Lesser known details of WW2 part four

Horrido des Jägers Schiessfibel

Foro Segunda Guerra Mundial • Ver Tema - Manuales de aviación

 

Perhaps....

10 things you might not know about World War II -- chicagotribune.com

No 3. According to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the biggest quarrel he ever had with Prime Minister Winston Churchill was over two dentist chairs delivered to Normandy shortly after D-Day. Churchill thought the delivery was frivolous; Monty believed that a soldier with a toothache could not fight effectively.

No 4. After the Germans were driven from Paris, French authorities detained fashion diva Coco Chanel because of her affair with a German official a dozen years younger than her. Chanel, in her early 60s, told a French interrogator, "Really, sir, a woman of my age cannot be expected to look at his passport if she has a chance of a lover." She was freed.

 

Churchill did not know Montgomery well, but they had met near Brighton in 1940 at the Third Division and had "very good talks" over dinner. When Churchill asked Montgomery what he would drink, he replied "water", and added that he neither drank nor smoked and was 100 per cent fit. Churchill observed that he himself both drank and smoked and was 200 per cent fit!

( Alamein by Stephen Bungay 2002 )

 

The Sutton harness on Spitfires

The Sutton Harness used in single-seat fighters was a patented quick-release safety belt system introduced late during World War I. Over the years, several types of Sutton Harness were developed, covering both simple lap straps and four-point aerobatic harnesses. In the 1930s, the four-point Sutton harness was a broadly established standard in all RAF aircraft types, from de Havilland DH 82 Tiger Moth and Miles Magister to the Spitfire and Hurricane.

Due to the way the shoulder harness was attached to the fuselage structure, the part of the harness going through the armoured bulkhead behind the seat and continuing to to the rear was one of the clearly visible thingies inside the rear glazing of the Spitfire.

 

This is a copy of a letter from Bormann to the Reich Minister for Finance, dated 19th January, 1940, in which Bormann demanded a great increase in the special war tax imposed on the churches. I quote from the first two paragraphs of Page 2 of the English translation of this document, which reads as follows:

"As it has been reported to me, the war contribution of the churches has been specified from 1st November, 1939 on, at first, for a period of three months, at R.M. 1,800,000 per month, of which R.M. 1,000,000 are to be paid by the Protestant church, and R.M. 800,000 by the Catholic church per month. The establishment of such a low amount has surprised me. I see from numerous reports that the political communities have to raise such a large war contribution, that the execution of their tasks, partially very important - for example, in the field of public welfare - is, endangered. In consideration of that, a larger quota from the churches appears to be absolutely appropriate."

Trials of German Major War Criminals: Volume 4

 

Hello Kai-Petri,

just great how you dig out these findings, please keep going.

Regards
Kruska

 

Personally I think that the USSR did not attack Poland in Sept 1939 once Germany had started the war because they wanted to see that Poland crumbles and it is much easier to take the eastern part once the Germans have done the most dirty work. Then the Red Army could also occupy the so-called " empty zone with no government". However, here´s one view from "Stalin by Albert Seaton:

" It had already been accepted in Moscow that, in the event of general war, the Red Army Far Eastern and the West European establishments could not be interdependent due to the impossibility of reinforcing one from the other. So when, on 3 September 1939, von Ribbentrop invited the Soviet Union to occupy those Polish areas previously agreed by the secret protocol of the Russo-German Pact as the Soviet sphere of interest, action was delayed for a fortnight until the signing on 16 September, of the truce with Japan. The Red Army was ordered across the Polish frontier the next day."

 

" Someone had come up with the idea of attaching a smoke generator to the bomb bay of a Lancaster such that the Pathfinders could lay down a smokescreen. We flew over to Wyton to give it a try. No one, however, had thought to check what happens to the airflow through a Lancaster. It creates an area of low pressure around the rear turret, so what happened when we turned the smoke machine on was that it came out of the back and then immediately back into the aircraft through the rear,along the fuselage and into the cockpit. Within moments we couldn´t see a thing as smoke was everywhere. It was panic at stations all round as we put on oxygen and opened the windows!"

From Master Bombers by Sean Feast

 

"Strangely,and perhaps perfectly illustrating the lottery and inconsistency in the distribution of awards, Philip received no recognition for his work on Pathfinders beyond his permanent Pathfinder badge, given to him on June 23,1944. While others received DSOs or Bars to DFCs for their efforts, Philip went unrewarded. He suggests that his might have got lost in the post."

From Master Bomber by Sean Feast

Wing Commander Philip Patrick MBE DFC, who flew Stirlings with No 149 Squadron in June 1942, then in December 1942 posted to 1651 Stirling Conversion Unit. In November 1943 he joined No 7 Squadron PFF becoming Flight Commander, 'C' Flight, flying Lancasters. In March 1944 he was posted as a Flight Commander to the newly formed No 582 Squadron PFF equipped again flying Lancasters.

Memorial Flight (MF) cover series

 

During the advance through Southern Holland a German one-man submarine was found washed up on the beach at Walcheren. Ralph Izzard inspected it and then excitedly telephoned Admiral Bertram Ramsay, Naval Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force. 'Nonsense,' said Ramsay. 'there is no such thing as a one-man submarine.'

"'Very well, sir,' said Izzard. 'I'll have it sent round to your headquarters immediately.' And he had the submarine loaded on to a tank transporter and shipped off like a tiny tin whale. It arrived as the Admiral was finishing breakfast. He was still unimpressed. 'The thing's a toy,' he said.

"'I suggest, sir,' said Izzard, 'that you have a look down the periscope.'

"The Admiral did so, and staring at him from the other end was the still open eye of the dead German submariner who had been killed when his vessel foundered."

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

 

"There were ten major oil installations servicing the German war machine: Nordstern,Scholven, Wesseling,Homburg, Sterkrade, Castrop-Rauzel, Bottrop, Dortmund, Leuna and Wanne Eickel."

Master Bombers by Sean Feast

 

"General Wingate was directing a reconnaissance patrol to a jungle area called Tamanthi. I said to him, 'Sir, I have discussed at length the Tamanthi area with the Forest Officer who used to be in charge of it, and he assures me it is impenetrable.' He rolled a cold eye upon me and added to the orders he was dictating, 'No patrol will report an area impenetrable until it has penetrated it.'"

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

 

Believing himself to be as much an expert in meteorology as in everything else, Hitler, a world-class know-all, went on to state that "weather prediction is not a science that can be learnt mechanically. What we need are men gifted with a sixth sense, who live in nature and with nature – whether or not they know anything about isotherms and isobars. As a rule, obviously, these men are not particularly suited to the wearing of uniforms. One of them will have a humped back, another will be bandy-legged, a third paralytic. Similarly, one doesn't expect them to live like bureaucrats."

These "human barometers", as Hitler dubbed them – who don't much sound like exemplars of the Master Race – would have telephones installed in their homes free of charge and would predict the weather for the Reich and "be flattered to have people relying on [their] knowledge". These woodland folk would be people "who understand the flights of midges and swallows, who can read the signs, who feel the wind, to whom the movements of the sky are familiar. Elements are involved in that kind of thing that are beyond mathematics." Or parody.

Second World War: Frozen to death by the Fuhrer - Telegraph

 

That last one about the weather was exceptionally cute, I really giggled at the "master race" relying on those of less than perfect health, and with no education. However, my arthiritis these last few years is getting pretty good at barometric pressure and humidity reactions. The titanium plates in my C-3/4/5/ also ache in syncopation with the stainless steel screws in my wrists and knees when the weather is on the change.

 

Gee, the only time I communicate with "midges" is when the little buggers fly up my nose, and then we don't discuss the weather! As to swallows, there are few of those around in Billings actually, there were lots of them (barn swallows) out on the farm. I never talked the weather over with them either. They were beautiful to watch flying, but really dirty birds where they nested, and in their feathers.

They carried all sorts of nasty parasites and things, and consequently their mud nests were eliminated if they started building them on the houses. They were welcome to the barns and other outbuildings, but not where we slept. Don't know it if is true or not, but my Gramps and Dad both claimed they carried bedbugs and if you let them start a nest on your eves then you would end up with bedbugs in the house.

But, this is getting way tooooooo off topic!

 

In 1940 the Soviet Union supplied Germany with 74% of its phosphate needs, 67% of its asbestos imports, 65% of its chrome ore supplies, 55% of its manganese, 40% of its nickel imports and 34% of its imported oil. As the Quartermaster General of the German army, Colonel Eduard Wagner, put it, " The conclusion of this treaty has saved us". ( Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty ).

From "Wages of destruction" by Tooze

 

Italy, war and bureaucracy

" The war ministry´s bureaucratic "labyrinths" alone- even discounting industry´s manifest shortcomings -made failure almost inevitable. Each new equipment item or weapon required the approval of the artillery ( or engineer, or motorization ) technical office, the appropriate department of the ministry itself, the inspectorate of the branch concerned, the training section of the army staff, and finally the ministry secretariat. If even one of these organizations proposed a minor modification, the entire process had to begin once more. It took six months to approve a Molotov cocktail anti-tank weapon that the technical staff had put together and successfully tested in less than a week in July 1940. This system, and the ministry´s return to its traditional daily closing hour of 2 p.m. , so compounded the dysfunctions of industry that is surprising that the army received any new equipment at all before 1943."

"Hitler´s Italian Allies" by Knox

 

"People of the German Reich fought on for their Führer until over 7 million of them had died- at least three times the already huge German losses of 1914-1918. Fascist and monarchial Italy, by contrast had shattered after only 205,000 military and 25,000 civilian dead- slightly over a third of the death toll that Liberal Italy had withstood in the WW1."

"Hitler´s Italian Allies" by Knox

 

" After the surrounding of the Lorient fortifications by Allied troops in Aug 1944, work began to turn the guns, which could only fire in the direction of the sea until then, to fire to the landward side. This laborious work was finished in Jan 1945.

To check the firing situation, Oberleutnant Suling had a salvo fired at the railroad station in Vannes 25 kilometers away. This important supply depot for the encircling troops was hit hard.

The good targeting was confirmed to the battery by a French official in Vannes.

From then on, the battery often intervened in the ground combat and destroyed several enemy positions. But it in turn was under heavy fire, and by the end of March, all the guns were so badly damaged that it was no longer possible to fire them;thus the battery was vacated."

From " Guns on the Atlantic wall" by Karl-Heinz and Michael Schmeelke