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While anyone who flew on a B-17 bomber during World War II had a pretty dangerous job, the ball turret gunner was undoubtedly put in the most-precarious position.
“You literally had your knees up to your chest and in between you had the machine guns,” said Gary Lewi, spokesman for the American Airpower Museum based at Republic Airport. “You really had to have pretty tough nerves to be in there.”
Yes. In fact, in the 1939-40 war against the original allies of France, Poland and Great Britain, Germany did win.
Today, we see these victories as inevitabilities. To the world in 1940, they were nothing short of unimaginable. These victories are not just tactical:
-Poland ceases to exist;
-France’s Third Republic is replaced by the Nazi collaborationist Vichy government;
-Great Britain’s forces are pushed off the continent, barely clinging to survival.
By the summer of 1940, Hitler’s stage-by-stage plan (‘Stufenplan’) as dreamed in the 1920’s is coming to fruition:]\
– Austria, Bohemia and Poland are now part of Greater Germany.
– France and the Treaty of Versailles are neutralized.
– The British, Hitler believes, are finished and will soon negotiate.
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The unique amphibious landing craft, known as the Land Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP) ship, played a vital role in numerous military operations during World War II. Surprisingly, its original design was inspired by the challenges faced by Andrew Higgins, a lumber businessman and former Nebraska National Guard Infantry Officer. While extracting hardwood trees from Louisiana swamps, Higgins encountered difficulties with his conventional boats repeatedly running aground in shallow waters.
In preparation for the conference, Eichmann drafted a list of the numbers of Jews in the various European countries. Countries were listed in two groups, “A” and “B”. “A” countries were those under direct Reich control or occupation (or partially occupied and quiescent, in the case of Vichy France); “B” countries were allied or client states, neutral, or at war with Germany. The numbers reflect the estimated Jewish population within each country; for example, Estonia is listed as Judenfrei (free of Jews), since the 4,500 Jews who remained in Estonia after the German occupation had been exterminated by the end of 1941. Occupied Poland was not on the list because by 1939 the country was split three ways among Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany in the west, the territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union in the east, and the General Government where many Polish and Jewish expellees had already been resettled.
The most quickly felt impact of German occupation was general shortage. All products of value were seized by the Germans, and French citizens received ration cards for just about everything. Coal and fuel were difficult to get, so people were freezing in winter time, made their own clothes, and mostly used bicycles. Food shortage was most felt in cities : meat, coffee, fruit, sugar, almost everything was scarce. As rutabagas and Jerusalem artichokes became staple diets, there was immediately a thriving black market. Wholesale dealers of “butter, eggs and cheese” made fortunes buying restricted products from farmers.
[Read more…] about What Life Was Like Under Nazi Occupation?
Walenty Lenarczyk, a prisoner at Dachau, stated that following the camp’s liberation "prisoners swarmed over the wire and grabbed the Americans and lifted them to their shoulders… other prisoners caught the SS men.
The first SS man elbowed one or two prisoners out of his way, but the courage of the prisoners mounted, they knocked them down and nobody could see whether they were stomped or what, but they were killed."
By 1944 suicide attacks had become de facto conventional air attacks for most Japanese pilots attacking American naval task forces.
For example, the Battle of the Philippine Sea justly earned the nickname the “Marianas Turkey Shoot” because the Japanese air units lost over five-hundred aircraft attacking the US fleet with only minor damage to the USS South Dakota to show for their efforts.
[Read more…] about How Effective Were Kamikaze Attacks In WW2?
She entered the ghetto using a special work pass and would smuggle out children in the bottom of her toolbox and also utilize her burlap sack for larger kids. She also used ambulances and sewers to get them out of the ghetto.
Japan’s hopes was that after destroying the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that it would take at minimum 2 years for the US to rebuild the fleet back up to seriously take on the Japanese fleet.
[Read more…] about Did Japan Have a War Plan Against The US After Pearl Harbor?
Assuming that all of their tanks were operational (unlikely) a German Heavy Tank Battalion in WWII had 45 tanks, with an additional 8–11 SPAAGs, 5 Recovery Vehicles, and 11 armored half tracks. These would be pretty much the entirety of what the Abrams would have to destroy without being disabled.
[Read more…] about Could A Single M1 Abrams Survive An Entire SS Tank Battalion In 1940?
