Lesser Known Facts of WWII 1. Dedicated to all those who took part in World War II *MONASTERY BLUNDEROn February 1.
Royal Artillery in the Second World War, The Wartime Memories Project.
US bombers dropped 4. Monte Cassino in.
News about World War II (1939-1945). Commentary and archival information about World War II (1939-1945) from The New York Times. CHICAGO (AP) -- Anthony Rizzo caught the ball for the final out and Wrigley Field erupted.
World-War-2.info is the best resource for World War 2 information available on the Internet. We offer information on World War 2 History, World War 2. 1/72nd Scale: World War II (1939/1945) Aircraft: Note:- 'Re-Moulded' earlier Models are designated by the prefix 5.
![Out Of This World [1945] Out Of This World [1945]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/01/09/article-2259619-16D3AFC7000005DC-155_634x406.jpg)
- On this day in History, Japan surrenders on Sep 02, 1945. Learn more about what happened today on History.
- Royal Engineers in the Second World War, The Wartime Memories Project.
Italy. The operation was planned by the US General Ira Eaker at the request of the. Allied ground forces, believing the monastery to be a German stronghold.
Very few. enemy troops were there at the time but over 3. Cassino, who had fled the fighting and taken refuge in the monastery, were killed.
![Out Of This World [1945] Out Of This World [1945]](http://www.aerodrome24.de/out/pictures/master/product/2/img_0005(1).jpg)
The flag was hastily sewn together from pieces of. Red Cross flag and soldiers' handkerchiefs. The Monastery was rebuilt after the. Pope Paul VI in 1.
Precision- attacked by thirteen Mosquito aircraft, the bombs blasted a hole. Of the 7. 17 inmates a total of 2. Sadly, 8. 7 prisoners were killed and 1. Many were due. to be executed next day, mostly members of the French resistance, which was why.
The plane then blew up killing the rest of the crew. The tail section.
Worsfold inside, was seen by civilians on the ground to fall some 7,5. Aubeterre. Jack Worsfold crawled out with a broken thigh and. Captured by German soldiers he spent the rest of the war in prison. In a bombing raid against Stuttgart a Lancaster was hit by an 8. The tail- gunner. RAF Sergeant N. Alkamade reached for his parachute only to find.
He had no other option but to jump and threw himself into the. The next thing he remembered was opening his eyes to find. Looking up he noticed broken branches. Soon he was taken.
An investigation was carried. When he eventually arrived home he carried in his pocket. German colonel attesting to the fact that he had fallen. FIRST GERMAN GENERAL EXECUTEDMarch 2. The first German General executed to be executed. General der Infanterie Anton Dostler.
They were summarily shot on the instructions. General Dostler who had simply passed on the order from higher authority.
Hitler's F. After a five day trial he was found. War Crime and sentenced to death. On November 2. 7, 1. Mediterranean. Theatre Commander, Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgeway, confirmed the sentence. A black hood was placed over his head, a white marker pinned to his chest. US Army who composed.
Up till 1. 94. 4, the Hungarian Regent, Admiral. Horthy, had steadfastly refused Hitler's offer to resettle the Hungarian Jews. But. after the occupation, and after Eichmann and his SS units moved in, the deportations.
May 1. 5, 1. 94. 4, the first train reaching Auschwitz on the 1. The pro- German. Government co- operated by ordering its policemen to escort their deportees to Auschwitz.
The majority of women and children were murdered within hours of. Fit and healthy men were spared for a while for slave labour. Over. 3. 00,0. 00 were still in Hungary awaiting their doom. This included just over 7. Budapest ghetto (fortunately all these survived the war). French Vichy police.
Jews. Starting on August 2. Jews in Vichy- controlled Lyon and transported them to Drancy, near.
Paris, prior to deportation to Auschwitz. In an effort to negotiate with the Allies the SS offered to exchange Jews for. This offer was rejected and as a gesture of good faith the SS allowed. Hungarian Jews to leave Budapest for the safety of Switzerland. There. the Jews were kept for about six months before being allowed to proceed to Switzerland. The Jewish population of Europe in.
LITTLE BROTHERAlthough not generally known, Albert G. Arrested several times by the Gestapo. Reich Marshal. Albert was born. Mauterndorf in 1. Export Director at the Skoda Armament Works in Czechoslovakia. During his work there.
Jews escape the horrors of the Holocaust by forging his brother's. The Jewish wife of composer Franz Lehar was.
Albert. Returning to Germany after the war he was everywhere. Living on a government pension he married his. The real target was to. Ludwigshafen, 1. 20 miles away.
In 1. 94. 9, the US agreed. This was an attempt to secure Switzerland as. Cold War'. The greedy Swiss demanded that interest be paid on the. This demand was rejected. The British Royal Air Force also flouted Swiss neutrality a couple of times and.
Basel suspected of producing ball bearings. German Army but both times the bombs missed the target. During the war a.
American bombers and 1. British bombers made emergency landings in. Switzerland. Severely damaged in combat over Germany and unable to return to their. England their only alternative was to head for neutral Switzerland. In. one day, on March 1. American bombers made emergency.
Dubendorf airfield. The crews were interned by the Swiss authorities. Adelboden, Grippen, Les Diablerets and in the notorious punishment camp.
Wauwilermoos (for escapees). They were supposed to be treated like P. O. W. s under. the rules of war but in many cases living conditions were little better than German. In all, around 1,5. American servicemen were interned in neutral.
Switzerland. HIGHEST NIGHT PHOTOThe highest night photograph of the war was taken on April 1. Osnabruck. The RAF Mosquito crew used a target indicator flash. An electrical. malfunction triggered the explosion killing the pilot and co- pilot. The pilot was. Lieutenant Joseph Kennedy, the older brother of John F Kennedy. President of the USA.
INACCURATE BOMBINGDecember 6, 1. Fourteen planes were lost but sadly 1.
Dutch civilians. lost their lives. In a raid on. Le Mans, France, by RAF Bomber Command, some of the bombs. Fifteen locomotives. The killing of innocent civilians. The attack by 1. 86 RAF bombers on the. Lille- Deliverance, France, killed 4.
At the rail yards around 2,0. April 1. 0/1. 1, 1. One hundred and twenty- two Royal Canadian. Air force Halifax's dropped 6. Merelbeke- Melle rail yards. Ghent, Belgium. Unfortunately, the rail yards being located.
Belgian civilians were killed. Around 2. 00 bombers, mostly Canadian.
Halifaxes from 4. Group, attacked the rail yards at Noisy- le- sec. Paris. Many bombs fell on a built- up area of the town destroying over 7. Some 3. 70 were injured. March 3, 1. 94. 5.
It was the. highest security classification of all. General Eisenhower had ordered that no one. D- Day be sent on operations where there was the slightest. Those with such information were called 'Bigots'. The letters were reversed. Bigot' and used to list all persons with the secret information.
D- Day. During 'Operation Tiger' ten officers were known to be Bigots. Top. priority was given to find and identify the bodies. Fortunately all bodies were. D- Day were safe.
JEDBURGHSThe code name given to the teams of specially trained men who were parachuted. France before and after D- Day. Their mission was to link up and co- ordinate.
German occupying. Normandy invasion. Men were selected from the British. SOE, the American OSS and the Free French, Belgian and Dutch armies. The name Jedburgh.
Scottish town of Jedburgh where most members did their initial. Milton Hall in Cambridgeshire, England. In all, around. 2.
Jeds' were formed into teams of three men, one British, one American and one. French. After a punishing period of physical training they were dropped behind enemy. Group squadrons to begin work with the Maquis. In an area comprising around 3. This enormous task had to. During the actual exercise, while manoeuvring for position in. Lyme Bay on the night of April 2.
German motor torpedo boats, E- boats, from Cherbourg in France. On board the two landing ships the casualties. Altogether. including casualties from other ships and those killed by friendly fire on shore. Americans gave their lives during Operation Tiger. CARELESS TALKIn spite of all precautions taken to protect the secrets of D- day, some officers. Careless Talk'. One such case was that. US Major General Henry Miller, chief supply officer of the US 9th Air Force.
London's elegant Coleridge's Hotel, talked freely. He added that things. D- day declaring that would be before June 1. Hillman, of Manchester, Connecticut. US 1. 01st Airborne Division, was winging his way to Normandy in.
C- 4. 7 transport plane. Just before the jump, Private Hillman carried out a final. He was surprised to see that the chute had been packed. Pioneer Parachute Company of Connecticut where his mother worked part time.
He was further surprised when he saw on the inspection tag. D- DAYD- Day stands for Designated Day, the actual day on which an operation would begin. This expression was first used. September 2. 0, 1. World War I. The US First Army issued Field Order. No 8 which read, .
It was attended by around 2. Generals, 1. 1 Air Marshals, 8 Admirals, 1.
Americans and 5 equally high ranking Canadians. Presided over by Admiral. Lord Louis Mountbatten. It was at this conference that the uppermost. Allied armies would land in Europe, was settled.
D- DAY LANDINGS(June 6, 1. Utah Beach - 2. 3,2. American troops were landed.
US 1st Army and 5th and. US Corps. Omaha Beach - 3. American troops were landed.
US Div. Gold Beach - 2. British troops were landed. Division, British 2nd. Army. Juno Beach - 2. Canadian troops were landed.
Canadian Div. Sword Beach - 2. British troops were landed.
British Div. By June 1. By July. 2, another 9. The ship armada at. Normandy totalled 6,9. In the 1. 0 days after D- day (June 6. June 1. 6) a total of 5,2. Allied soldiers were killed.
The number of French civilians. At age 5. 7 he was also the oldest soldier to come ashore. A special loft was erected at the secret code deciphering centre at Bletchley. Park. Considered vermin by many, these pigeons, were first used as early as. AD and played an important part in both world wars. News of Wellington's.
Waterloo first came by pigeon post. Many of these birds were specially. Belgium prior to 1.
Often used as a distress signal from downed aircraft. Winkie' escaped from a bomber after coming down in the English. Channel in 1. 94. It flew back 1. 20 miles to its base at RAF Leuchers in Scotland. Winkie. was awarded the Dickin Medal (the animal version of the Victoria Cross) the first. Many of these pigeons were dropped by specially. French resistance.
They were. soon on their way back to Britain with Important information. At this time the Germans. Falcons to intercept the pigeons while in flight and many were killed.
Japan surrenders - Sep 0. Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally surrenders to the Allies, bringing an end to World War II. By the summer of 1. Japan was a foregone conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed.
The Allied naval blockade of Japan and intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and its economy devastated. At the end of June, the Americans captured Okinawa, a Japanese island from which the Allies could launch an invasion of the main Japanese home islands. General Douglas Mac. Arthur was put in charge of the invasion, which was code- named “Operation Olympic” and set for November 1. The invasion of Japan promised to be the bloodiest seaborne attack of all time, conceivably 1. Normandy invasion in terms of Allied casualties.
On July 1. 6, a new option became available when the United States secretly detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. Ten days later, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding the “unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces.” Failure to comply would mean “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitable the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.” On July 2.
Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki responded by telling the press that his government was “paying no attention” to the Allied ultimatum. President Harry Truman ordered the devastation to proceed, and on August 6, the U. S. B- 2. 9 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing an estimated 8. After the Hiroshima attack, a faction of Japan’s supreme war council favored acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, but the majority resisted unconditional surrender. On August 8, Japan’s desperate situation took another turn for the worse when the USSR declared war against Japan. The next day, Soviet forces attacked in Manchuria, rapidly overwhelming Japanese positions there, and a second U. S. After a long, emotional debate, he backed a proposal by Prime Minister Suzuki in which Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration “with the understanding that said Declaration does not compromise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as the sovereign ruler.” The council obeyed Hirohito’s acceptance of peace, and on August 1.
United States. Early on August 1. United States answered that “the authority of the emperor and the Japanese government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.” After two days of debate about what this statement implied, Emperor Hirohito brushed the nuances in the text aside and declared that peace was preferable to destruction. He ordered the Japanese government to prepare a text accepting surrender. In the early hours of August 1.
Major Kenji Hatanaka. The rebels seized control of the imperial palace and burned Prime Minister Suzuki’s residence, but shortly after dawn the coup was crushed. At noon that day, Emperor Hirohito went on national radio for the first time to announce the Japanese surrender. In his unfamiliar court language, he told his subjects, “we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable.” The United States immediately accepted Japan’s surrender. President Truman appointed Mac. Arthur to head the Allied occupation of Japan as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.
For the site of Japan’s formal surrender, Truman chose the USS Missouri, a battleship that had seen considerable action in the Pacific and was named after Truman’s native state. Mac. Arthur, instructed to preside over the surrender, held off the ceremony until September 2 in order to allow time for representatives of all the major Allied powers to arrive. On Sunday, September 2, more than 2. Allied warships lay at anchor in Tokyo Bay.
The flags of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China fluttered above the deck of the Missouri. Tokyo time, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed on behalf of the Japanese government. General Yoshijiro Umezu then signed for the Japanese armed forces, and his aides wept as he made his signature. Supreme Commander Mac. Arthur next signed on behalf of the United Nations, declaring, “It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past.” Ten more signatures were made, by the United States, China, Britain, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, respectively. Nimitz signed for the United States.
As the 2. 0- minute ceremony ended, the sun burst through low- hanging clouds. The most devastating war in human history was over.