Lesser known details of WW2 part four

"Nordland" in Klagenfurt 1940-41

 

Harold Alexander had a curious way of dealing with unfinished business: At the end of each working day, he would empty his "In" tray... into his "Out" tray, sending many unopened letters on their way.

Alexander was once asked about this peculiar habit. "It saves time," he explained. "You'd be surprised how little of it comes back!"

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

 

Britain at war

19/09/1940

Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin announces that until the end of August 51,261 men had registered as conscientious objectors.

World War 2 Timelines 1939-1945 - War in Britain 1940 - Worldwar-2.net

 

Great aviation photos.....

WWII aviation photos

 

A bit unusual view of the Göring family plus Hitler:

YouTube - Hermann Goering and Familly

 

Interesting articles, promotions,posters etc...

Museum of WWII -- German Collapse

 

"One may regret living at a period when it's impossible to form an idea of the shape the world of the future will assume. But there's one thing I can predict to eaters of meat: the world of the future will be vegetarian."
- Adolf Hitler. November 11, 1941. Section 66, HITLER'S TABLE TALK

 

A few pages back, there was a reference to the fact that the Spitfire's Merlin engine had a tendency to cut out under negative g manouvering (putting it at a disadvantage against the ME109's fuel injected BMW). A partial and temporary solution was devised by a female engineer.

May I present Miss Shilling's orifice:
Miss Shilling's orifice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A bit late, but there it is

 

Thanx Willy 2!

I guess I got a dirty mind but isn´t "the name" a bit sexist...oops..

 

On US Army nurses...

"Sometimes I think maybe it's a good thing their mothers can't see them when they die" -- Mary Ferrell

World War II Nurses

Serving on battlefronts from North Africa to Italy to Normandy to Corregidor and Bataan, the nurses of World War II contributed much to the care of the wounded, the morale of the fighting men, and the development of nursing as a profession. In all, approximately 57,000 nurses served in the Army Nurse Corps and 16,000 in the Navy Nurse Corps by V-J Day. 4,644 nurses were stationed along the European front in 1944; 4000 were serving on the Pacific front in 1945. By the war's end, 201 American military nurses had died, 16 from enemy fire.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, caught most Americans by surprise, including the nurses who were stationed at Pearl Harbor at the time. One nurse recalled seeing bleeding men carried from the shore and thinking it was a joke or a drill. However, the director of the Army Nurse Corps understood the extent of the crisis. "I have no words to tell you," she told a group of Red Cross and other healthcare agency representatives, "how serious I believe this is going to be." Immediately, plans were implemented to expand the Army Nurse Corps and recruit more student nurses as cadets, including African Americans (who had previously been banned from joining). Male nurses, however, were still overlooked; the majority were drafted through the Selective Service Act of 1940 and used in nonmedical roles. In fact, only 40% of qualified male nurses served in medical units. To qualify for commission as an Army nurse, one had to be graduated from an approved nursing school, under 40 years of age, unmarried, and (presumably) female.


The most memorable nursing vignettes of World War II, of course, dealt with the patients and everyday situations encountered in the field hospitals and on hospital ships. One nurse states she still laughs as she remembers her patients humming the pop tune "Pistol Packin' Mama" whenever the nurses walked past. Another nurse recalled how a young Southern soldier was mauled by a tiger in the South Pacific; as the doctor was suturing his wounds, the young man commented in a slow drawl, "That tiger sho thought he was gettin' some good meat" (Fessler, p. 108). Other stories are truly heartbreaking. One patient proved too debilitated to withstand anesthesia, forcing the doctor to operate without. To cope with the pain, the young soldier, accompanied by nurse Mary Ferrell and his surgeon, sang "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year" all through the surgery. One nurse recalled a patient brought into her evac hospital directly from the battlefield, missing both arms and both legs; undaunted, the soldier looked her in the eye and said, "Hey nurse, how about going out with me when I get outta here?" (Fessler, p. 125).

 

The Auk

"Those who know Field Marshal Auchinleck insist on his modesty. They relate that when he became known as 'The Auk' his officers came to him with the suggestion that their corps should henceforth bear the insignia of that ancient, ungainly bird. Ridiculing the idea of a personal build-up, he chose the elephant instead."

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

 

Tuesday, 26th September 1939

Nine Heinkel He 111s and four Junkers Ju 88s - following a reconnaissance flight by three Dornier 18D flying boats - attacked elements of the Home Fleet in the North Sea. It was during this action that Unteroffizier Karl Francke was mistakenly credited, by the Germans, with sinking 'HMS Ark Royal' in what was to be the Ju 88's first ever offensive action. The October 11th edition of the Volkischer Beobachter enlarged upon the supposed sinking and the cry 'Where is the 'Ark Royal' was repeated on German radio broadcasts. Francke was decorated with the Eisen Kreuz first and second class and promoted to Leutnant.

Later on Göring usually greeted Francke with " You still owe me an aircraft carrier!"

Amazon Online Reader : Ju 88 Kampfgeschwader on the Western Front (Osprey Combat Aircraft 17)

 

American's Unheralded Enigma Breaker:
In breaking the Enigma for the American's the most unheralded effort was made by a man by the name of Joe Desch, who was an engineer to NCR. He did not posses an advanced degree, but developed the American bombes that cracked the Enigma through brute force coupled with other cryptoanalytic techniques. The building that this was done in still stands on the old NCR campus in Dayton Ohio on land now owned by the Univeristy of Dayton and is scheduled for demolition.
Do to the secrecy surrounding work done by many companies like NCR during the war, many almost went out of business when the war ended and they had nothing to market after spending the war years developing secret machines for the government.

Joseph Desch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Great book to read: Jim DeBrosse and Colin Burke, The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of America's Ultra War Against the U-boat Enigma Codes, 2004

 

Shortly after assuming office in 1945, president Harry Truman attended a series of historic meetings at which he was briefed on the Manhattan Project to develop atomic weapons. "That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done," he boldly declared. "The bomb will never go off."

 

Normandy June/July 1944

"Prisoners taken both by 49th and 15th Scottish Division at this time were said to have asked to see the new British wonder-weapon: the belt-fed, multi-barrelled 25-pounder gun. Veteran Germans with battle experience of the Russian front asked with reverence to see this weapon, they refused to believe that the colossal weight of shells to which they had been subjected could possibly be fired by ordinary field guns!

Caen Anvil of victory by McKee

 

Nuclear Reaction?

On August 6, 1945, when the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, 282,000 Japanese died and tens of thousands were left burned, maimed, and homeless.
When Albert Einstein, whose special theory of relativity formed its theoretical basis (and whose letter to Roosevelt had inspired the American research effort that resulted in the bomb's development), heard the news on the radio, such was his astonishment that he was rendered speechless - almost. His verdict? "Oi vey."

 

As a life long pacifist Einstein may very well have uttered "Oi vey", and while his famous theory was the basis of the fission bomb he listened to his old friend Szilard and immediately grasped what was being said. However, when he did hear the concept his reaction was; "I never considered that".

And as horrendous as the atomics were, the numbers you used are off a tad.

When the first atomic was dropped on Hiroshima it is estimated that between 80 and 100,000 Japanese citizens (military and civilian) were killed outright, but since the records for the citizenry was kept "on site" the number may never be truly confirmed. Hibakusya (survivors) numbered more than 300,000 however. Physical illnesses due to radiation exposure, short term and long term effects took many of these as well. The population of Hiroshima at the time was about 310,000, plus 40,000 military and 20,000 daytime workers from the suburbs for at total of about 370,000 people. So it would appear at first glance that if there were more than 300,000 Hibakusya the number killed outright would be closer to the 80,000 number than the 100,000.

Over the next few months, and before the end of the year, according to data submitted to the United Nations by Hiroshima City in 1976, the death count reached 140,000 (plus or minus 10,000) by the end of December, 1945 which included the later deaths from radiation and other burns.


When the second was dropped on Nagasaki, it is estimated that between 70 and 75,000 civilian citizens were killed outright, with fewer radiation illnesses short and long term compared to Hiroshim as to the effects of the surrounding mountain and hill ridges which sort of funneled the blast from the industrial and port area away from the city proper. While their records were incinerated as well, the post-war figures are;

Death toll 73,884 persons
Number of injuries 74,909 persons


(From a report made by the Committee of Atomic Bomb Scientific Data Registry in July 1950.
Estimated population of the Nagasaki City before the atomic bombing was 240,000 people.)

The death toll total was bad enough in those two cities without exaggerating it; it was war itself however which brought about these deaths.

Without the bombs, and even without invasion in "Operation Downfall", the death toll to the Japanese would have exceeded those numbers from starvation and fire bombings before the Imperial Japanese finally accepted defeat. The conventional bombings continued until Aug. 14th remember?

Looking back, and not giving our American officialdom any credit, I personally would say that it was the psychological rather than physical damage which brought this nasty episode in human history to an end.

When the "Empire of the Sun", ruled by the "Son of The Sun goddess", and his subjects are eliminated by a (mis-quoted by Truman) "basic power of the sun", their entire cultural basis becomes irrelevant. It wasn't the size of the bomb, or the deaths from the bombs, it was the "nature" of the bombs themselves. If their enemy has harnessed the very power of their God and demi-God ruler; resistance is not to be continued.

The Japanese would not fight "forces of nature", they would let them pass and rebuild afterwards, volcanos, earthquakes, tsunamis. The would fight invaders and fires, but not nature. Just my "looking in from the outside", and knowing a number of Japanese personally and how devastating the "atomics" were to their psyche.

 

In December 1944, JG 400 had 109 rocketfighters of the type 163B available. Aside from the airfield in Brandis, additional airfields were in Leuna,Pölitz, and Heydebreck.

From Me 163 Komet by M Emmerling/ J Dressel

I guess they just did not have the fuel or pilots to all of them....

 

Overall German General officer losses per theater

Poland 1939 0 KIA
Norway 1940 0 KIA
France 1940 1 KIA
France 1941-June 6,1944 : 1 KIA
Western front June 6 to May 7 1945 : 17 KIA
Africa 1941-43 : 7 KIA
Balkans 1941-44 6KIA
Italy: May 1943-Nov 30,1944 1 KIA
Eastern Front June 21,1941 to Jan 1945 : 82 KIA
Eastern Front Feb-May 1945 : 26 KIA
Balkans 1945 : 3 KIA
Italy 1945 : 4 KIA

From Quiet flows the Rhine by Maclean