Startling facts about World War II

more hitler in paris y'all

"That was the greatest and finest moment of my life," one of the world's most brutal tyrants reportedly said after touring the newly Nazi-occupied French capital.

The day after Germany signed an armistice with France, Hitler and his cronies toured the Dôme des Invalides which holds Napoleon's tomb, the Paris opera house, Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Sacre Coeur, and the Eiffel Tower on June 23, 1940.

In all, Hitler spent three hours in the "City of Light," but spent four years occupying northern France until Allied Forces liberated Paris, 71 years ago on Tuesday.

"The Germans were driven from many strategic parts of the city by the combined onslaught of the French military and the fury of citizens fighting for their liberties," the Associated Press reports.

During Hitler's brief tour, he instructed friend and architect Albert Speer to take note of the city's design to recreate similar yet superior German buildings.

"Wasn't Paris beautiful?" Hitler reportedly asked Speer.

"But Berlin must be far more beautiful. When we are finished in Berlin, Paris will only be a shadow."

While sightseeing, Hitler also ordered the destruction of two French World War I monuments that reminded him of Germany's bitter defeat.

Hitler in Paris

me 323

The Nazis concocted all sorts of weird military technology, but the Me 323 Giant was certainly one of the biggest.

With six engines over a 181-foot wingspan and the ability to haul 95,000 pounds of gear, the Giant was an incredible aviation feat.

Doors in its nose opened up and allowed tanks, artillery, and personnel to hop inside and be transported up to 675 miles away.

But it was also a big, slow, flying elephant with wings.

The Me 323 helped answer a question plaguing the Germans early in the war: How do we get a bunch of tanks, troops, and artillery across the English Channel to take London?

As Tyler Rogoway details at Foxtrot Alpha, in 1940 the Luftwaffe gave aircraft manufacturers Junkers and Messerschmitt just 14 days to come up with a proposal for an aircraft that could pull off such a feat. Junkers had a tough time coming up with a usable design and Messerschmitt was eventually chosen to spearhead the concept, which became the Me 321.

Though the Germans ultimately canceled their planned invasion of Britain, called Operation Sea Lion, the Me 321 was used extensively on the Eastern Front.

But the large cargo glider was riddled with problems, though it did see some success when used in Russia.

In 1941, German transport pilots were asking for something better than the Me 321. Only 200 of them were built, and while a bunch were scrapped, at least a few were upgraded to what would become the Me 323. It was the largest land-based transport aircraft of World War II, according to the Daily Mail.

me 323 gigant nazi warplane

From Foxtrot Alpha:

The final production configuration of the Me 323 had a high wing made of wood and fabric that was braced near the center of the wing and fuselage. The fuselage was built out of a tubular metal skeleton with wooden crossbeams and fabric covering.
The cockpit sat high atop the aircraft's bulbous nose, which was a clamshell door design, allowing it to open wide for outsized cargo to be loaded and unloaded. The cargo hold was cavernous for the time, measuring 36 feet long, 10 feet wide and 11 feet high, which is very roughly the size of a first-generation C-130's cargo hold. All said, the Me 323 could carry a wide variety of items.
For example, it could haul a pair of 4-ton trucks or 52 drums of fuel or 130 fully outfitted combat troops.
Just because it could lift a lot didn't mean it could do so quickly. The Giant's maximum speed was a paltry 135 mph at sea level, and that figure got only worse as it climbed. This was helped somewhat by replacing wooden propellers on early models with metal variable pitch propellers on later ones. A crew of five was used on most missions, which included two pilots, two engineers, and a radioman.
During flights through areas that were of high risk, the radioman and the engineers could man three of the aircraft's five MG 131 machine guns, although dedicated gunners were often carried for these higher-risk missions, allowing the crew to concentrate on flying and navigating while still employing all five guns against Allied fighters. The Giant’s five 0.51-inch machine guns were located on the aircraft’s upper wings and in the nose and tail.

So how did the Giant fare? Not so great, as it turned out.

In 1943, a fleet of Giants was dispatched to airlift supplies to German troops in Tunisia, since the sea lanes were littered with Allied ships. Hitler didn't really think this one through, since a gigantic bull's-eye of a target flying at 135 mph wasn't exactly the best solution.

me 323 gun port

Sure, the Me 323 had gun ports with machine guns and some German fighter escorts to defend against attacks, but that didn't seem to matter on April 22. According to World War II Today, of the 27 Me 323 aircraft that attempted the hop from Sicily to Tunisia, 22 were shot down in the Mediterranean.

me 323 nazi warplane shot down

The good news, of course, was that the crashed planes made really awesome diving spots about 70 years later. But the bad news: The fleet of Giants got so beat up that none were capable of flying around summer 1944, according to Foxtrot Alpha. No intact Me 323 survives today, although the German Air Force Museum has a main wing on display.

Here are some more photos of what it was like:

Me 323 transporting wounded soldiers

me 323

me 321

me 323

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b24

Argunners is fortunate enough to feature some beautiful images from the United States Army Air Force, taken in England during WWII. Most of the photographs depict the 458th Bombardment Group which were stationed at RAF Horsham St. Faith (USAAF designated it as Station 123), Norfolk in England during World War II. The 458th Bombardment Group, arrived at the airfield late in January 1944 from the Tonopah Army Airfield in Nevada.

The group flew its first mission on February 24, 1944 with Consolidated B-24 Liberators and its last combat mission on April 25, 1945. The group lost 65 aircraft before returning to Sioux Falls AAF, South Dakota in July 1945. Other units who were stationed at Station 123, were the 56th Fighter Group and 319th Bombardment Group. These photographs were shared by Flickr user Jeffs4653, and reproduced with permission on Argunners. I also thank user Doug Shelley and Gerry Asher for their expertise and captioning of the images.

Ron Mackay's his excellent book Liberators over Norwich: The 458th Bomb Group (H), 8th USAAF at Horsham St. Faith 1944-1945 shares more on the unit's history, plenty of terrific photographs from families and veterans and give you a good account of various bomb missions the unit and personnel went through.

b24 wwii B-24H serial 42-52457 "Final Approach" (coded 7V-Q) of the 752nd Bombardment Squadron, 458th Bombardment Group at Horsham St. Faith (Station 123), UK. She was lost on April 9, 1944. All of her crew was taken POW except for one, who was killed in action.

b24 Douglas A-26 Invader assigned to the 801st Bomb Group / 492d Bombardment Group. The 801st Bomb Group was established as part of the Eighth Air Force in late March 1944 to carry out "Carpetbagger" missions. These were night missions over France and other parts of occupied Europe to support resistance forces by dropping in agents, supplies and leaflets. The B-24 Liberators flown by the Group were painted black to help the crews evade detection by enemy anti-aircraft positions. On 13 August 1944, the Group was redesignated as the 492nd Bomb Group.

a-26 wwii Douglas A-20G-35-DO Havoc light bomber.

douglas a-20 light bomber world war ii wwii 2 Douglas A-26C-20-DT Invader medium bomber (Serial no. 43-22513), assigned to the 856th Bomb Squadron, 492nd Bomb Group, 8th Air Force based in Harrington, UK. The 492nd was a B-24 Liberator group that received such heavy casualties during its daylight bombing missions that it was disbanded in the fall of 1944, but the group lived on for the rest of the war flying as a cover for the 801st Composite Group, part of the OSS. (Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA). The group flew nighttime missions dropping agents and supplies behind enemy lines.

b24 wwii Ford-built B-24J (serial 42-51939) assigned to the 755th Bomb Sq, 458th BG at Horsham St. Faith (AAF Station 123), probably taken in the early fall of 1944. In October it was transferred to the 753rd Bomb Sq; on 2 May 1945 the crew bailed out when bad weather prevented a descent to land. The ship crashed about 10 miles from Oxford.

world war ii B-24 Liberator from the 754th Bombardment Squadron, 458th Bomb Group of the Eight Air Force.

b 24 wwii Another B-24 Liberator from the 755th Bombardment Squadron, 458th Bombardment Group of the Eight Air Force.

b24 B-24J Liberator from the 755th Bombardment Squadron, 458th Bombardment Group of the Eight Air Force.

b24 B-24 "Oh Mona!" from the 755th Bombardment Squadron, 458th Bombardment Group of the Eight Air Force.

b24 Nose-Art from the B-24J "Our Burma", 755th Bombardment Squadron, 458th Bombardment Group of the Eight Air Force.

b24 crew wwii world war 2

B-24J Liberator "Ten Gun Dottie", 753rd Bombardment Squadron, 458th Bombardment Group of the Eight Air Force.

airmen world war ii b 24 USAAF Airmen, probably from the B-24 Liberator Bomb Groups, posing for the camera on the Airfield.

world war ii airmen ww2 USAAF personnel enjoying a day in London, they are sitting on the Westminster Bridge, London, United Kingdom with the Thames behind them.

winter gardens cinema blackpool england world war 2 Winters Gardens in Victoria Street, Blackpool.

erhard milch ju 87 nazi germany ww2

World War II started with a brutal Nazi war crime.

On September 1, 1939, German soldiers began their invasion of Poland, triggering the outbreak of World War II. The shelling of a Polish garrison at Westerplatte is commonly believed to be the first shot fired in the war, but the beginning actually happened five minutes prior, according to Deutsche Welle.

At 4:40 a.m., the town of Wieluń was bombed by the German air force, the Luftwaffe, as most of its 16,000 residents slept. There were no anti-aircraft, military, or economic targets of any importance in the sleepy town just 13 miles from the German border. The target of the bombing was civilians.

poland world war 2

Nick Siekierski translates this article from a Polish newspaper:

Overall, 380 bombs fell on Wieluń, weighing a total of 46 tons. The first ones hit the All-Saints Hospital. 32 people died there — patients and staff. These were the first victims of the German air raids during World War II. The next target was the oldest parish church in Wieluń, St. Michael the Archangel, built in the beginning of the 14th Century. The Piarist building was the only surviving structure on the old square.
In total, as a result of the attack on Wieluń by the German air force, which lasted until 2pm, over 1200 people died. Certain sources note as many as 2,000 victims. Bombs dropped by the Stukas (Junkers Ju 87) destroyed 75% of the city. 90% of the city center was destroyed.

The people of Wieluń were the first to experience the German tactic of blitzkrieg, or lightning war, which was later used during the invasions of Belgium, North Africa, the Netherlands, and France. Just minutes after the bombing of the town began, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein began its bombardment of Westerplatte.

Wieluń poland world war 2 Wieluń

Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and the conflict lasted six years at the cost of millions of lives. When it was all over in 1945, it ended with the surrender of the Nazis, and the full exposure of the Holocaust.

hitler and himmler

Earlier this week, the world reflected on the 76th anniversary of the start of World War II — when Hitler's Nazi army invaded Poland.

Hitler's engineers secretly developed some of the most ambitious projects and rapidly produced sophisticated technology decades before its time.

In the 2015 fall issue of Weapons of WWII magazine, author KM Lee detailed some of Hitler's advanced weaponry.

Here's a look at are some of the secret, lethal weapons the Nazis created during World War II:

Hitler's stealth 'flying wing' bomber

Referred to as "Hitler's secret weapon," the Horten Ho 229 bomber was designed to carry 2,000 pounds of armaments while flying at 49,000 feet at speeds north of 600 mph.

Equipped with twin turbojet engines, two cannons, and R4M rockets, the Horten Ho 229 was the world's first stealth aircraft and took its first flight in 1944.

According to the Smithsonian, Nazi Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring allocated half a million Reich Marks to brothers Reimar and Walter Horten to manufacture the aircraft.

Plagued with problems, the Horten didn't last long in combat. Instead, the bomber's engineering did inspire today's modern stealth aircraft — like the Northrop Gruman B-2 bomber.

The Fritz X radio-guided bomb

Considered the "grandfather of smart bombs," the Fritz X was a 3,450-pound explosive equipped with a radio receiver and sophisticated tail controls that helped guide the bomb to its target.

According to the US Air Force, the Fritz X could penetrate 28 inches of armor and could be deployed from 20,000 feet,an altitude out of reach for antiaircraft equipment at the time.

Less than a month after it was developed, the Nazis sank Italian battleship Roma off Sardinia in September 1943. However, the Fritz X's combat use was limited since only a few Luftwaffe aircraft were designed to carry the bomb.

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Cardinalli WWII A 94-year-old World War II veteran held aReddit AMA, with the help of his grandson, in which he provides a startling look at his time serving behind Nazi lines as an intelligence staff sergeant.

John Cardinalli, who was sworn to secrecy for 65 years following the end of World War II, has taken to Reddit to explain his time with the US Office of Strategic Services. The OSS was the forerunner of the CIA, and it was dedicated to coordinating espionage and intelligence gathering behind enemy lines during WWII.

Cardinalli was unable to tell his story until the FBI and CIA declassified his mission in 2008. Now, realizing the historical importance of his role, Cardinalli has written the book "65 Years of Secrecy" about his roles during the war.

In the AMA, Cardinalli explains of how he joined the OSS in the first place:

I got into the OSS while in the infantry in North Carolina and I saw a sign that said "Men Wanted for Hazardous Duty, Need to know Morse Code, and must speak a Foreign Language, which I am fluent in Italian". There is more to the story of how I actually was accepted, it is all in my book. I am not trying to push my book, but it has everything in there. It is available on Amazon "65 Years of Secrecy by John Cardinalli."

Cardinalli described his exact role:

My role was an agent behind enemy lines collecting information and radio back to allied forces. I was a master at Morse Code, which is how most of our communication was done.

He also briefly explained how the OSS teams functioned behind enemy lines:

I worked with a small team that were grouped in twos. The code name who was in charge of all these teams was named "The Dutchman". There is a lot to this, but basically, but the groups all had a task and a name. For example, we had a "married couple" named jack and jill. Yes, I was in Holland and spent a lot of time hiding in windmills which were strategically chosen along Rhine River.

Cardinalli also shared the scariest thing he ever experienced:

Battle of the Bulge. Our team completely split up, by ourselves, with just radios to communicate. Everyone was completely on their own for 2 days.

The Battle of the Bulge was one of the last German offensives in Western Europe against the Allies, during which US forces sustained the brunt of the assault. It was the largest and bloodiest battle that the US took part in during WWII.

Despite the amazing adversity that Cardinalli had to fight through during WWII, he also admits that he never missed a chance to lightheartedly poke fun at his fellow team members:

One of my team members needed a hair cut and I told him I was the best Italian Barber in the military. I never cut hair in my life. I cut his and he looked like a dog with mange. He literally almost shot me.

Cardinalli also shared his advice for those thinking of joining the military:

If one was going to join the military, go into intelligence.

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vulcan spitfire

This video was filmed on Sept. 5, at Prestwick airport, during the Scottish Airshow 2015 and it shows the last flying Vulcan bomber experiencing a nose wheel failure before landing.

As you can see in the interesting footage (that includes also radio comms on the Tower frequency) the Vulcan performed a flyover then initiated a right hand turn to land on runway 30. However, the nose gear did not extend fully and the V-bomber performed a second flyover before starting orbiting to the north of the airfield.

That’s when a Spitfire of the BBMF (Battle of Britain Memorial Flight) came to help: the WWII plane called up on the radio and asked if there was anyway he could help by giving the Vulcan a closer look from underneath the aircraft.

As the bomber slowed down to below 170 knots, the Spitfire formed up on its right wing and confirmed that the nose wheel was not properly extended.

In an attempt to unblock the gear the Vulcan performed some aggressive turns that eventually freed whatever was holding the nose wheel from extending allowing the Vulcan (preceded by the Spitfire) to perform a safe landing.

Well done to everyone involved in the emergency!

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b29 superfortress

The Boeing B-29 was a four-engine heavy bomber operational during World War II. Designed as a high-altitude strategic bomber, it became known for carrying out the devastating atomic-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

After the war, the advanced B-29s carried out several tasks including in-flight refueling, antisubmarine patrol, weather reconnaissance, and rescue duty.

Here are the plane's replica bombs:

b29 bombs The B-29 saw military service again in Korea from 1950 to 1953, battling new adversaries: jet fighters and electronic weapons.

The last B-29 was retired from active service in September 1960.

Here's the cockpit of the B-29 Superfortress:

b29 superfortress cockpit The Superfortress featured a pressurized cabin, tricycle dual-wheeled landing gear, and a quite-advanced-for-the-time electronic system that controlled four machine-gun turrets that complemented a manned, semiautomatic rear-gun turret.

"Fifi" is the nickname of a surviving B-29 out of about 4,000 produced by Boeing, the only one still flying. The aircraft is owned by the Commemorative Air Force, based at Addison, Texas, which rescued it in the early 1970s.

Here's one of the plane's control panels:

b29 superfortress

The aircraft has taken part in airshows, documentaries, demo flights, and movies.

In the video below, filmed by our reader and friend Erik Johnston, you can join the aircraft commander Allen Benzing in a guided tour outside and inside Fifi.

Here's where passengers sit:

b29 supefortress

Here is the full video:

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nazi spies

A new book claims Adolf Hitler’s soldiers used a version of crystal meth to stay awake during World War Two.

In Der Totale Rausch (Total Rush), which was published in Germany last week, Norman Ohler notes that a methamphetamine-based drug, manufactured from 1937 onwards by the Nazis under the brand name of Pervitin, was distributed among the armed forces.

The Independent reports that the book reveals how the drug made the soldiers feel wide awake, euphoric and invincible.

“In the beginning the army didn’t realise Pervitin was a drug: soldiers thought it was just like drinking coffee,” Ohler explains in the book.

The Nazi leadership was reportedly aware of Pervitin’s value as stimulant during combat.

The German Army tried Pervitin in 1939 during the German invasion of Poland, and subsequently ordered 35 million tablets of it for soldiers before advancing on France in the spring of 1940.

Ohler explains that the Nazis rejected recreational drugs such as cocaine, opium and morphine and condemned them as “Jewish”.

Nazi chemist Fritz Hauschild came up with Pervitin as an alternative stimulant.

“The Nazis wanted Pervitin to rival Coca Cola, so people took it, it worked and they were euphoric,” Ohler writes, adding that the Nazis developed chocolates containing the drug so German housewives could also take it.

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World War 2 plane Spitfire P9374

In 2012, 62-year-old British aviation enthusiast David Cundall made headlines around the world as he set out on a spectacular mission to unearth 140 Spitfires he believed to be buried underground in Myanmar.

The WWII planes, said to be still in their crates with the wings folded back along the bodies, are believed to have been buried by allied forces after the war ended in 1945, to prevent them falling into Japanese hands.

Britain remains obsessed with Spitfires, which helped us beat off a four-month long Nazi air assault on the country that later came to be known as the Battle of Britain, whose anniversary is today.

Cundall spent 15 years of his life, and £135,000, flying back and forth between Britain and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, trying to find the location of these planes, before announcing that he had pinpointed three exact locations in 2012.

The media went crazy and even Prime Minister David Cameron wanted in on the action and even negotiated with Myanmar President Thein Sein to ensure the Spitfire would be returned to Britain if found.

Cundall's belief in the hidden stash of Spitfires, which was bought about after overhearing a conversation 25 years beforehand, received sponsorship from Belarusian video gaming company Wargaming.net, who poured £1 million into the project.

If Cundall were to find the buried aircraft, the financial gain would have been huge. A working Spitfire can sell for up to £2.5 million, meaning he, and his partners, would have stood to make somewhere in the region of £350 million.

At this point, the world's eyes were on David Cundall.

david cundall

By late 2012, Cundall and a team of excavators had landed in Myanmar after being granted permission to excavate the site near Yangon International Airport, Rangoon, where 36 of the Spitfires were believed to be. It was a race against time as the excavation contract granted by the Myanmar government had a lifespan of just two years.

The team worked tirelessly trying to uncover the potential goldmine of WWII history, and five months into the investigation, in January 2013, excitement brewed after an old crate was found at the site. Unfortunately, it was found to contain just muddy water and pieces of old fencing.

The following month, in February 2013 Wargaming.net pulled out. They said that the 70-year-old rumour was likely to be nothing more than that — a rumour — after their search bore no fruit. The team returned to the UK following the backing out of its sponsor and warnings from authorities that they were damaging important infrastructure linked to the nearby airport.

The media went quiet and the public lost interest in the case. This was a massive blow to Cundall, but he vowed to not give up.

Later that year, there was a glimmer of hope as Cundall’s Burmese partners Htoo Htoo, produced ground-penetrating radar images of what they claimed were the Spitfire-containing crates. This reignited public interest in the case.

spitfire 1

Myanmar company Shwe Taung Paw and the Department of Civil Aviation were also partnered with David, and in early 2014, just 7 months before the contract expired, they were given a second chance with a green-light to begin another search.

In a cruel twist of fate, monsoon rains closed in on the area as the second and final search began. This seriously hampered their efforts, making it near impossible to make progress, and in October, the excavation contract expired, leaving the teams no choice but to pack their bags and go home.

The most significant find from Cundall's several decade-long search was a crate of muddy water, made of wooden planks that may or may not have once held a Spitfire.

Itter Castle and entrance pathway in 1979

Five days after Hitler ate a bullet in his bunker in Berlin and two days before Germany would ultimately surrender, American and German troops were fighting together side by side in what has been dubbed World War II’s “strangest battle.”

It was the last days of the war on May 5, 1945 when French prisoners, Austrian resistance fighters, German soldiers, and American tankers all fought in defense of Itter Castle in Austria.

In 1943, the German military turned the small castle into a prison for “high value” prisoners, such as French prime ministers, generals, sports stars, and politicians.

By May 4, 1945, with Germany and its military quickly collapsing, the commander of the prison and his guards abandoned their post.

The prisoners were now running the asylum, but they couldn’t just walk out the front door and enjoy their freedom. The Waffen SS, the fanatical paramilitary unit commanded by Heinrich Himmler, had plans to recapture the castle and execute all of the prisoners.

That’s when the prisoners enlisted the help of nearby American troops led by Capt. John ‘Jack’ Lee, local resistance fighters, and yes, even soldiers of the Wehrmacht to defend the castle through the night and early morning of May 5. The book “The Last Battle” by Stephen Harding tells the true tale of what happened next.

From The Daily Beast:

There are two primary heroes of this—as I must reiterate, entirely factual—story, both of them straight out of central casting.
Jack Lee was the quintessential warrior: smart, aggressive, innovative—and, of course, a cigar-chewing, hard-drinking man who watched out for his troops and was willing to think way, way outside the box when the tactical situation demanded it, as it certainly did once the Waffen-SS started to assault the castle.
The other was the much-decorated Wehrmacht officer Major Josef ‘Sepp’ Gangl, who died helping the Americans protect the VIPs. This is the first time that Gangl’s story has been told in English, though he is rightly honored in present-day Austria and Germany as a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance.

As the New York Journal of Books notes in its review of Harding’s work, Army Capt. Lee immediately assumed command of the fight for the castle over its leaders — Capt. Schrader and Maj. Gangl — and they fought against a force of 100 to 150 SS troops in a confusing battle, to say the least.

Over the six-hour battle, the SS managed to destroy the sole American tank of the vastly outnumbered defenders, and Allied ammunition ran extremely low. Fortunately, the Americans were able to call for reinforcements, and once they showed up the SS backed off, according to Donald Lateiner in his review.

ww2 world war 2 wwii M-10 tank Approximately 100 SS troops were taken prisoner, according to the BBC. The only friendly casualty of the battle was Maj. Gangl, who was shot by a sniper. The nearby town of Wörgl later named a street after him in his honor, while Capt. Lee received the Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery in the battle.

As for the book, apparently it’s been optioned to be made into a movie. With a crazy story like this, you’d think it would’ve already been made.

Norsk Hydro Plant

Just before midnight on Feb. 27, 1943, a team of 10 Norwegian commandos crouched in the snow on a mountain plateau and stared at a seemingly unassailable target.

It was a power plant and factory being used by the Nazis to create heavy water, a key component for Germany’s plans of developing nuclear reactors and a nuclear bomb.

The Norsk Hydro plant was surrounded by a ravine 656 feet deep with only one heavily-guarded bridge crossing it.

Just past the ravine were two fences and the whole area was expected to be mined. On the factory grounds, German soldiers lived in barracks and walked patrols at all hours.

As a bonus, the whole area was covered by a thick layer of snow and the men were facing two causes of exhaustion. Six of the men were worn out from five days of marching through snow storms after they were dropped 18 miles from their planned drop zone. The other four men were survivors of an earlier, failed mission against the plant. They had survived for months in the mountains on only lichen and a single reindeer.

Still, to keep the Germans from developing the atom bomb, they attacked the plant on Feb. 28. The radio operator stayed on the plateau while the other nine climbed down the ravine, crossed an icy river, and climbed the far side soaking wet.

Once at the fence, a covering party of four men kept watch as the five members of the demolition party breached the first and then second fence lines with bolt cutters. The men — wearing British Army uniforms and carrying Tommy guns and chloroform-soaked rags — arrived at the target building.

Screen Shot 2015 09 16 at 8.30.34 AM

Unfortunately, a door that was supposed to be left open by an inside man was closed. The team would later learn that the man had been too sick to go to work that day. Plan B was finding a narrow cable shaft and shimmying through it with bags of explosives. The covering party provided security while the demolition team split into two pairs, each searching for the entrance.

Lt. Joachim Ronneberg and Sgt. Frederik Kayser were the first to find the shaft. When they couldn’t immediately find the other pair in the darkness, they proceeded down the shaft alone and pushed their explosives ahead of them.

They dropped into the basement of the factory and rushed the night watchman. Kayser covered the man with his gun and Ronneberg placed the explosives on the cylinders that held the heavy water produced in the plant.

Suddenly, a window shattered inward. Kayser swung his weapon to cover the opening but was pleased to find it was only the other demolition pair, Lt. Kasper Idland and Sgt. Birger Stromsheim. They had been unable to find the shaft and were unaware that the others were inside. To ensure the mission succeeded, they had risked the noise of the breaking window to get at the cylinders.

Idland pulled watch outside while Ronneberg and Stromsheim rushed to finish placing the explosives. Worried that German guards may have heard the noise, they cut the two-minute fuses down to thirty seconds.

Just before they lit the fuses, the saboteurs were interrupted by the night watchman. He asked for his glasses, saying that they would be very challenging to replace due to wartime rationing. The commandos searched the desk, found the spectacles, and handed them to the man. As Ronneberg again went to light the fuses, footsteps approached from the hall.

Luckily, it wasn’t a guard. Another Norwegian civilian walked in but then nearly fell out of the room when he saw the commandos in their British Army fatigues.

Kayser covered the two civilians with his weapon and Ronneberg finally lit the 30-second fuses. Kayser released the men after 10 seconds and the commandos rushed out behind them. Soon after they cleared the cellar door, the explosives detonated.

Jens Poulsson, a saboteur on the mission, later said, “It sounded like two or three cars crashing in Piccadilly Circus,” according to a PBS article.

The cylinders were successfully destroyed, emptying months worth of heavy water production onto the floors and down drains where it would be irrecoverable.

The teams tried to escape the factory but a German guard approached them while investigating the noise. He was moving slowly in the direction of a Norwegian’s hiding spot, his flashlight missing one of the escaping men by only a few inches. Luckily, a heavy wind covered the noise of the Norwegian’s breathing and dispersed the clouds of his breath. The guard turned back to his hut without catching sight of anyone.

The team left the plant and began a treacherous, 250-mile escape on skis into Sweden, slipping through Nazi search parties the entire way.

Germany did repair the facility within a few months and resumed heavy water production. After increased attacks from Allied bombers, the Germans attempted to move this new heavy water back to Germany but a team of Norwegian saboteurs successfully sunk the ferry it was transported in. sf hydro

One man, Knut Haukelid, participated in both the factory and the ferry sabotage missions.

Germany’s shortage of good nuclear material during the war slowed its research efforts to a crawl. This shortage and the German’s prioritization of nuclear reactors over nuclear bombs resulted in Nazi Germany never developing atomic weapons.

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When most people think of World War II, they probably think of soldiers fighting in Europe or Marines island-hopping in the Pacific. But it truly was a World War, and that included combat in some of Earth’s most frigid and inhospitable waters in the Arctic Circle.

Barents Sea map

The Soviets needed plenty of supplies to fight off the Germans, and it was up to the Allies to make it happen. Beginning in 1941, the Allies began sending convoys of merchant ships packed with food, ammunition, tanks, and airplanes, along with warship escorts.

HMS Victorious

But the freezing waters of the Arctic — and the German navy — didn’t make it easy.

Via the World War II Database:

The cold temperature in the arctic region also posed a risk in that sea splashes slowly formed a layer of ice on the decks of ships, which over time, if not tended to, could weigh so much that ships would become top-heavy and capsize.
Of course, given the state of war, the German military also posed a great danger by means of surface warships, submarines, and aircraft. The threats, natural or otherwise, endangered the merchant ships throughout the entire length of the supply route.
British destroyer HMS Matabele and Soviet trawler RT-68 Enisej of convoy PQ-8 were sunk by German submarine U-454 at the mouth of the Kola Inlet near the very end of their trip, British whaler HMS Sulla of PQ-9 capsized from ice build-up three days into her journey in the Norwegian Sea, while PQ-15 suffered the loss of three merchant ships on 2 May 1942 to German torpedo bomber attacks north of Norway.

Initially the ships met little resistance, as the Nazis were unaware of the resupply route. This quickly changed after Operation Dervish, the first convoy from Iceland to Archangelsk, Russia.

“After Dervish, the Germans did wake up to what was happening,” Eric Alley, who was on the first convoy, told The Telegraph. “The Luftwaffe and U-boats moved  to northern Norway, so the convoys had to keep as far north as possible.”

navy sailor ww2

The convoys were dangerous due to the unpredictable nature of the frigid waters and threat of Nazi U-boats and land-based aircraft. And summer made things much worse, which left ships completely exposed since the area had 24 hours of daylight.

royal navy de icing hms ww2

“That was hell. There is no other word I know for it,” wrote Robert Carse, in an account of an attack on his convoy that lasted for 20 hours. “Everywhere you looked aloft you saw them, crossing and recrossing us, hammering down and back, the bombs brown, sleek in the air, screaming to burst furiously white in the sea. All around us, as so slowly we kept on going, the pure blue of the sea was mottled blackish with the greasy patches of their bomb discharges. Our ship was missed closely time and again. We drew our breaths in a kind of gasping-choke.”

The convoys delivered more than four million tons of cargo, though at a heavy cost: 101 ships were sunk and roughly 3,000 Allied sailors lost their lives, according to The Telegraph.

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Here are more photos of what it was like:

HMS tracker ww2 bomb ship explosion

HMS Duke of York

HMS Bellona ww2 storm sea perfect storm wave

HMS Avenger ww2 merchant ship explode arctic

royal navy ice ship

arctic world war 2 ww2 ii

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kriegsmarine hitler nazi

"The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril," British Prime Minister Winston Churchill reportedly said while reflecting on the second world war.

By the end of the war, Hitler's Kriegsmarine, the navy of Nazi Germany, had built 1,162 U-boats, which is short for the German word "Unterseeboot," or undersea boat.

In the fall 2015 issue of Weapons of WWII magazine, Marc DeSantis explains how the U-boats were used during World War II.

At the beginning of the war, the commander of the German U-boat fleet, Karl Dönitz, said that if he had 300 U-boats, "he could strangle Britain and win the war."

The Kriegsmarine began the war with just 56 U-boats, but over the course of the war they would build 691 type VII U-boats alone. Here's a photo of a U-35 boat during training exercises in 1936.

The U-boat was not a true submarine in today's sense of the word. It was more of a submersible craft. The diesel engines required air, so while underwater, the craft was powered by 100 tons of lead-acid batteries, meaning it had to surface every few hours when air and battery power were exhausted.

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Zygmunt Lender

Michal Solarski is careful to mention that he's a photographer, not a historian.

However, it was his fascination with history, specifically World War II's effect on the Polish people, that guided him to create his newest photography book: "The Airmen."

The few remaining Polish Air Force (PAF) pilots are the subject of Solarski's long-term project. The PAF's history, generally lost in a wash of tragic World War II stories, is important not to sweep under the rug, Solarski says.

Forced to evacuate their country after the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Polish fled to Hungary, Romania, France, and finally, Britain.

"By the mid-1940s some 35,00o Polish airmen, soldiers, and navy personnel arrived in the UK, making up the largest non-British military force in the country," Solarski tells Business Insider. "Of those, some 8,500 were airmen."

At first deemed "suspicious" by the British Royal Air Force (RAF), the Polish proved their allegiance by helping to deter the German invasion of the UK during the 1940 Battle of Britain.

Here, learn more about the PAF's rich history, its forgotten heroes, and Solarski's drive to document them before they disappear.

Solarski says his family was a major inspiration for this project. "History and politics were common subjects of conversation during family gatherings, and my family was hugely affected by WWII," he says.

A few years ago, Solarski met a historian working on the history of the PAF. "I felt that the opportunity to record the experiences of those men and women before they die should not be missed," he says.

Solarski worked with two historians throughout the course of his project, Piotr Sikora and Adam Jackowski. They both helped Solarski locate the veterans who lived in the UK, the US, and Canada. Veteran Roman Szymanski (pictured below) resided in London when he was photographed by Solarski.

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wojtek

During World War II, the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the 2nd Polish Corps had an unusual soldier among its ranks, a 440-pound Syrian bear named Wojtek.

Wojtek first came to the company as a cub, but over the course of the war he matured and was given the rank of corporal in the Polish army.

Here's Wojtek's amazing story below.

After being released from a Siberian labor camp during the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1942, the 22nd Polish Supply Brigade began a long trek south toward Persia. Along the way, they bought an orphaned bear.

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"He was like a child, like a small dog. He was given milk from a bottle, like a baby. So therefore he felt that these soldiers are nearly his parents, and therefore he trusted in us and was very friendly," Wojciech Narebski, former Polish soldier, told the BBC.

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As he grew, his diet changed, but he remained friendly.

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general patton

Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. was known for his courage and skill on the battlefield in world War II, but he was nearly as well known for his colorful character.

He carried ivory-handled pistols, designed his own sword, and once burned a crate of Red Cross cash after he was offered free coffee.

Patton was moving through Bastogne, Belgium in December 1944 with one of his drivers, Francis “Jeep” Sanza.

Patton spotted a Red Cross canteen truck and told Sanza to pull over.

The men got out of the Jeep and went to order food. Sanza got two crullers and a coffee, for which he was charged 10 Francs.

The Red Cross worker then told Patton that he could have his snack for free. The general became angry that the Red Cross would give him special treatment but still charge his men. He demanded the woman show him the money the Red Cross had collected.

Sanza described what happened next in an interview with the Napa Valley Register:

“So she takes out this orange crate filled with money, puts it down on the ground. He took out a lighter, lit one bill, let it burn and then ignited the whole box. Then he took a shovel from the Jeep and buried the ashes.”

Patton seems to have escaped punishment for his outburst, likely because his forces broke through German lines in Bastogne at the end of the same month. His success allowed 101st Airborne Division paratroopers under German siege to escape and pushed the German forces across of the Rhine River.

kiska map

In the summer of 1943, American and Canadian forces launched an amphibious assault on the north Pacific island of Kiska, in order to seize the last enemy strongholds on U.S. Soil from Japanese forces who managed to capture various U.S. Islands (Kiska and Attu Island) in June 1942.

The operation received codename Cottage and would take place on August 15, 1943.

The island of Kiska was subjected to a heavy pre-invasion bombardment.

The Eleventh Air Force dropped a total of 424 tons of bombs on Kiska during July.

During the same month, an armada of US warships lobbed 330 tons of shells onto the island. This continued into August and was only to be interrupted by bad weather.

For the invasion of the island itself, a force of 34,426 soldiers was foreseen, of which 5,300 Canadian soldiers.

On 15th of August, the U.S. Forces (7th Infantry Division, 4th Infantry Regiment, 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment and 1st Special Service Force) landed on Kiska.

The Canadian 13th Infantry Mountain Brigade came ashore the next day. For 2 long days, the invasion force slugged its way inland through thick fog and against the constant din of machine-gun and artillery fire. Rumors spread of casualties, firefights, and elusive Japanese snipers circulated with abandon. However little did they know, the Allies had attacked an uninhabited island.

Earlier Admiral Thomas Kinkaid had remarked that it would be a “super dress rehearsal, good for training purposes.”

Abandoned japanese submarines Kiska

His words will never be edged in stone, after "intense days of fighting" where the American and Canadian forces mistook each other for the enemy, they had lost 32 men (28 Americans and 4 Canadians were killed) with around 121 sick and wounded. The U.S. Navy sustained 71 men KIA or MIA and 47 wounded after the USS Abner Read (DD-526) hit a mine. By the time the search of the island had ended and was declared secure, the Allied casualties totaled 313 men.

There were those who had been killed by the so-called friendly fire of their confused and scared comrades; others by mines and the timed bombs left by the Japanese; accidental ammunition detonations; vehicle accidents; unexploded bombs in the tundra; and insidious booby trap explosions.

To make the embarrassment complete, the entire enemy garrison of 5,183 Japanese men that occupied Kiska, had slipped away unseen, they were evacuated on 28 July - almost three weeks before the Allied landing!

Eugene Jacques Bullard first African American combat pilot ww1

Eugene Bullard was born in Georgia in 1895. He emigrated to France, became both an infantry hero and the first black fighter pilot in World War I, and a spy in World War II.

Growing up in Georgia, Bullard saw his father nearly killed by a lynch mob and decided at the age of 8 to move to France.

It took him nearly ten years of working through Georgia, England, and Western Europe as a horse jockey, prize fighter, and criminal before he finally moved to Paris.

Less than a year later, Germany declared war on France, dragging it into what would quickly become World War I.

At the time only men over the age of 19 could enlist in France, so Bullard waited until his birthday on Oct. 9, 1914 to join the French Foreign Legion.

As a soldier, Bullard was exposed to some of the fiercest fighting the war had to offer from Nov. 1914 to Feb. 1916. He was twice part of units that had taken so many casualties that they had to be reorganized and combined with others.

In Feb. 1916, Bullard was with France’s 170th Infantry at the Battle of Verdun where over 300,000 men were killed with another 400,000 missing, captured, or wounded in 10 months of fighting.

Bullard would see only the beginning of the battle. From Feb. 21 to Mar. 5, 1916, he fought on the front where he later said, “the whole front seemed to be moving like a saw backwards and forwards,” and “men and beasts hung from the branches of trees where they had been blown to pieces.”

On Mar. 2, an artillery shell killed four of Bullard’s comrades and knocked out all but four of his teeth. Bullard remained in the fight, but was wounded again on Mar. 5 while acting as a volunteer courier between French officers. Another shell caught him, cutting open his thigh and throwing him across the ground. The next day, he was carried off the battlefield by an ambulance.

For his heroism at Verdun, Bullard was awarded the French Croix de Guerre and Médaille Militaire. Because of his wounds, he was declared unfit for service in the infantry.

While most men would have stopped there to accept the adulation of France, Bullard volunteered for the French Air Force and began training Oct. 5, 1916 as an aerial gunner. After he learned about the Lafayette Escadrille, a French Air Force unit mostly filled with American pilots, he switched to pilot training.

Bullard

As the first black fighter pilot, Bullard served in the Lafayette Escadrille Sep. to Nov. 1917 where he had one confirmed kill and another suspected. When America entered the war, Lafayette attempted to switch to the American forces. American policy at the time forbid black pilots and the U.S. went so far as to lobby for him to be removed from flight status in France. Bullard finished the war with the 170th, this time in a noncombat status.

Between World War I and II, Bullard married and divorced a French woman and started both a successful night club and a successful athletic club.

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In the late 1930s, the French government asked Bullard to assist in counterintelligence work to catch German spies in Paris. Using his social position, his clubs and his language skills, Bullard was able to collect information to resist German efforts. When the city fell in 1940, he initially fell back to Orleans but was badly wounded there while resisting the German advance.

He was smuggled to Spain and then medically evacuated to New York where he lived out his life. In 1954, he briefly returned to Paris as one of three French heroes asked to relight the Eternal Flame of the Tomb of the Unknown French Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.