Lesser known details of WW2 part four

"Since his years as assistant secretary of the navy Roosevelt, who always loved the sea, thought of himself as a navy man. Indeed, he associated so closely with the navy that it took Gen George Marshal considerable effort to persuade Roosevelt not to refer to the navy as "we" and the Army as "they".

"My Dear Mr Stalin" by Susan Butler

 

FDR and internationalism in late war years

" The challenge of contriving a smooth transition from unilateralism to internationalism shaped FDR´s diplomatic strategy. He moved quietly to prepare the American people for a larger international role. By the end of 1944 a series of international conferences, held mostly at American initiative and generally with bipartisan American representation, had created a postwar agenda- international organization ( Dumbarton Oaks ), finance,trade, and development ( Bretton Woods), food and agriculture ( Hot Springs ), civil aviation ( Chigago ),relief and reconstruction (UNRRA). These conferences established a framework for the world after the war- an impressive achievement for a president whom historians used to charge with subordinating political to military goals."

My Dear Mr Stalin" by Susan Butler

 

You know, a guy can get lost for hours in these Kai-Petri threads, following the links wherever they lead...

I love them when I have time to kill. Thanks, Kai-Petri!

 

"During WW2 British railways stepped up their output by 46%, while some 25% of their normal workshop capacity was diverted to other purposes and 15% of their staff released for other duties.
It is still more extraordinary when all the hazards of wartime working on the railways are recalled, as well as the fact that normal replacement of rolling stock and fixed equipment was much decelerated to make available materials and plant for other wartime essentials"

From Britain's Railways at War 1939-45 by OS Nock, 1971.

 

The US Congress and WW2 and isolationism

" In the 1942 midterm congressional election, internationalists launched a major campaign for a "win-the-war" Congress, targetting isolationist legislators on a hit list. The leading isolationists in Congress survived the primaries. In FDR´s own congressional district, internationalist Republicans like Wendell Wilkie and Thomas E. Dewey opposed the renomination of the bitter isolationist Hamilton Fish, but Fish won the primary two to one. In the general election only 5 of 115 congressmen with isolationist records were beaten. The Republicans gained foty-four seats in the House and nine in the Senate- their best performance in years.

After the election, Secretary of State Cordell Hull told Vice President Henry Wallace that "the country was going in exactly the same steps it followed in 1918"Hull, Wallace noted, thought it utterly important to keep the sequence of events from following the 1918-1921 pattern because he felt if we went into isolationism this time, the world was lost forever."

From My Dear Mr Stalin by Susan Butler

 

" At the end of January 1945, the majority of the regiments of the Leibstandarte collected in the area between Bonn and Siegburg. The Supreme Command of the Army planned to transfer the recently relieved 6. Panzerarmee to Hungary. In order to camouflage this transfer, all of the Divisions of the 6. Panzerarmee had to take off their cuff-titles and remove the tactical markings from their vehicles. For that they received other harmless markings. After the load up, the Leibstandarte was called the "replacement squadron Totenkopf".

From " Chronicle of the 7. panzer-Kompanie I.SS-Panzer Division Leibstandarte" by Ralf Tiemann

 

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...

 

On 19 April 1944, JV 44 attacked some B-26s, and Eduard Schallmoser, known as “The Rammer” for his penchant for ramming bombers with his jet (Me 262) once his ammunition ran out, had clipped one of the damaged B-26s, and then had to bail out…again, only to land in the garden of his parent’s home outside of Munich!

From Osprey´s German fighter pilot aces by Morgan and Weal

 

thanks for those details kai

 

Considering how much Hitler had trust in von Manstein in later war it´s weird that he hated the man back in 1940.

" Feb 1940: Schmundt spoke to Hitler about what Manstein had said and the Führer became more interested despite his personal aversion to Manstein which he is unable to hide. "The man is not to my liking, but he knows something about how to get things done." "

From " At the heart of the Reich" by Major Gerhard Engel ( Hitler´s army adjutant 1938-1943 )

 

" On 3 July 1939 Hitler was treated to the infamous "magic show" at the Rechlin air proving ground- including jet fighters, rocket planes and large airborne cannon- all, supposedly,within months of entering production. Then, in the third week of August, when Hitler was preoccupied with the coming war, Koppenberg and Ernst Udet, chief of the technical office at the RLM, coaxed him into signing a Führer order restoring the Ju 88 programme to top priority. The consequences were dramatic. For the rest of the war, the Luftwaffe was to claim at least 40% of the German armaments effort."

"The wages of destruction" by Tooze

 

"The Lambeth Walk" is a song from the 1937 musical Me and My Girl. The tune gave its name to a Cockney dance first made popular in 1937

A member of the Nazi Party achieved attention in 1939 by declaring the Lambeth Walk (which was becoming popular in Berlin) to be "Jewish mischief and animalistic hopping" as part of a speech on how the "revolution of private life" was one of the next big tasks of National Socialism in Germany.

In 1942, Charles A. Ridley of the British Ministry of Information made a short propaganda film, Lambeth Walk - Nazi Style, which edited existing footage of Hitler and German soldiers (taken from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will) to make it appear they were marching and dancing to "The Lambeth Walk". The film so enraged Joseph Goebbels that reportedly he ran out of the screening room kicking chairs and screaming profanities. The propaganda film was distributed uncredited to newsreel companies, who would supply their own narration.

The Lambeth Walk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

At least once Hitler did not have "total knowledge" on production facts and figures:

Anecdote about Galland and Speer being dressed down by Hitler, who orders all fighter aircraft production cancelled and the material used for Flak cannon production. As soon as Speer and Galland are alone, Speer turns to Galland and says: "Dont worry, you cannot make a cannon out of aluminum. When the Führer calms down I will explain this to him and tell him to increase Flak production out of Locomotive production."

 

About nazi Germany in autumn 1939:

" The shortage of building steel was such that by the end of 1939, 300 infantry battalions were without proper barracks or garages. Germany´s army had grown so large it could be accommodated only under canvas. By July 1939 there were cuts even to the army´s weapons programmes. The original plan for 1939-40 had called for the production of 61,000 Model 34 machine guns, but after he reduction in the army´s steel contingent this target was reduced to only 13,000. Similarly, targets for the 10.5 cm light field Howitzer were cut from 840 to 460. Production of the standard infantry carbine 98k was to cease altogether from the autumn of 1939. Perhaps most dramatically in light of later events, the tank programme,which aimed for the production of 1,200 medium battle tanks and command vehicles between October 1939 and October 1940, was now to be cut in half. In total, 34 of Germany´s wartime force of 105 divisions would be seriously under-equipped. Of the replacement units responsible for training new recruits, only 10 percent would have any weapons at all. Furthermore, specialist armaments manufacturers would be forced to cut more than 100,000 skilled workers from their rolls. The ammunition stockpiles of the Wehrmacht were sufficient to cover only fourteen days of heavy fighting."

From "Wages of destruction" by Tooze

 

Maybe not the right place, but here goes:

The best snipers the Germans have during WWII were actually woman. Apparently woman are much more accurate than men.
One of our witnesses, Mrs. Monica Tovey lives in South-West England. During WWII she was living in the Swindon Aerea. At the age of 15 she got engaged tue an American Paratrooper (101st Airborne Div, 502 PIR). He jumped into Normandy and was shot and killed by a female sniper. she found this out years later.

Thierry Cornet

 

I wonder about that, there are records that the Soviets made use of females in that role, but there are none in the "best" list from Germany. Wouldn't top scoring be related to "best"? Not saying her story in untrue, just wonder at the "best" designation.

While this site is devoted to "top snipers", it goes all the way down to nine (9) kills for a Canadian, but I see no females in the list from the German side at all.

See:

Snipers

 

After Dunkirk....

Members of the British Expeditionary Force greatly criticized the Royal Air Force for not doing enough and providing greater cover for them, and further placed much of the blame for the number of casualties sustained on the beaches to the RAF. After the evacuation, it was not safe for a pilot of the RAF to mingle or be seen near any members of the Army, he was either spat at, assaulted or verbally abused. It was not until the resounding success of the Battle of Britain did the RAF get the respect that they deserved and even then, many soldiers could still not forgive the RAF for what happened at Dunkirk.

Air Vice Marshal Sir Keith Park

 

Bombers and anti-fighter methods from "Eagle´s wing" by Hajo Herrman:

" We also had the ighters to contend with. Our rear-firing armament comprised twin MG 17s above and below: because the configuration was insufficient, I proposed that we should fit one of Udet´s inventions, the so-called "Ente" (duck). This was a rotating,flashing contraption on a long wire that was towed behind the aircraft and was intended either to scare a fighter off or to collide with it. because this patent device could not be produced quickly enough I fell back on something that was cheaper and readily available in quantity-toilet-rolls. These,allowed to unroll out of the window and then let go, were whisked astern looking for all the world like a wire entanglement, and a pursuing fighter instinctively assumed that they were something sinister and potentially dangerous....

 

"V Mail”


“V Mail” appeared in England on June 15, 1942 and was put into practice in France only in February, 1945. The objective of this American postal system was to enable the millions of American soldiers in Europe to correspond with their families as quickly as possible. Sorting letters in their normal format resulted in an enormous amount of volume and delays in reception time. Therefore, a more efficient system was introduced. Soldiers were to write their letter on special forms purchased for a few cents at the post office. These letters were then transferred to Villepinte, a Parisian suburb, where they were sorted, photographed and reduced onto a 16mm film. 1,700 letters could fit in a cigarette pack. The reels would then depart for the US by plane, and arrive in the three "V" sorting centers in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. These were then developed, printed on paper only one quarter of its original size, and sent to their final destinations. This system worked in both overseas directions and rapid mail service was assured.

WW II Encyclopedia -- V-Mail

Lot 14, 12 letters in total.

 

German Army Officers in service:

Grade 1938 , 1942 , 1943 , 1944

Generalfeldmarschall 0 , 8 , 15 , 16

Generaloberst 3 , 19 , 18 , 26

General der Infanterie 31 , 99 , 141 , 170

Generalleutnant 87 , 223 , 369 , 473

Generalmajor 154 , 465 , 501 , 565

From "Quiet flows the Rhine-German General officer casualties in ww2" by MacLean