding for an electronic successor was denied as "strategically unimportant".) It had a clock frequency of ~5–10 Hz, and a word length of 22 bits.[1] Calculations on the computer were performed in full binary floating point arithmetic. Z3 read programs off a punched film.

Z3 (computer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Konrad Zuse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Lieutenant Frös of 2./ZG 26 with three kill stripes on his BK 5 cannon barrel for shooting down three B-17´s during April of 1944 with his Me 410.

Middle of the page.

What of the Me 410? - Page 5 - Aircraft of World War II - Warbird Forums

 

Grossdeutschland - Find out about Berlins Flakturm und Luftschutz bunkers

 

"The 'Anglo-Saxons' (as Le General used to call us) have always had some difficulty in appreciating the grandeur that was de Gaulle. The first question that the United States press corps asked the head of the Free French in 1940 was 'What colour pajamas do you wear?'"

Anecdotage.Com - Thousands of true funny stories about famous people. Anecdotes from Gates to Yeats

 

Knights Cross with oak leaves

The first recipient was General Eduard Dietl, the German commander in the battle of Narvik in North Norway.

Knights Cross with oak leaves and swords

The first two recipients, in June 1941, were the two most prominent German aces of the battle of Britain, Adolf Galland, then commander of fighter wing 26, and Werner Molders, commander of fighter wing 51. The first recipient from the German Navy was Otto Kretschmer, the legendary commander of submarine U-99, and the first recipient from the army was General Erwin Rommel.

Knights Cross with golden oak leaves swords and diamonds

The highest medal of all, it was supposed to be awarded after the end of World War 2 to Germany's 12 greatest war heroes, but Adolf Hitler felt that the continuous outstanding achievements and heroism of Germany's greatest war hero, dive bomber ace Hans Ulrich Rudel, were such that he deserved to receive this award sooner, so in January 1945 Rudel became the only recipient of this highest medal.

Knights Cross

 

CatStuff: A Few Famous Cat Lovers

Churchill's marmalade cat Jock slept with his master, shared his dining table, and attended numerous war-time Cabinet meetings. If Jock was late for meals, Churchill would send servants to find him, waiting to eat til the cat was present. Jock was said to have been with his master when he died. Churchill also had a cat, Nelson, named after the famous British admiral.

 

The other Galland brothers:

Wilhelm-Ferdinand "Wutz" Galland

Credited with 54 aerial victories in 186 missions. All his victories were recorded over the Western Front and included seven four-engine bombers and 37 Spitfires.

Aces of the Luftwaffe - Wilhelm-Ferdinand Galland

Paul Galland

Paul Galland was credited with 17 victories in 107 combat missions.

Aces of the Luftwaffe - Paul Galland

 

Gordon Mc Gollob
Oberst

Aces of the Luftwaffe - Gordon McGollob

The "Mc" in Mc Gollob was not part of Caledonian family name, but a highly unusual Christian name bestowed upon the young Gollob by his parents. They were both Austrian artists who named their son after an American friend, Gordon Mallet Mc Couch, no doubt to the latter´s delight- but to the utter mystification of the Viennese registrar of births, to whom the child´s forenames had to be spelled out letter by letter.

Gollob would be the first Luftwaffe fighter pilot to achieve 150 victories.

 

ONLY FIGHTER PILOT VICTORIA CROSS

NICOLSON, Eric James Brindley (Reg No.931)
Flight Lieutenant Royal Air Force 249 Squadron.
London Gazetted on 15th November 1940
Born on the 29th April 1917 at Hampstead, London.
Killed when his aircraft, a Liberator, crashed, after catching fire, in the Bay of Bengal on the 2nd May 1945

On 16 August 1940 near Southampton, Flight lieutenant Nicolson's Hurricane was fired on by a Messerschmitt 110, injuring the pilot in one eye and one foot. His engine was also damaged and the petrol tank set alight. As he struggled to leave the blazing machine he saw another Messerschmitt, and managing to get back into the bucket seat, pressed the firing button comtinuing firing until the enemy plane dived away to destruction. Not until then did he bale out., and when he landed in a field , he was unable to release his parachute owing to his badly burned hands.

"All I'm anxious about now is to get back flying and have another crack at the Germans", he told the Daily Telegraph, nursing an extra gun shot wound from a Home Guard Sergeant who mistook him for a German pilot.



Only Fighter Pilot VC

Eric James Brindley Nicolson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vulch's Heroes of World War II

 

Churchill did not know Montgomery well, but they had met near Brighton in 1940 at the Third Division and had "very good talks" over dinner. When Churchill asked Montgomery what he would drink, he replied "water", and added that he neither drank nor smoked and was 100 per cent fit. Churchill observed that he himself both drank and smoked and was 200 per cent fit!

( Alamein by 2002 Stephen Bungay )

 

William Dudley Pelley (March 12, 1890–July 1, 1965) was an American Fascist and leader of the Silver Legion.

Although the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 led to the immediate collapse of the Silver Legion, Pelley continued to attack the government with a new magazine called Roll Call, which alarmed Roosevelt, Attorney General Francis Biddle, and the House Un-American Activities Committee. After claiming in one issue of Roll Call that the devastation of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was worse than the government claimed, Pelley was arrested at his new base of operations in Noblesville, Indiana and charged with high treason and sedition in April 1942. In a much publicized trial, the major charges against Pelley were dropped, but he was still sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

(1938 July 31 In a period of 19 months prior to this date, William Dudley Pelley mails 3.5 tons of antisemitic propaganda from his headquarters in America.)

THE HOLOCAUST PROJECT - Timebase 1938

William Dudley Pelley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Camouflet

In July 1941 a chain of incidents happened near Aldergrove in Northern Ireland which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of two BD Personnel when it was decided to re-open a shaft to establish whether some fragments were a German bomb or just a tail fin. On July 21 at about noon, Cpl. Burton was working in the shaft when the soil collapsed around him and he disappeared into the cavity created when a bomb explodes beneath the ground but doesn't break the surface known as a camouflet.

Cpl. Burton tried to climb out but was overcome by the residual fumes and Carbon Monoxide from the explosion of the bomb and fell back into the cavity. Sgt. Boulden climbed down to attempt a rescue but he was overcome as well and could not be pulled out in time to save him. Following these deaths a modified parachute harness was developed to be worn by men in the shaft where a camouflet was suspected.

Incidents Page 1

 

On July 20th 1944 plot

" It had become clear to those at Wolf´s lair that the assassination attempt signaled the start of a general uprising. They could hardly fail to notice since, due to a switching error, telegram dispatches from army headquarters on Bendlerstrasse were arriving at Führer headquarters as well."

From Plotting Hitler´s death by J Fest

 

V1- defence

Overall, 4,261 V-1s were destroyed by fighters, anti-aircraft fire and barrage balloons. Of the fighters, Hawker Tempests accounted for 638, de Havilland Mosquito for 428, Supermarine Spitfire XIV for 303, and North American Mustang for 232. A further 158 were shot down by other fighters. The artilery defences destroyed 17% of all flying bombs entering the coastal 'gun belt' their first week on the coast. This rose to 60% by 23 August and 74% in the last week of the month, when on one day 82% were shot down. The rate improved from one V-1 destroyed for every 2,500 shells fired initially, to one for every 100. Barrage balloons officially claimed 231 V-1s.

Operation Crossbow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Ribbentrop and the Ciano Diaries at the Nuremberg Trial

J Int Criminal Justice -- Sign In Page

Hitler and Ribbentrop had decided to conceal their plans for the invasion of Poland from Mussolini and Ciano until two long meetings on 12 and 13 August 1939, i.e. many months after the Germans had already completed the advanced stages of their military planning.

The diaries were used to substantiate the prosecution argument that Ribbentrop and Hitler were not only aware that the Japanese had prepared plans for attack against the United States but also that they fully accepted the consequences of this attack by assuring the Japanese that they would indeed be prepared to declare war on the United States should a United States–Japanese conflict result. In this sense, Ciano's diaries added significant weight to the prosecution argument that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was the foreseeable and intended consequence of Ribbentrop's collaboration policy, which had specifically encouraged the Japanese to escalate the war.

On the 28th November 1941, ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Ribbentrop encouraged Japan, through her Ambassador in Berlin, to attack Great Britain and the United States, and stated that should Japan become engaged in a war with the United States, Germany would join the war immediately. A few days later, Japanese representatives told Germany and Italy that Japan was preparing to attack the United States, and asked for their support. Germany and Italy agreed to do this, although in the Tripartite Pact, Italy and Germany had undertaken to assist Japan only if she were attacked.

 

Stukas and battle of Poland 1939

" In 26 days, von Richthofen´s Stukas flew nearly 6,000 sorties over Poland and lost 31 aircraft, a relatively small percentage of the 285 German aircraft lost in total. "

From Hitler´s Stuka squadrons by John Ward

 

Don Kingaby is the only pilot in the RAF to have been awarded 3 DFMs. During his first combat on August 12, 1940, he severely damaged an JU88 over the Isle of Wight and Robert Taylor captures the moment of break, with the JU88 already smoking.


Robert Taylor Aviation Art

 

Joseph Louis Anne Avenol

Joseph Louis Anne Avenol (June 9, 1879, Melle, Deux-Sèvres, France—September 2, 1952, Duillier, Vaud, Switzerland) was a French diplomat. He served as the second general secretary of the League of Nations, from July 3, 1933 to August 31, 1940.

Avenol was accused of using the League as an extension of the French Foreign Office in its policy of appeasement of Germany and Italy. In fact, as he showed after the German occupation of Paris, he was a supporter of Hitler, Mussolini and Marshal Philippe Pétain of the Vichy régime.

When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Avenol's main concern was to keep the Italians in the organization, not to protect Ethiopia.

When the Germans marched into Paris in June 1940, Avenol was reported by his Greek aide, Thanassis Aghnides, to have said, "We must work hand-in-hand with Hitler in order to achieve the unity of Europe and expel England." Later Avenol described "a new France, which was to be given a new soul to work in collaboration with Germany and Italy and keep the British out of Europe." He wrote to Marshal Pétain to affirm his loyalty to the Vichy government.

On August 31, 1940 Avenol left Geneva and the League of Nations for good. His services were not accepted by the Vichy government, and he was forced to flee back into Switzerland on New Year's Eve 1943 to avoid arrest by the Germans. He died in Switzerland in 1952.

Joseph Louis Anne Avenol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph Avenol’s Betrayal of the League of Nations » HistoryNet - From the World's Largest History Magazine Publisher