Lesser known details of WW2 part four

Adolf Borchers (10 February 1913 – 9 February 1996) was a German former Luftwaffe fighter ace and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross during World War II. His brother, Major Walter Borchers received the Knight's Cross on 29 October 1944 as Gruppenkommandeur of III./Nachtjagdgeschwader 5 (NJG 5). A second brother, SS-Hauptsturmführer Hermann Borchers received the Knight's Cross on 16 October 1944 as commander of the I. Bataillon of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 19.

Adolf Borchers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

From Griffiths "Marshal Petain" (1970)

On Churchill´s note on 11th June 1940 that the situation in war was like that in March 1918:

"Yes, the front was re-established. You, the English were routed. But I sent forty divisions to get you out of trouble.Today, it is we who are being broken to bits. Where are your forty divisions?" said Marshal Petain.

As recalled by De Gaulle.

 

What the Germans smoked in WW2?

Nice pic of cigarette and pipe tobacco packs for net auction.

Just click the cigarette pic for a larger picture.

Sota-ajan saksalaista tupakkaa 4 erilaista pakkausta - Militaria - 1939-1945 - Huuto.net

 

It seems that 9/11 wasn't the first time a sizable airplane hit one of New York's skyscrapers.

On July 28 1945 at 9:43 in the morning a B-25 named "Old John Feather Merchant" crewed by Lt. Col William F. Smith, his co-pilot and, one passenger a Navy machinist's mate on emergancy leave, flew into the Empire State Building in heavy fog. The B-25 slammed into the 79th floor killing eight women and one man (he jumped to his death rather than get burned alive) working for the National Catholic Welfare Conference whose offices were so located, along with all aboard the aircraft.
The scene was reminisent of 9/11 itself although the Empire State Building survived the crash (obviously).

 

I was unaware of the ESB incident.....

 

Here is a link to that incedent:

http://history1900s.about.com/od/1940s/a/empirecrash.htm

Strangely enough, when the first 767 hit the Trade Center that is exactly what I thought had happened again. This time not "lost in the fog or cloud cover", but victim of the new "computer contolled" flight deck which may have (in my mind) ignored its human pilots and flown itself into the tower. That stayed in my mind until the second one hit the other tower, live on TV.

It was only about then I even considered it a "terrorist act", up until about 45 minutes after the first one I was just thinking to myself; "boy is this going to set the new Boeing and its computerized flight deck back on the shelf for reliablity!"

Only a few weeks before this incedent I had seen a special on the new plane (and the 777) as it was going into service extensively, and the program was touting the fact that it could "take-off, fly, and land" without human intervention.

 

Blast from the past...

August 1943:

In a related development, RFSS Himmler informs 2nd SS CO Walter Krüger that his daughter cannot marry Oberführer Fritz Klingenberg - because SS research into Krüger's wife's family has uncovered a full-blooded Jewess from 1711...

 

After being prematurely pronounced dead many times, at midnight on June 30, 1944 the once-controversial WPA (Works Projects Administration) finally did die.

During its nine embattled years the depression agency spent approximately $10,468,249,000 (enough to pay for 40 days of WW2 in mid-1944), giving both useful and useless jobs to 8,500,000 of America’s unemployed

 

I remember WPA stood for "We Piddle Around"....now we'll have WPA 2

 

Wasn't there a line in To Kill a Mockingbird about Bob Ewell being the only man fired from the WPA for laziness or something like that?

 

Wehrmacht Paris city pass 1940!

1940 Nazi Wehrmacht Paris Leave Pass

 

FW 190 losses 41-43

" At the end of September 1943 there were approx. 650 Fw 190´s operational. If we assume there were also a maximum of 100 FW 190´s operational in the Mediterranean area, that gives a total number of approx. 750 FW 190´s. In addition to which there were some 50 aircraft in the training schools. If we assume a total production of 4,500 aircraft, that means that a horrifying total of 80 per cent of the aircraft were lost between 1941-43."

From FW 190 and Ta152 by Heinz Nowarra

 

Don't you think it was brave and heroic for Rudolph Hess to fly to an enemy country without permission or clearance in order to try to broker peace between the two nations? I certainly don't believe he deserved to spend his life in Spandau Prison.

Did you know the most successful double agent of the war was a London Safe Cracker called Eddie Chapman? The abwehr trusted him implicitly. At one point they were paying for the housing and up keep of his girlfriend (a resistance member unbeknown to them) in Norway, while MI5, their British counterparts, were doing likewise for another girlfriend in England!

 

The sailor has been identified and the reason his left hand is so awkwardly held. His name is Glenn Edward McDuffie. He saw the photographer and held is hand out of the way so that the girl's face could be seen.

More about this story here.

 

List of German aerial victories at Dieppe 1942 by name and type and time

German Victories At Dieppe

 

The Cigarette Camps: U. S. Army Camps in the Le Havre Area -- Introduction

After the Allies secured the French harbor of Le Havre ,the Americans began ringing the city with camps that served as staging areas for new troops arriving in the ETO. Most of the camps were located between Le Havre and Rouen.

The wartime plan was for incoming units to first pass through staging camps on their way to the assembly areas, and then to the front. The staging-area camps were named after various brands of American cigarettes; the assembly area camps were named after American cities. The names of cigarettes and cities were chosen for two reasons: First, and primarily, for security.

Secondly, there was a subtle psychological reason, the premise being that troops heading into battle wouldn't mind staying at a place where cigarettes must be plentiful and troops about to depart for combat would be somehow comforted in places with familiar names of cities back home (Camp Atlanta, Camp Baltimore, Camp New York, and Camp Pittsburgh, among others).

 

Hugo Boss made the SS uniforms

 

"Zyklon B was originally developed as a cyanide-based insecticide in the 1920s by Dr. Fritz Haber, a world-renowned chemist and recipient of the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of a method for the synthesis of ammonia (see Haber Process). Haber fled Germany in 1933 due to his Jewish ancestry (he died of heart failure one year later)." - wiki

and to really top it all off...

IG Farben - the company that used slave labour to make Zyklon B is also the same company that brought us Aspirin, (through Bayer).

 

Josef Mengele weaseled out of getting his SS tattoo of his blood type under his arm (which all SS men had to do) by explaining any competent physician would cross check his blood type before a transfusion... Not having the infamous SS tattoo aloud him to leave US custody undetected after the war. He was found in San Paolo posthumously in the mid 80's.