What have you learned about WW2 recently?

This is a topic that I liked and contributed to over on the Talk. It's generated a lot of interesting responses over there, so I thought that it would be nice to have one here on the Forum. Looking forward to seeing some good input.

Here's what I just learned a few minutes ago.

The three squadrons that composed the Eagle Squadrons of the RAF still exist in the current day USAF. When the Eagle Squadrons (Nos. 171,122 & 133) transferred to the USAAF in 1942, they were renumbered the 334th, 335th and 336th Pursuit Squadrons which comprised the 4th Fighter Group. Today, the same numbered squadrons (with current day "fighter" designation) serve together as the 4th Fighter Wing and fly F-15s. The 4th Fighter Wing served in the Korean War and in Vietnam.

Now, what did you learn about WW2 recently?

 

No takers? Well I'll just have to share something else I learned about WW2 today.

Since I was talking about the Eagle Squadrons in the RAF in my original post, I found out that there was an all-Argentine squadron in the RAF as well, squadron No. 164. About 600 Argentines served in the RAF and the RCAF, along with about 4,000 more serving in the other armed forces of the British Empire.

I wonder how those surviving veterans felt about things during the Falkland War in 1982?

 

I learned today that the Germans were really bad; the Japanese weren't any better

 

That's not new stuff.

 

So sayeth the Private Janovic....Ohhhhhmmmmmmmm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzuaW8GD3X8

 

Because of a recent post on a Piper L4 taking on a Storch, I've been looking for anecdotes on those little artillery spotter planes. Those guys flew low and slow and took a lot of ground fire from small arms (AA usually left them alone to avoid having an artillery barrage spoil their day) so it must have been frustrating for those guys to never get a direct hand in the fighting even though they were getting shot at. Their spotting indirectly killed plenty of the enemy, but every pilot wants to be a fighter pilot...

I didn't save the link, but came across a neat story about bombing from spotter planes. If you get a Mason jar or a jelly jar of the right size from the bin behind the chow hall, you can drop a grenade in, pull the pin and put the lid back on. The glass holds the safety lever down. Then if you spotted a small group of Germans who weren't worth calling in the arty, you could dive in and toss jars out the window. The glass breaks, the grenade goes off a few seconds later and maybe, just maybe, the jar has landed close enough to kill somebody. I doubt such a method killed many people, but it was probably satisfying to get a chance to shoot back.

That sort of thing was strictly prohibited and probably stupid since an L4 was slow and you'd be diving in on people shooting at you. It probably didn't happen often, just one of those things that a few guys did that got passed around by others.

 

I posted an article earlier this week about something new. I didn't know that women in the U.S. were involuntarily quarantined for having STDs during the war and were referred to as "Patriotutes," among others.

 

That's not new either. I saw it already.

 

I've been reading the new James Holland book, The War In The West 39-41. I've probably come across some of the information before, but the way he explains it makes you think.
For instance in 1939 1 American in 5 owned a motor car. 1 in 19 in France, and 1 in 23 in Britain. But it was only 1 in 47 in Germany. This had a huge knock on effect. Germany had less trained mechanics, less stocks of fuel, less pumps. But most importantly less factories were geared for making vehicles, armoured or otherwise. The head of the Nazi vehicle problem was relieved the Poland invasion was short, another week and it would have ground to a halt.
What Holland's point is that Germany wasn't the greatest mechanized army in the world, far from it. Newsreel cameras were quickly switched off when the vast majority of troops came throu on horses and on foot. It was all a major bluff, that France especialy fell for.

 

Interesting stats. Definitely a wide comparison of war production means.

 

the ensuing displacement of ethnic germans around europe after the german surrender was estimated at more than 10 million; and more than 1 million died as they tried to head back to gemany.

 

The fact that I can not find anything informative or of substance about UK Official Secrecy Act Releases.

 

Noor Inayat Khan, known as Madeline who worked with the SOE and assigned to France, was honored in a ceremony led by Princess Anne in 2012. I didn't know she was an Indian royal. Hers will be the first statue of an Asian woman so honored in the UK (!!!)

last picture taken of her in Britain

 

If you are intersted in this sort of thing (and even if you aren't) I strongly recomend Wages of Destructon. It has its issues but for the economic back ground to the war you won't find a better starting place.

 

Interesting take.

 

I also posted this at WW2 Talk. Was interested to learn that Rudolph Wolters chronicle of Albert Speer mistakenly contained 3 pages if hand written notes by Speer himself. In doing this, completely proving he knew of the Jewish forced deportation from Berlin and the occupation of their apartments for war torn German civilians.

 

The book I am currently reading, The War at Sea by Nathan Miller relates that many of JFK's Pacific contemporary's felt that while in command of PT 109 on the night his boat was rammed and sunk, he was negligent in being run down during a interdiction of a 'Tokyo Express' with ample warning of nearby Japanese ships and during good visibility. His Silver Star was disallowed and a Navy and Marine Corps medal was substituted only for the 'survival' phase of the event and only because the Secretary of the navy was a close friend of his father.

 

Is it REMOTELY possible that anybody of that position, so close to Hitler himself, so high up in the Nazi Government, a guest at Hitlers home, touring war/munitions factories and with a Large Staff.....a Key Part Of The War Effort...could not know exactly what was going on.?

 

Edward R Murrow was going to leave his wife for Pamela Churchill.....but then his son was born.

 

'Hitler loved kids and dogs'.

Or - maybe not. Dogs maybe, but kids a lot less. Just read Despina Stratigakos' fascinating academic work, 'Hitler At Home', which describes in detail how the whole 'Alpine idyll' was very carefully crafted and managed to ( very successfully ) sell the idea of Hitler to the masses as a pretty regular sort of guy ; and how central to this piece of image-making was the work of Heinrich Hoffmann.