Lesser Known Facts of WWII http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/facts.html. TO all those who took part in World War11 PAGE ONE OF TWO PAGES We all hear about the major battles and campaigns carried out by the British, Germans and the Americans during World War 11. Historians and authors have argued about their authenticity for years. Most of this material has been done over and over again, but what about those small instances of the war that have never been publicized. There were men and women involved here that were just as important as those that took part in the big campaigns. Here are some of those lesser known facts that you may be unfamiliar with but are seldom mentioned in history books. 1939-1941 DID YOU KNOW THAT....? THE FIRST SHOT OF WWII was fired from the German battleship 'Schleswig Holstein' which was on an official visit to Poland and berthed in Danzig harbour. At 4.30 am on September 1, 1939, the ship moved slowly down the Port Canal and took up position opposite the WESTERPLATTE (area containing Polish troop barracks and workshops) and at 4.47 am, the order to 'Fire' was given. World War II had begun. Seven days later the Westerplatte Garrison surrendered. THE INCIDENT which triggered the Second World War was the simulated attack by the Germans on their own radio station near Gleiwitz on the Polish border. To make it appear that the attacking force consisted of Poles, prisoners from a nearby concentration camp were dressed in Polish uniforms then shot and their bodies placed in strategic positions around the radio station. A Polish speaking German then did a broadcast from the station to make it appear that Poland had attacked first. This was the excuse Hitler needed to invade Poland on September 1st. 1939. The first Allied shot of the war was fired over the bows of the Australian coaster 'Woniora' from a 6-inch gun emplacement guarding the entrance to Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay. The 823 ton coaster had entered the bay at 9.15 p.m. on September 3, 1939 after a trip from Tasmania. Ordered to heave to for inspection the coaster gave her identity but continued on without stopping. A 100 pound shell, fired across her bow, soon changed her captains mind. By a remarkable coincidence this was the same gun that had fired the first shot of World War 1 when, hours after war was declared, it fired on the German steamer Pfalz while it attempted to leave Australian waters on August 5, 1914. The Platz was captured and served out the rest of World War 1 as the Australian troopship 'Boorara '. GERMAN WORKERS PARTY. In 1919, over forty different political parties existed in and around Munich. The German workers Party was founded by 35 year old railway locksmith, Anton Drexler. In all, its membership was around fifty. To give the impression that the number was higher, membership cards started at number 500. When Hitler joined the party he was given number 555. This was on September 12, 1919, when he attended a meeting in the Sterneckerbrau Tavern in Munich. In February, 1920, the party expanded its name to the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party or N.S.D.A.P. (Popular name at the time was Nazi Party) On September 15, 1935, the Swastika was officially incorporated into the German national flag. WHY THE THIRD REICH? This was the official name for the Nazi period of government from January,1933, to May, 1945. The First Reich was the Holy Roman Empire period of the German Nation begun in A.D. 962 when Otto the Great was crowned in Rome. The Second Reich (or Empire) was founded by Otto von Bismarck in 1871. When the Hohenzollern dynasty collapsed in 1918 with the abdication of Emperor William 11, the Second Reich came to an end. This was followed by the Weimar Republic which lasted from 1918 to 1933. In turn it was followed by Hitler's Third Reich which he regarded as an empire that would last a thousand years. Hitler adopted the term 'Third Reich' in the early 1920s after the German writer Arthur Moeller von der Bruck used it as a title for one of his books. BIG BROTHER? Early in Hitler's career, Germany was divided into 42 districts called Gaue. Each Gau was supervised by a District Leader (Gauleiter) ie, the Gauleiter for Berlin was Dr Joeseph Geobbels. Each Gau was divided into circuits (Kreise) led by a Kreisleiter (Circuit Leader) Berlin had 10 Kreise and each Kreise was then divided into Local Groups (Ortsgruppe) headed by an Ortsgruppenleiter of which Berlin had 269. This was further subdivided into Street Cells (Zellen) supervised by the Zellenleiter, whose duty was to report on all anti-government activities within the families living in that street. German civilians living abroad were regarded as the 43rd Gau. All Leaders were required to swear unconditional allegiance to their F?hrer. HORST WESSEL An early convert to the Nazi party was 19 year old Bielefeld born Horst Wessel who gave up his law studies to join the SA (Storm Troopers). Working as a taxi driver and builders labourer he soon became a leading orator at SA rallies. In 1929, he married Erna Jaenicke, an 18 year old prostitute. On the evening of January 14, 1930, a group of thugs, led by Jaenicke's former boyfriend and pimp, Albrecht H?hler, called at their lodgings at 62 Grosse Frankfurter Strasse, Berlin and in a fit of jealous anger H?hler drew a pistol from his pocket and shot Wessel in the mouth. He died five weeks later on February 23. Before his murder he had composed a poem 'Die Fahne Hoch' (Fly the Flag High) which later was changed to 'The Horst Wessel Song' and introduced into Nazi Party ritual. It soon became Nazi Germany's second anthem and played after 'Deutschland Uber Alles' (Germany Before All). Horst Wessel was buried in the Nikolaifriedhof cemetery but after the war, in common with all other Nazi graves, the headstone was removed. MEMBERSHIP. In 1930 there were 129,583 members of the Nazi Party. (NAtional SoZIaist) By 1933 membership had jumped to 849,009 and in the early war years this had reached to more than five million. SUPPORT. Before Hitler was appointed to lead the nation, massive unemployment fueled the need for social change. Over seven million were without jobs and support for the Communist Party continued to grow. The introduction of conscription in 1935 reduced the labour market considerably and by the end of 1936 there were reports of labour shortages. Marriage loans were introduced to encourage young couples to marry and have children, the repayments were reduced by one quarter on the birth of every child. When Hitler withdrew Germany from the United Nations in 1933, he had the support of over 90% of the population. With the return to full employment, and with drunks, beggars, vagrants and prostitutes cleared off the streets, vast work programs were introduced such as the building of super highways (Autobahns). Even the opponents of the Nazi Party were impressed with the accomplishments of the regime. The widely published news of arrests and protective custody camps did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the populace for the Hitler movement who in 1933 cast 40 million votes for the party. They could hardly do anything else as all other parties were outlawed. Nevertheless, around three and a half million voters cast an invalid vote, presumably to show their opposition. SWASTIKA TREES. In 1937, a local businessman, an ardent follower of Adolf Hitler, planted a 60 by 60 metre area of Larch trees in a forest near the town of Zernikow, about 110 kms north of Berlin. The trees were planted in the shape and format of a Swastika and could only be seen from the air. During Autumn, when the Larch trees changed their colour to orange and yellow they stood out strikingly against a green forest of surrounding pine trees. Discovered many years after the war, this long forgotten symbol of the Nazi era was finally removed by cutting down 27 of the 57 trees that made up the Swastika design. This was done in 2001 by the Brandenburg State Forest authorities. Local farmer, Joachim Schultz remarked " It was quite embarrassing. We were afraid that it could become a pilgrimage site". Displaying the Swastika symbol is forbidden in Germany today. ESCAPE. On the 17th September, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded the eastern part of Poland while Polish forces were fully engaged against the German onslaught in the West. After the fall of Poland, remnants of the Polish Army (over 70,000 men) those not taken prisoner by the Soviets, made their way through Romania and Hungary to France where they regrouped. When Germany invaded that country, around 24,000 Polish soldiers escaped to Britain and reformed in Scotland as the 1st. Polish Army Corps. It was while in Scotland, in 1941, that Polish signals officer, Lt. Jozef Kozacki, designed the first practical electronic mine-detector called the Mine Detector Polish Mark 1. It was soon mass produced and 500 were issued to the British Army in time for use prior to the Battle of El Alamein. GUESTS. At the outbreak of war, around 70,000 Germans and Austrians were living in Britain. Most were refugees from the Nazis and considered 'safe'. Others, about 11,000, were restricted in their movements around the country and ordered to report to their local police daily and to obey an 8pm to 8am curfew. Some 230 from the eastern counties of England and Scotland were interned in special camps set up throughout the country. NON BRITISH. A total of 52,000 non-British persons were registered in Australia during the war, 22,000 of them regarded as 'Enemies of the State' ie. Germans and Italians, many of whom were interned for the duration. After Pearl Harbor, Japanese residents were interned solely on the basis of their nationality and many were deported back to Japan at war's end. When Italy capitulated in 1943, most Italians were released including the 17,000 prisoners of war captured in North Africa and shipped to camps in Australia. AUSTRIAN JEWS. Before the war there were around 206,000 Jews living in Austria. Only 5,500 survived the Nazi occupation. Many who had converted to Judaism through marriage were forced by the Nazis to renounce their faith and be reclassified as non-Jews. Over 24,000, who had renounced Judaism but had Jewish ancestry, were again classified as Jews. TRAGEDY. On August 14, 1937, during the Japanese invasion of China, the Japanese battleship Isuma (10,000 tons) was tied up at the dock in Shanghai off what was called the Shanghai Bund. In an attempt to sink the Isuma, Chinese planes bombed the harbour but mistakenly the bombs hit crowded city streets, a department store and other adjacent buildings along the Bund killing over 1,900 people. THE FIRST RAF RAID OF THE WAR ended in near disaster. The day after war was declared, RAF Wellington and Blenheim bombers attacked the German naval ports of Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbuttel. Ten bombers returned to base after failing to find the target. Seven were shot down by German anti-aircraft batteries. Three planes prepared to attack British warships in the North Sea until they discovered their mistake then went home. Eight bombers found the target and attacked the battleships 'Scheer' and Hipper, and the cruiser 'Emden', one of the Blenheim bombers crashing on the ships' deck. In this raid occurred the first British casualties of the war. Seventeen Royal Air Force men were killed. (The Emden was the only Axis ship to attack the continent of India. It reached the shores of Madras on the Bay of Bengal and fired its guns at Fort St. George) FIRST PLANE SHOT DOWN IN BRITAIN. The first plane shot down over the British Isles was a Heinkel 111, it was downed near Dalkeith in south eastern Scotland on October 28, 1939. Two of the crew survived while two others were killed during the attack, which is credited to Spitfires of 602 and 603 Squadrons. AIR STRIKE The first air strike of the war from carrier borne aircraft was from the British carrier HMS Furious. On April 11, 1940, 18 Swordfish from 816 and 818 Squadrons took off from the deck of the carrier to bomb enemy ships in Trondheimsfjord, Norway. All returned safely. THE "V" FOR VICTORY SIGN was the idea of a Belgian refugee in London, Victor De Laveleye. In a short-wave broadcast from London, he urged his countrymen to chalk the letter "V" on all public places as a sign of confidence in ultimate victory. This was plugged in all BBC foreign language programs and later supported by the two finger "V" sign of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. RAF BLUNDER. Due to the fact that British fighter planes were not fitted with IFF equipment (Identification Friend or Foe) at this time of the war and the ground radar operator believing he was coordinating an attack on enemy machines, RAF Spitfires from No.74 Squadron shot down two Hurricanes of No. 56 Squadron by mistake on September 6, 1939. At about the same time, ground anti-aircraft fire brought down a Blenheim of No. 64 Squadron. One pilot was killed. There were no German aircraft in the area at the time. This was the first time that Spitfires had fired their guns in anger. The Spitfire pilots were subsequently exonerated from any blame at a court martial and from then on the highest priority was given to the production of Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) equipment. THAT WAS NOT THE ENEMY! During the period 1939 to 1942, twenty Blenheim fighter-bombers were shot down through mis-identification by RAF pilots and anti-aircraft fire (Seven were shot down by Hurricanes). This resulted in the deaths of thirty two aircrew with seven others injured. Nineteen other aircraft were damaged by being fired upon by mistake. THE RAFs FIRST KILL. On October 16, 1939, German JU 88s from the island of Sylt, attacked naval ships in the harbour at Rosyth, Scotland. About to enter dry dock for repairs was the battlecruiser HMS Hood, but the pilots had strict orders not to attack. A personal order from Hitler stated 'Should the Hood already be in dock, no attack is to be made, I won't have a single civilian killed'. After the raid, in which the 9,100 ton cruiser HMS Southampton was damaged, Spitfires from RAF Turnhouse near Edinburgh, attacked the departing JUs and one was shot down, hitting the sea off Port Seton. This was the first enemy plane to be brought down by RAF Fighter Command. ON NOVEMBER 5, 1939, Colonel Hans Oster, Chief of Staff in the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence) under Admiral Canaris, warns Colonel Jacobus Sas, the Dutch military attach?n Berlin, that Hitler plans to invade Holland and Belgium within the next few days. In fact the attack did not take place until the 10th of May, 1940. Both Oster and Canaris were arrested after the July Plot and hanged on April 9, 1945 at the Flossenb?rg concentration camp. ON DECEMBER 27, 1939, two German Army officers were killed by Poles during a scuffle in a Warsaw bar. The bar owner was immediately hanged and 120 Polish men and boys were selected at random and shot. FROM 1933 ONWARDS. The music of German Jewish composer, Mendelssohn, was banned in Germany. Soon after, all Jews were dismissed from symphony orchestras and from the Opera. Books published by Jewish authors were burned in April, 1934, and one of the leading newspapers, the 'Vossische Zeitung' was forced out of business because it was owned by the 'House of Ullstein' a Jewish firm. The same thing happened to the German Jewish newspaper, the 'Judische Rundschau'. YOUTH ALIYAH. In 1936, the 'Youth Aliyah' (Movement of Children) organization concerned itself with the emigration of Jewish children from Germany and Austria, to stay with British families who had agreed to care for them. The British Home Office had given permission for them to come to Britain, and many of them lived with families in Kent and in Scotland. They attended the special Youth Aliyah schools where they learned about their future lives in Palestine. LEBENSBORN SOCIETY was one of the most bizarre experiments of the SS. Sponsored by the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, his idea was to breed a race of super pure blooded Nordics. Tall, fair haired and blue eyed men and women, who were near perfect physical specimens, were chosen. Nursing homes were set up (mostly properties confiscated from Jews and maintained with the money from their bank accounts) to accommodate the mothers until their babies were born. They could then keep their SS babies or put the child up for adoption in a one hundred per cent Nazi non-Catholic family. The first home opened was at STEINHORING near Munich, on December 12, 1935. Later, others were established at WERNIGERODE, at ACHERN (Baden) at KLOSTERHEIDE (Berlin) at BAD POLZIN (Pomerania) at WEINERWALD (Vienna) at VEGIMONT (Belgium) and in February, 1944, the home at LAMORLAYE, near Paris, was opened and reserved for the children of German officers and French mothers. The number of children born in these homes is not known, as records were destroyed at the end of the war. However, one set of registers was found intact and showed that more than 2,000 births were registered at STEINHORING. THE KIDNAPPINGS. Initiated as early as 1940, a number of Nazi agencies became responsible for the selection of children in occupied countries whom they thought could be 'Germanized' by placing them in German homes. In Poland ,these children were simply kidnapped from their homes or torn from the arms of their mothers on the street, their only crime being that they had fair hair, blue eyes, or they just 'looked Aryan'. The main reception centres for selection and racial testing of these children were set up at POZNAN, PUSHKAU, BROCKAU, POTULICE and the special home in the monastery at KALISZ in Poland, and in the Lebensborn home at BAD POLZIN. Once in these homes the children were forbidden to speak Polish. In Poland, over 200,000 children were kidnapped by the SS and the NSV (the female counterpart of the SA, known as the Brown Sisters). Between 40 and 50 thousand children were kidnapped in Russia, and in the Hungarian Ukraine, another 50,000 were kidnapped. Children under six years of age were adopted out to German families who were told that their parents were killed in air raids. Children from seven to twelve were placed in special institutions such as State Boarding Schools, Reich Schools, in Napolas Schools (Nazi Political Training Schools) or put in the B.D.M. (League of German Girls). Children who failed to pass the selection tests were simply put on trains leaving for Kalisz or Auschwitz, to disappear without trace. After the war, the International Refugee Organization, searched for these children who were put up for adoption. Only between 15 and 20 per cent (about 25,000) were traced and returned to their original families. OSTRACIZED. In Norway there were around 10,000 children born of parents who were members of Vidkum Quisling's pro-Nazi party, and of love affairs between Norwegian girls and German soldiers. After the war, these children were rejected as so-called 'German kids', maltreated and despised, treated with contempt, in fact refugees in their own country. Considered social misfits, few have received a proper education. To relieve Norway of this embarrassing problem Sweden adopted a few hundred of these children and around 250 were sent to homes in Germany. Since the war, many have tried to get their Norwegian citizenship back but in each case their application has been refused. Up until 1963, any German male who wanted to visit Norway had first to prove that he had not been in the country between 1940 and 1945. In 1986, The League of Norwegian War Children Lebensborn was established. Through its efforts, many of these children have found their unknown fathers. Now, 50 years later, these war children only wish 'integration and acceptance with following freedom from anguish'. Today, the League maintains contact with around two hundred former NS children. About ten Lebensborn homes were in use in Norway and today these former homes are among the best tourist hotels. In 1940, work began in Britain on biological weapons. One idea put forward was for cattle-cake to be impregnated with Anthrax and dropped by RAF planes to infect Germany's livestock. This idea was adopted and about five million such cakes were made but were never used operationally. CAUGHT! During a routine inspection of the Japanese merchant vessel Asama Maru on January 21, 1940, in the Indian Ocean, officers of the British cruiser HMS Gloucester discovered twenty-one German civilians on board. All were highly qualified technicians being sent to Japan to service German surface raiders and U-boats soon to be operating in the Pacific area. The technicians were removed and interned as prisoners-of-war but as Britain was not at war with Japan at this time the Asama Maru was allowed to proceed to her destination. PROPOSAL. In a last desperate attempt to save France from capitulating and to keep her army fighting, Churchill and General De Gaule proposed that Britain and France become one united nation. In a telephone call from London on June 16, 1940, to the French Premier, Paul Reynaud, the message stated: ?The two Governments of the United Kingdom and the French Republic make the declaration of indissoluble union and unyielding resolution in their common defense of justice and freedom against subjection to a system which reduces mankind to a life of robots and slaves. The two Governments declare that France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations but one Franco-British Union. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain; every British subject will become a citizen of France. All the armed forces of Great Britain and France will be placed under the direction of a single War Cabinet?. The proposal caused an uproar in the French Cabinet of which Churchill wrote ?Rarely has so generous a proposal encountered such a hostile reception?. Without Cabinet support, Reynaud resigned and a new government was formed under Marshal P?in who immediately negotiated an armistice with Germany. (P?in, World War 1 hero of Verdun, was later tried and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. He died in 1951) HOME TO THE REICH. This was the motto on the party badge of the Luxembourg VDB party formed in July, 1940, after the German occupation. The VDB (Volksdeutsche Bewegung) was a movement whose avowed aim was to bring Luxembourg into partnership with Hitler's Third Reich. Founded by 62 year old Professor Damian Kratzenberg, son of a German father and Luxembourg mother, its membership grew to around 69,000 by the end of 1942. Most members were blackmailed into joining with the threat of losing their jobs if they refused. After the war, hundreds of Luxembourgers were brought before the courts on charges of collaboration with the enemy. Eight death sentences were actually carried out, among them Professor Kratzenberg. THE FIRST BOMBING RAID ON BERLIN was on August 25/26, 1940, just two days after the German Luftwaffe had mistakenly bombed London. Of the 81 RAF bombers taking part, 27 failed to locate the target and five were shot down. A year later, on August 8, 1941, the Russians bombed the city for the first time. In all, Berlin suffered 363 air raids during the war. AIR RAID CASUALTIES. In the six months from May to November, 1940, the RAF had killed 975 German civilians in air raids over Germany. At the same time, road accidents in Germany had killed 1,845 persons. German air raids on Britain for the same period killed around 15,000 people. CZECH BRIBERY. At the time of the Munich crises, Czechoslovakia was paying senior British politicians and journalists, the sum of 2,000 Pounds Sterling per year in return for a promise to topple Neville Chamberlain and his Government. GERMAN IMPORTS? Up till 1933, the German S,A. (Brownshirts) were equipped with revolvers and machine guns 'Made in USA'. BRITAIN'S FIRST CIVILIAN CASUALTIES REMEMBERED. On April 30, 1940, anti-aircraft fire shot down a German Heinkel 111 bomber while on a mine laying sortie off the east coast of England. The bomber crashed on to a house in Upper Victoria Road in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex killing the occupants, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Gill. They became the first civilians, of more than 60,000 killed in England during the war. Frederick and Dorothy Gill were buried in an unmarked grave in the Burrs Road Cemetery. In 1994, the grave site was discovered and a proper Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone was erected and dedicated on the 59th anniversary of their deaths. The German aircraft was actually on a mine laying operation over the North Sea, but the crew became disorientated due to heavy fog. Flying blindly until just before midnight the Heinkel crossed the coast near the radar station at Bawdsey in Suffolk. Anti-aircraft batteries along the coast at Bawdsey, Felixstowe and Harwich opened fire on the bomber. Ironically the Heinkel did not receive a direct hit, but it is thought that exploding shells underneath the aircraft caused considerable damage to the aircraft controls. Eyewitnesses have said that it does appear that the pilot tried desperately to find a landing area because the pilot released flares as it circled Clacton and Holland-on-Sea before flying out to sea again, then returning at a considerable lower altitude. The German bomber hit the chimney's of a number of houses before crashing in the house occupied by the Gill family. After the bomber crashed, the live mine that it was carrying exploded and this is what caused the widespread damage as shown below. BRITAIN'S NEXT CASUALTY. The third civilian killed in an air raid on Britain was twenty seven year old James Isbister, during a German raid on Scapa Flow in the Orkney's on July 24, 1940. On a previous raid on November 13, 1939 during an attack on the Shetland's, all that resulted was a large bomb crater in the countryside and the only fatality was a rabbit, which gave rise to the marching song 'Run Rabbit, Run' . There is some speculation that the 'Rabbit' was actually purchased from a local butcher and placed in the crater for effect....or a laugh! But this must be the worlds most famous dead rabbit. ON SEPTEMBER 24/25, 1940 the French Air Force (Vichy) attacked British military installations at Gibraltar, dropping 600 tons of bombs on the fortress. This was in reprisal for the British naval attack on French warships at Mers-el-Kabir on July 3, 1940 and for the attempted occupation of Dakar on September 23rd. TURNCOATS. After the debacle at Mers-el-Kabir and Dakar, the Vichy Foreign Minister, Pierre Laval, declared that the French WW1 air ace, Colonel Rene Fonck, had organized some 200 French pilots prepared to join Germany in the fight against Britain. TRAITORS? Some 8,000 Frenchmen donned the Wehrmacht uniform and formed the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS. They fought so well on the Eastern Front that many were awarded the Iron Cross for their bravery. After the war, when the survivors of the Charlemagne Division returned to their homeland, they were treated in a most brutal and inhumane fashion when the French Resistance extracted their revenge on all collaborators. INCOME Churchill's gross income from his writings alone were...1933...13,981 Pounds Sterling, 1934...?6,572, 1935...?13,505,. 1936...?16,321, 1937...?12,914. As Prime Minister he received ?10,000 per annum. FOR SALE. In March of 1938, Churchill was broke, his share account with his stockbrokers was ?18,000 in the red. He asked The Times to advertise his home 'Chartwell' for sale, inviting offers of ?20,000. A few days before the ad was to appear, Sir Henry Skrakosch, a South African gold mining millionaire, agreed to pay off his debts and Chartwell was withdrawn from the market. Skrakosch was a Jew, born in Czechoslovakia. CLOSE CALL. On December17, 1939, five ocean liners carrying 7,450 men of the First Canadian Division, arrived at Liverpool. Unknown to them, they had narrowly escaped what could have been a major sea disaster. The passenger liner Samaria , showing no lights, had passed right through the convoy unaware of the convoy's position. It struck the wireless masts of the escorting carrier HMS Furious on her port side, struck a glancing blow on the port side of the next ship astern, the liner Aquitania , then passed close down the starboard side of the third and fourth ships sailing in line ahead.. If the Samaria had collided head on with the Furious , the ships following would have all crashed into her. During the last three years of war, the Cunard liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth carried a total of 1,243,538 American and Canadian soldiers across the Atlantic. THE ALTMARK INCIDENT. The Altmark was a tanker and supply ship serving the German battleship 'Graf Spee'. Survivors from the nine ships sunk by the Graf Spee were now Prisoners of War on the Altmark. On 16th of February, 1940, after a hectic search by The Royal Navy, the Altmark was located in the Jossing Fjord on the southern tip of Norway where she had taken refuge from the pursuing British destroyers. In violation of international law, the British destroyer HMS Cossak entered the Fjord and with an armed party boarded the Altmark. After a brief skirmish the crew was overpowered and 299 British prisoners freed. Members of the Altmark?s crew were machine-gunned as they fled across the ice during the boarding. It was this incident that caused Hitler to accelerate his plans for his occupation of Norway, believing that the British would not respect Norwegian neutrality. IN ONE OF HIS FAMOUS SPEECHES Churchill asked America 'Give us the tools and we will finish the job'. But America wouldn't 'give' anything without payment. After two years of war, Roosevelt had drained Britain dry, stripping her of all her assets in the USA, including real estate and property. The British owned Viscose Company, worth ?125 million was liquidated, Britain receiving only ?87 million. Britain's ?1,924 million investments in Canada were sold off to pay for raw materials bought in the United States. To make sure that Roosevelt got his money, he dispatched the American cruiser, 'Louisville ' to the South African naval base of Simonstown to pick up forty two million Pounds worth of British gold, Britain's last negotiable asset, to help pay for American guns and ammunition. Not content with stripping Britain of her gold and assets, in return for 50 old World War 1 destroyers, (desperately needed by Britain as escort vessels) he demanded that Britain transfer all her scientific and technological secrets to the USA. Also, he demanded 99 year leases on the islands of Newfoundland, Jamaica, Trinidad and Bermuda for the setting up of American military and naval bases in case Britain should fall. (Of the 50 lend-lease destroyers supplied to Britain, 7 were lost during the war. After 1943, when no longer useful, eight were sent to Russia, while the others were manned by French, Polish and Norwegian crews) QUOTE. Lord Beaverbrook was later to exclaim 'The Japanese are our relentless enemies, and the Americans our un-relenting creditors'. LORD HAW HAW. American born William Joyce lived in England from 1921. In 1933 he joined the British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Mosley. Attracted by Hitler's ideology, he moved to Germany in 1939 and began broadcasting Nazi propaganda from a Berlin radio station. British troops dubbed him Lord Haw Haw after a statement by Professor Arthur Lloyd James of London University, an authority on English language pronunciation, who said that he thought some BBC announcers were too 'haw, haw' in their diction. William Joyce was convicted of treason at the Old Bailey in London and hanged on January 3, 1946. AMERICANS COME HOME. In May, 1940, the US Ambassador to London, Joseph Kennedy, urged the 4,000 or so Americans living in Britain to pack up and go home. Over seventy responded to this plea by joining the British Home Guard. Called the 1st.American Squadron of the Home Guard, it was led by General Wade H. Heyes. Kennedy was hostile to the whole idea, fearing that all would be shot as 'francs-tireurs' when the Germans occupied London. SANCTUARY. At the beginning of the war, many government and crowned heads of Europe sought refuge in Britain. By 1941, those that set up residence in the capital included Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Poland's former Prime Minister, Wladyslaw Sikorski, King Haakon of Norway, King Peter of Yugoslavia, King George 11 of Greece, President Benes of Czechoslovakia, Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, Prime Minister Pierlot of Belgium and Charles de Gaulle of France. Through the services of the BBC they were able to speak and encourage their people at home. S.O.E. Special Operations Executive, formed in July, 1940, on Churchill's orders to 'Set Europe Ablaze'. With headquarters at 64, Baker Street, London, its first recruits were originally from the armed forces but later both men and women were recruited from the civilian sector. Speaking a foreign language, especially French, was essential before being passed on to Military Intelligence for a security check. Training courses included Parachute and First Aid training at Ringwood airfield near Manchester followed by four weeks radio and cipher training. Physical fitness, small arms and map reading, were conducted in the Western Highlands of Scotland where all forms of Commando and clandestine warfare were also taught. Among many of its famous secret agents were Violet Szabo and Odette Sansom. The average survival time in the field was just three months. Of the 418 SOE agents sent to Europe, 118 failed to return. Only one plane, a Lysander of 161 squadron and its pilot, Newzealander F/O James Bathgate, were lost. CHUNGKING DISASTER. The worst tragedy to hit this Chinese town was in June, 1941. Situated at the junction of the Kialing and Yangtze rivers, the town of Chungking was repeatedly bombed by the Japanese. To shelter the inhabitants the local authorities built under the city the world's largest dugout shelter (estimated capacity: 30,000). During one air-raid, lasting over four hours, the ventilation system broke down and hundreds of people rushed outside to catch a breath of fresh air between raiding waves. A sudden alarm sent then rushing back clogging the shelter's narrow entrance. Those inside clawed and tore at each other in a mad frenzy as they tried to get out. The guards lost their heads and locked the milling mass inside and then fled. With the air cut off, those inside slowly suffocated. The first official count of the dead was put at 461. A week later the death toll finally amounted to around 4,000. KILLED ON WAY TO FUNERAL. On November 21, 1941 one of Germany's leading air aces, Oberst Werner Moelders, 1913-1941, was killed when the plane, an HE-111 bomber, in which he was a passenger, hit a factory chimney in fog and rain near Breslau while on his way to the state funeral of General Ernst Udet (1896-1941) Chief Air Inspector General of the Luftwaffe, who committed suicide on November 17, 1941. Moelders, who had achieved 115 kills, 68 of which were achieved in the western theater, was replaced by the fighter ace, Adolf Galland (103 kills) who retained the post until January, 1945. EDDIE CHAPMAN. A deserter from the Coldstream Guards in the 1930s he then turned to crime. A safecracker by profession and serving fourteen years in jail on Jersey in the Channel Islands, at that time under German occupation, he volunteered to spy for the Germans in England. He was trained at the Abwehr sabotage school at Nantes in France and then was parachuted into England on December 20, 1942, with a mission to blow up the DeHavilland aircraft factory at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, which was producing the new fighter-bomber, the Mosquito. After landing, he contacted British Intelligence who contrived a plan to blow up part of the factory not in use, giving the Germans the impression that the mission had succeeded. On returning to Jersey for more work, Eddie Chapman (Code Name 'ZigZag') was decorated with the German Iron Cross. After the war, Chapman was also given a British decoration, the only Englishman thus awarded! Later he set up a health farm and died aged 83 in 1997 leaving a wife and daughter. THE LAST EXECUTION in the Tower of London was on August 14, 1941. German spy, Josef Jakobs, was executed while seated tied to a chair, by an eight man firing squad from the Scots Guards. Jakobs had parachuted into Britain on January 31, 1941, and broke his leg on landing. He lay all night in a field until his cries for help were heard next morning. PETROL, PAY & WHISKY. In July, 1939 petrol in Britain was rationed to 200 miles per month. Brand names disappeared, only 'Pool' petrol was available at four shillings and two pence a gallon. In 1940, the manufacture of new cars was stopped, and in 1942, petrol for private use was not allowed. The average wage in Britain in 1939 was ?3 nine shillings for men and ?1 twelve shillings for women. For newly enlisted servicemen, the pay was two shillings a day! A bottle of whisky cost 13 shillings and sixpence. The price of gold was ?8 an ounce. To conserve wood the government requested all women to wear flat-heeled shoes. HERMANN'S QUOTE. On August 9, 1939, Hermann G?ring boasted about the strength of the German Luftwaffe. He said ' Not a single bomb will fall on the Ruhr. If an enemy plane reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Hermann G?ring, you can call me Meier'. QUOTE. On hearing of a proposal to fire-bomb the Black Forest, Britain's cabinet minister, Kingsley-Wood, said in September, 1938, 'Oh, we can't do that, that's private property, next you will be insisting that we bomb the Rhur!' THE FIRST U-BOAT CAPTURED. The first German U-Boat captured was the U-39 (Sept. 14, 1939). The British destroyers Firedrake, Faulkner, and the Foxhound , forced the U-39 to the surface with depth charges after the U-boat had fired two torpedoes at the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. The U-39 was damaged and sank after the crew was removed. MEIN KAMPF. The original title of Hitler's Mein Kampf was ''4 & 1/2 Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice''. His publisher, Max Amann, later changed the title to Mein Kampf (My Struggle). By 1939, the book had sold over 5 million copies, making Hitler a millionaire. Up to 1945, the book had a total printing of just over 10,000,000 copies. His official salary was 60,000 Marks per annum. In 1934, Hitler declared his income for 1933 as 1,232,355 Marks. Most of this was from royalties from his book. He also received a fraction of a cent for every postage stamp sold bearing his image. JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES. There were 6,034 Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany when Hitler assumed power in 1933. Between 1933 and 1935, a total of 5,911 Witnesses were arrested as 'Enemies of the State'. Forced to wear a purple armband they were considered traitors because they refused to sign a pledge of loyalty to the Third Reich. Over 2,000 died of ill treatment in the concentration camps. Of these, around 200 were executed. Under the Nazi dictatorship, Jehovah's Witnesses were among the first to be persecuted. On September 15, 1939, the first conscientious objector, August Dickman, a Jehova's Witness, who had refused military service, was publicly shot. This execution was supposed to set an example to others who would refuse to serve in the German armed forces. In May of that year, the first transport of prisoners to the Ravensbr?ck Concentration Camp was made up of female Jehova's Witnesses. HERMANN HOMMEL, uncle of Albert Speer, Hitler's personal architect, was once engaged to Anneliesse Henkell of the famous Champagne family. She later married Joachim von Ribbentrop who became German Ambassador to London. QUOTED BY HITLER. In 1939, Hitler said ' Whoever succeeds me must be sure to have an opening for a new war. In future peace treaties, we must therefore always leave open a few questions that will provide a pretext. That's Statesmanship!' FIRST BOMB DROPPED. The first bomb of the war to land on German soil was dropped on December 3, 1939. A Wellington bomber of 115 Squadron, attacking German shipping in the North Sea, suffered a 'hang up' when one of its bombs failed to drop. It fell off on the return trip over the island of Heligoland. RAF KILLS BRITISH WOMAN IN GERMANY. In the first British air attack on a mainland population center, 36 RAF planes bombed the rail yards of Monchen Gladbach on May 10, 1940. The raid killed one person... an Englishwoman. ON AUGUST 16, 1940, two German JU 88 bombers dropped their bombs on the RAF airfield at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, setting fire to 46 fully fueled parked Oxford trainers of No 2 Service Flying Training School. Six others were badly damaged as were 11 Hurricanes parked nearby. BOMBLOAD WAS 13 TONS OF LEAFLETS. The first night of the war (Sept.3, 1939) a force of ten Whitley bombers dropped thirteen tons of propaganda leaflets over Hamburg, Bremen and the Ruhr. On Sept.30, leaflet carrying balloons were launched from France by Britain's No 1 Balloon Unit. I.S.K. (Internationalen Sozialistischen Kampfbundes) Composed of ex-members of the German Socialist Party who were expelled from the Party and fled to England in 1928. In England, they formed their own Party, the ISK. It was led by Willi Eicher and from its ranks came many volunteers for secret service work in the Reich. GERMANS IN CUSTODY. In 1939, there were 302,535 Germans in protective custody in Germany for their political views. By the end of the war, over 800,000 Germans had spent time in prison or in a concentration camp. DEATH SENTENCES. Between 1933 and 1944, a total of 13,405 death sentences were passed in Germany. Of these, 11,881 were carried out. In the first few months of 1945 another 800 were executed, over half of them German nationals. By the end of the war there were 46 offenses that were punishable by death. THE MOTHERHOOD CROSS was awarded each year on the 12th of August (the birthday of Hitler's mother) to all German mothers of large families. The Motherhood Cross of Iron was given to women with four children, the Silver Cross to mothers of six, and the Gold Cross to a mother of eight. Hitler always acted as honorary godfather to the tenth child born to any German mother ( Mothers Cross in Gold and Diamonds) This was a continuation of the practice initiated by President Hindenburg. Hitler Youth organizations were expected to salute mothers wearing the Cross. By 1939 around three million German mothers had been so decorated by what the ordinary man in the street called the 'Order of the Rabbit' (Kaninchenorden) C.O.R.B. The (Children's Overseas Reception Board) established in June, 1940, successfully organized the evacuation of 1,530 children to Canada, 353 to South Africa, 577 to Australia, 202 to New Zealand and 838 to the USA. Within ten days of its opening, CORB received 211,000 applications. Disaster overtook them on September 17, 1940, when the ship, the 'City of Benares ' was torpedoed while on its way to Canada. Seventy seven children died in the lifeboats from exposure while awaiting rescue. VOLUNTEERS. When Russia attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, over 8,000 men and women in Britain offered their services to fight the Russians. Around 228 men of the British section of the International Volunteer Force was on its way to Finland when the armistice was signed on the 12th of March, 1940. They arrived at Lap on the 19th of March and by June, 1942, the last of the volunteers had left Finland for home. Thirteen men were left behind and became prisoners of war in Germany. Following the British ultimatum to end their conflict with Russia, the governments of Britain, Canada, New Zealand and India declared war on Finland, Hungary and Rumania. In Britain, 150 Finnish nationals were arrested, and in the USA six Finnish ships were seized and placed under protected custody. In their battle with the Soviets in 1939/40 the Finns suffered 24,923 killed, the Soviet forces, around 48,000 killed. THE ADOLF HITLER FUND. Steel Baron Gustav Krupp, proposed that all employers contribute a quarterly sum based on their payroll. Called the 'German Industry's Adolf Hitler Fund', it added many millions to Hitler's coffers. In the twelve years of his dictatorship Hitler disposed of over 305 million Reichsmarks. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was unable to stand trial for war crimes because of his senility and died at Bl?hnbach near Salzburg on January 16, 1950. However, his son Alfred was tried as a war criminal because large numbers of concentration camp inmates were used as slave labourers in the Krupp factories. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison but was released three years later in 1951 and allowed to return to his position as head of the Krupp Steel Works. THE BERGHOF. Three thousand two hundred and eighty one feet above Berchtesgaden, a lawyer named Winter from Buxtehude near Hamburg built the Bavarian style house called Haus Wachenfeld. (the maiden name of his wife was Wachenfeld). The house was rented to Hitler in 1928 for 100 marks per month. When he finally bought the property, after becoming Chancellor, it was shown on picture postcards as 'The little cottage of the People's Chancellor'. The architect Alois Delgado was called in to rebuild and enlarge the house which was then renamed 'The Berghof'. THE DEMISE OF THE BERGHOF. In the vicinity of Hitler's chalet, houses were built for G?ring, Goebbels and Bormann, and a special road was constructed from Berchtesgaden to the Berghof. On April 25, 1945, a force of 318 RAF Lancaster bombers unloaded a total of 1,232 tons of bombs on the area scoring three direct hits on one wing of the Berghof and damaged nearly every other building. Of the hundreds of workers and residents who had taken shelter in the underground bunkers only six were killed. Then the vandals, looters and souvenir hunters moved in to ransack the place. Even the badly damaged carpets were cut up into strips and carried away. Shortly before the American troops arrived on May 4, the SS set fire to the house with gasoline. At 5.05 PM on 30th of April, 1952, the ruins of the Berghof were blown sky-high on orders of the Bavarian government. The ruins were removed and the area reforested. The former site is now a level sports field and golf course with a new ultra modern hotel built on the former site of G?ring's house. THE EAGLE'S NEST. This masterpiece of construction was built on the summit of the 6,017 ft wooded Kehlstein mountain high above Berchtesgaden. Officially known as the Kehlsteinhaus, the hexagon shaped building was built as a conference and entertainment center for visiting diplomats at the request of Martin Bormann and presented to Hitler on his 50th birthday. The name 'Eagle's Nest' was coined by Francois Poncet the French ambassador after a visit there in 1938. It was never known as a Teahouse but today gets confused with the actual teahouse Hitler used, the Mooslahnerkopf Teehaus, situated not far from his residence, the Berghof. HITLER'S FATHER, ALIOS SCHICKELGRUBER (1837-1903) was born in Strones, Austria. He was the illegitimate son of a Johann Georg Hiedler and his peasant girl friend, Anna Marie Schickelgruber. In May 1842, they became man and wife but Alois continued to use his mother's name. He was brought up by his father's brother Johann Hiedler who, in 1876, took steps to legitimize Alois who then started to use the name Hitler. A witness at Alois's legitimization was a relative by the name of Johann H?ttler and it is possible that Alois used the name after the parish priest confused the two names Hiedler and H?ttler and wrote Hitler in the registry. By this time Alios was thirty-nine years old. After his mother died his father married for the third time on January 7, 1885, to his second cousin, Klara Poelzl (1860-1908) twenty-three years younger than he. Alios and Klara Hitler became the parents of Adolf Hitler. Klara bore her husband five children, three of whom died young: Gustav 1885-1887, Ida 1886-1888, Adolf 1889-1945, Edmund 1894-1900 and Paula 1896-1960. WILHELM KUBE, Gauleiter of Brandenburg, anti-Semite and deputy in the Prussian State Assembly, was removed from office in 1936 for suggesting that Frau Buch, Martin Borman's mother-in-law, was half Jewish. During the war he became District Commissioner in the Occupied Eastern Territories where, in 1943, he was murdered by his Russian housekeeper, Yelena Mazanik, who had placed a bomb under his bed. Mazanik was a member of the Belorussian partisan movement. The reprisals were swift and horrific, whole villages being wiped out and around 1,000 males were rounded up and either shot or hanged. POLAND. After the fall of Poland, Himmler issued a top secret document to all eastern Gauleiters. In it he proposed that 'racially valuable people from Poland be removed and Germanized'. The masses were to become a 'leaderless nation of common labour'. They were not to be taught anything more than simple arithmetic and how to write their own name. They could earn enough for simple living needs but the lowest German peasant must still be ten percent better off than any Pole. They could keep their Catholic priests so they would for ever remain 'dull and stupid'. All intellectuals were to be exterminated. It was Hitler's intention to obliterate all traces of Polish history and culture. Even towns and villages were renamed in German. MERCY KILLINGS. The first discussion on 'mercy killing' took place in the Kasino Hotel in Zoppot, near Danzig, where Hitler was celebrating his victory over Poland. At this time about a quarter of a million hospital beds were being used in Germany's mental institutions, beds that were more urgently needed for the treatment of wounded soldiers. Hitler confided to his personal surgeon, Dr. Karl Brandt, that half of the permanently hospitalized insane patients could be put away, adding that 'under no circumstances was the real cause of death to be divulged to the next of kin'. DEPORTEES. Around four hundred thousand Polish women were deported to Germany to work in factories or placed in German households as servants. Holland and Belgium hold the sad distinction in Western Europe of having the smallest percentage of deportees to return to their homeland. Out of 126,000 Dutch deportees only 11,000 were repatriated. Of the 25,631 Jews deported from Belgium only 1,244 survived the war. One hundred and forty died fighting with the partisans. GYPSIES. Another group singled out for deportation were the Gypsies. Defined as non-Aryan, as were the Jews, both groups were forbidden to marry Germans. Those already married to Germans were exempted from deportation but were sterilized as were their children when they reached the age of twelve. Before the war, 1,500 Gypsies were rounded up in Germany and sent to Dachau, another 440 Gypsy women were sent to Ravensbruck. In 1940, around 30,000 Gypsies were deported to Poland and in Austria, around 4,300 were transported to the death camp at Chelmno and gassed. In 1942, a special camp for Gypsies was constructed in Auschwitz called Section B11e. During World War 11 about 231,800 Gypsies were put to death. W.A.S.P. (WOMES AIRFORCE SERVICE PILOT) Originally named 'Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron', an organization responsible for ferrying planes from the factories to airfields across the USA and Canada. Disbanded on 20th December,1944, after having delivered 12,650 planes of 77 different types. Of the 1,074 women who graduated, thirty eight lost their lives during the war (this was equal to one fatality in every 16,000 hours of flying) and eleven were killed while training. These brave women, who gave their lives for their country, were deemed ineligible for burial with military honours. They were given a second class funeral without the American flag. (Britain had a similar female ferry organization). W.A.A.F. WOMENS AUXILIARY AIR FORCE. The women's branch of the RAF was formed on June 28, 1939. Their tasks were; general duties, office clerks, operation room plotters, radar operators, telephonists etc. To the control room they became known as "Boarding School Girls" while many pilots referred to them as the "Beauty Chorus". In September of that year it comprised 230 officers and 7,460 airwomen. By 1945 its ranks numbered 170,000. During the war 187 WAAFS were killed and four listed as missing. HIDING BRITAIN'S TREASURES. Between August 23 and September 2, 1939, Britain's art treasures and other historical artifacts were removed from the National Gallery and from Hampton Court and transported to Wales for safe keeping. They were eventually housed, 1,750 feet above sea level, in the tunnels of the slate quarry at Manod, near Ffestiniog in North Wales. Atmosphere was maintained at a steady 65 degrees F. with 40 degrees of humidity. All were returned safely to London in 1945. But the best kept secret of all, was the destination of the Crown Jewels. To this day, the hiding place has never been revealed. Britain's gold reserves, valued at 7 billion dollars, were taken to Canada in the cruiser HMS Emerald and stored in the vaults of Montreal's banks. LUFTWAFFE BOMBS ITS OWN COUNTRY. On the 10th of May, 1940 three Luftwaffe planes, HE 111s, bombed the German town of Freiburg by mistake, killing 57 people. The crews thought they were over a French town. The fragments of the bombs found later, confirmed the bombs as German, but German propaganda claimed the raid to be a terror attack by the French Airforce, justifying subsequent bombing of French towns. JEWISH REFUGEES FOR CUBA? On May 13, 1939 the 16,732 ton German luxury liner St. Louis set sail from Hamburg with 937 Jewish refugees on board. They believed they had bought visas to enter Cuba. Arriving in Havana they were told that their visas were worthless, in fact, a confidence trick of some Cuban politicians out to make money. Not allowed to disembark, quite a few passengers committed suicide rather than return to Germany. The ship then set sail for Miami in the hope that the US would accept them. This was not to be, the opposition too great as the country already had two million unemployed. Negotiations then took place between Britain, France, Holland and Belgium. England agreed to take 287, France-224, Holland-181, and Belgium-214. On June 17, the St. Louis docked in Antwerp and disembarkation began. It marked not the end of their journey but the beginning of an even more tragic episode in their lives. Those accepted by Britain survived the war but those who settled in France, Holland and Belgium, were overtaken by the Holocaust when Germany invaded these countries. By the summer of 1941 only 167,245 Jews remained in Germany. (The St. Louis survived the war and in 1946 was converted to a floating hospital ship at Hamburg). JEWISH REFUGEES FOR JAPAN. After the German takeover of Poland close to 15,000 Polish Jews trudged the wet and muddy roads of Poland in an attempt to escape the Nazi holocaust and reach the relative safety of Vilna in the Baltic state of Lithuania. When Russia formally annexed Lithuania in June, these desperate refugees were once again trapped. Russia didn't want its Jews, Britain was unwilling to let them into Palestine, in fact the rest of the world turned its back on these unfortunate people. In Lithuania the Soviets tried to create a communist utopia and anyone wanting to leave was considered mad or a traitor to the cause. Those who applied for permission to leave ended up in the slave labour camps of Siberia. Finally, when exit permits were issued the Intourist Office demanded 200 American dollars from each for their trip across Russia to Japan. The first group of 72 Jews were then on their way to the Russian port of Vladivostok. From there it would be a short hop, skip and jump to Japan where it was hoped a visa for the USA would be issued. After crossing the Sea of Japan their ship docked at Tsuruga in Japan, the only country willing to welcome them. As more refugees began to arrive they found accommodation in Kobe and in Japanese controlled Shanghai where a one square mile area was set aside for them. This in effect was the creation of the first Jewish Ghetto in Asia. Before the harsh winter of 1943/44 ended around 300 Jews had died from Typhus and other diseases. Worse was to come. A Japanese radio station within the camp was targeted by by US bombers. The raid killed 250 people including 31 Jews. THE FUGU PLAN. As the war situation for Japan grew more hopeless, the big fear was what would the Japanese response be to losing the war. Japan had signed a pact of neutrality with Germany and Italy and Germany was demanding that Japan stop treating the Jews with kid gloves. Would they all be executed as a final show of loyalty to Nazi Germany? It was then decided to reincarnate the Fugu Plan formulated in 1939 to settle the Jews in a new Jewish state in Manchukuo in Manchuria where the Japanese would co-operate with the Jews to build a better society after the war. With Japan's surrender, the Shanghai Jews were lucky to survive the war. In 1948, the state of Israel was created and here the last remaining Jews of Shanghai were resettled. KIDNAP PLANS Believing that the Duke of Windsor was pro-German, Hitler sent his SS Intelligence Chief, Walter Schellenberg, to Spain where the Duke was on holiday. His mission, to lure the Duke back to Germany with a promise of 50 million Swiss francs. If this failed, he was to be kidnapped. Schellenberg, thinking that the whole operation was too difficult, hesitated. In the meantime, Britain got wind of the plot and had the Duke removed to a more secure haven in the Bahamas, where he spent the rest of the war. DISASTER OFF NORWAY. Only a week after the war broke out, the British submarine Oxley was patrolling off the coast of Norway along with her sister ship the Triton. Somehow the Oxley had sailed into the sector patrolled by Triton. The Commander of the Triton , Lt. Cdmr. Steel, sighted an unidentified submarine on the surface and when challenged received no reply. Assuming the other submarine to be hostile, he ordered two torpedoes to be fired. The unidentified submarine disappeared, leaving two survivors swimming towards the Triton. One can only imagine the shock the Triton's crew experienced when they pulled the Oxley's Commander, Lt. Cdmr. Bowerman and one other survivor, Able Seaman Gluckes, out of the water. They happened to be standing on the bridge when the torpedo hit. Fifty-three of Oxley's crew perished. Apparently the Oxley's signal answering apparatus had malfunctioned and failed to answer in time. LILI MARLENE. The famous tune was composed by Norbert Schultz in only twenty minutes in 1938. Originally called 'Song of the Sentry' it was first sung by Lale Andersen, a little known Swedish singer, and then forgotten until 1941. German troops had taken over Belgrade radio station and found they had only a few records to play to their troops in the Balkans. One was 'Lili Marlene' and it was played twice nightly for the next eighteen months. The broadcasts were picked up by Rommel's troops in North Africa and also by the British 8th Army. A British lyric writer, Tommy O'Connor, then gave the song a more sentimental wording for the British troops. Norbert Schultz survived the war and was congratulated by Montgomery at an El Alemein reunion. He died on October 16, 2002, age 91, at Bad T?lz, Bavaria. Poor Lale Andersen spent much of the war in a concentration camp because she was overheard to say 'All I want is to get out of this horrible country'. The poem 'Song of the Sentry' was first written by Hans Leip of Hamburg in 1923. In the latter part of the war the Germans had their own version.... An der Laterne, vor der Reichskanzlie, H?en unsere Bonzen, der F?hrer ist dabai , Da wollen wir bieeinander stehn, Wir wollen unsern F?hrer sehen, Wie einst am ersten Mai, Wie einst am ersten Mai. MARRIAGE LOAN (Ehestanddarlehen). In Germany, financial aid was given to encourage young couples to marry and set up house and help raise the birth-rate. Between August 1933 and the end of 1936, a total of 694,367 marriages were financed. From these marriages, 485,285 children were born. THE CAPTURE OF "THE SEAL". The only British submarine to be captured at sea was the HMS Seal. On May 5, 1940, she was damaged while laying mines in the Kattegat (between Denmark and Sweden). Attempting to reach Sweden the badly damaged HMS Seal was spotted by two Arado seaplanes which proceeded to drop bombs around the wallowing submarine. Realizing that the ship would inevitably be sunk, the captain, Lt. Cmdr. Lonsdale, surrendered by waving a white sheet from the conning tower. One of the Arados then landed on the water and took the captain on board. A radio message to a nearby German fishing trawler on submarine patrol , the Franken, soon had the entire crew of HMS Seal on board as POWs. INTERNED. When the French 45th Army Corps was encircled by General Guderian's armour in France in 1940, the Corps, consisting of 45,000 men was forced to seek refuge in neutral Switzerland. The 12,000 Poles who had enlisted in the Corps, remained interned until the end of the war. All the others, including 29,000 Frenchmen and Moroccans were repatriated in 1941 under an agreement between Germany and Vichy France. SECOND CHANCE. Just before the 'Fall of France' around 400 German Air Force personnel were held in French prisoner-of-war camps. The majority were pilots who had been shot down by British fighters. Churchill was concerned at the prospect of their being liberated by the German armies as they advanced through northern France. He requested that they be sent immediately to a POW camp in England. The transfer was never carried out owing to the speed of German advance, and so the Luftwaffe pilots were liberated to become available once more, this time for the forthcoming 'Battle of Britain'. Later, Churchill remarked, "We had to shoot them down a second time". GERMAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER. The building of the first German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was begun in the Deutsche Werk shipyard at Kiel on Dec 28, 1936. With a displacement of 28,000 tons, it was launched on Dec. 8, 1938 by Countess Hella von Brandenstein-Zeppelin in honour of her father. Further construction of the ship was suspended in 1939 and again in 1942 because of the failure to produce an acceptable combat aircraft to operate from its deck. Work on the ship progressed slowly throughout the war but it never saw action. At the end of the war the ship was scuttled in the Baltic Sea to prevent it falling into the hands of the Russians. However, the Russians raised the ship and loaded it with war booty. It was being towed to a Russian port in 1947 when it capsized and sank because of an overloaded flight deck!. THE FIRST MAJOR WARSHIP sunk by air attack during wartime was the German light cruiser Konigsberg. Skuas from HMS Ark Royal flew 330 miles on April 9, 1940, from the Naval Air Station at Hatston in the Orkney's to dive bomb the ship lying at Bergen. SNOWBOUND (April, 1940). Norwegian pilots faced a dilemma when over two feet of snow fell on their airstrip near Trondheim. The advancing Germans were only hours away and here they were stuck, impossible to take off and escape. Nearby, a large herd of Reindeer was being driven to their spring pastures in the mountains by their Lapp keepers. Bribed by a bottle or two of alcohol, the herdsmen agreed to drive the Reindeer down the airstrip thus trampling the snow into a hard compact surface, enough to enable the planes to take off. LOSSES. The Norwegian Campaign cost Britain 4,400 killed. Norway lost 1,335 men and the French and Polish troops together lost 530. German casualties were 1,317 killed. GUN ACCIDENTS. Copenhagen, in German occupied Denmark, was a favourite spot for German officers on R & R. In an effort to 'get their own back' members of a Danish resistance group opened up an Arts and Craft shop specializing in scroll work. They offered to personalize the officers side weapons by fitting ivory handles to their Lugers and cover the gun with artful designs and scroll work. Some were customized as gifts for fellow officers serving on other fronts. Trade was brisk, but what was not explained was that the barrels were being modified by reducing the diameter inside and weakening the breach of the gun which when fired for the first time would blow up in the officers face. Of course these guns were never fired while the officer was on leave and any 'accidents' at the front were put down to 'casualties of war'. According to Harry Jensen, the only survivor of the resistance group, hundreds of these Lugers were modified this way before they closed shop. CODENAME FELIX. The German code name for the capture of Gibraltar , the Canary Island s and the Cape Verde Islands. Issued on Directive No.18 by Hitler on November 12, 1940, it was never put into operation, partly because of the refusal of Spain to join the Axis. Spain was in no position to fight another war, the civil war of 1936-39 had left the country a shambles, her cities in ruins. NEUTRAL IRELAND. Although a member of the British Commonwealth, Ireland (Eire) remained neutral throughout the war. The Prime Minister, Eamonn De Valera, refused repeated requests by Britain for the use of port facilities at Cobh, Berehaven and Lough Swilly on the west coast of Ireland during the Battle of the Atlantic, ports that Britain considered essential to her survival. (These ports were closed to the Royal Navy in 1939 just as Britain was preparing to go to war). In December, 1941, Hitler had considered invading Ireland and using it as a platform for the assault on the British mainland. If this had proceeded it would have marked the end for Britain. It was Admiral Raeder who changed Hitler's mind, pointing out that in the face of Britain's huge naval superiority it was quite out of the question. The help De Valera gave the Germans was to refuse Britain the use of airfields and submarine bases in Ireland which would have set back the U-boat operations in the Atlantic. The use of the Berehaven port for instance would have enabled our anti-submarine escorts to operate a further 180 miles out into the Atlantic. How many ships and seamen's lives this would have saved is a matter of conjecture. Enlistment in the British Army however, was popular and around 42,000 Irishmen joined the armed forces or went to sea in the Merchant Navy. Eight won the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award. These servicemen, when returning home on leave had to wear civilian clothes to avoid any political embarrassment should they come home in a British uniform. Thousands more went to England to work in British munitions factories during the war. Whenever an Irishman died in battle he was reported in De Valera's press as having died while working in Britain. THE BOMBING OF BELFAST. Northern Ireland was totally unprepared for enemy air attack during the initial stages of the war. Who on earth would want to bomb Belfast? was the thought running through the minds of its citizens at the time. However, this complacency was shattered when late on April 15, 1941, over 150 German bombers rained bombs, incendiaries and parachute mines onto the streets of the city. Panic reigned as thousands of people fled to the surrounding countryside inundating small towns and villages with terrified refugees. At 1.30AM on the 16th, John MacDermott, Northern Ireland's Minister of Public Security, then did something that no government minister had ever done before nor would ever do again, he telephoned Dublin in neutral Ireland and pleaded for help. Fifteen minutes later the city's central telephone exchange received a direct hit which served all local and trunk lines out of Belfast. Back in Dublin, in a technical breach of neutrality, de Valera immediately ordered thirteen fire trucks to be sent north to help fight the devastating fires that spread around the city. Dead animals and human corpses lay sprawled all over the place. It is doubtful whether the Luftwaffe intended to target the civilian population. The first target flares were dropped to illuminate the harbour and factory areas but had drifted in a light wind across the city and away from the intended targets. This seems to have been the case when on Sunday May 4/5 a total of 204 enemy bombers returned to finish the job on the docks and industrial area. In the first raid 745 persons were killed, in the second raid 164 persons lost their lives. This was worse than the much publicized raid on Coventry where 554 lives were lost. DUNKIRK (May 26, 1940). The seven day evacuation from Dunkirk begins. A fleet of 861 ships and small boats set sail from Britain in a desperate attempt to save the troops trapped on the beach. Within ten days a total of 224,585 British soldiers were picked up and brought home. At the same time, 112,546 French and Belgian troops were also saved. Unfortunately, about 40,000 French soldiers had to be left behind, causing a certain amount of bitterness among the troops. A total of 231 rescue boats and six destroyers were sunk during the operation. The RAF Fighter Command lost 106 planes. During the evacuation from Dunkirk, the big mistake the Germans made was the use of the Stuka dive bomber. If the Luftwaffe had used horizontal bombing instead of dive bombing, the losses to the British Expeditionary Force would have been far greater. CHURCHILL SPEECH? After the Dunkirk evacuation, Churchill delivered his memorable speech to the House of Commons. Later in the day the speech was broadcast by the BBC to the rest of the world. What the listeners didn't know was that the speech was read by Norman Shelley who impersonated Churchill's voice. Winston had said "I am rather busy, get an actor to do it". WORLD RECORD. Owing to a navigational error, on October 17, 1940, two British destroyers, HMS Fame and HMS Ashanti, ran aground in fog and drizzle at Whilburn on the river Tyne. HMS Fame caught fire as fuel pipes in the engine room ruptured. Thinking that the invasion had started, defence lookout posts on shore raised the alarm and at 5am National Fire Service crews and Volunteer Life Brigade units from South Shields and Sunderland arrived at the scene. In about five hours a total of 272 crewmen from the two ships were brought ashore by Breeches Buoy thus establishing an all-time world life-saving record for a rescue of this type. The two destroyers were eventually refloated, repaired and returned to service. GRAND THEFT. The loot the Germans transported back to the Reich from Holland was staggering.....13,786 metal working machines..... 2,729 textile machines.....18,098 electric motors.....358 printing presses.....31 dredgers.....over 7,000 barges.....90,000 lengths of railway line and a half million sleepers.....over 60,000 motor cars.....40,000 trucks and 25,000 motor bikes. 154,647 kilos of Dutch gold disappeared into the Reichsbank's safes in Berlin. On top of this, 320,000 cows, 472,036 pigs and 114,220 horses were stolen. A total of 346 works of art were stolen including 27 Rembrants, 12 Hals, 47 Steens, 40 Rubens and 12 Van Goghs. Most of these paintings were recovered after the war. FIRE BRIGADE TRAGEDY. April 20th,1941, was Hitler's birthday and the Luftwaffe celebrated the event by dropping 1,000 tons of bombs on London. Many schools in the city were standing empty, the children already evacuated to the country. The Old Palace School in St. Leonards Street, Poplar, was now sub-station 24U of the London Auxiliary Fire Service. The playground was ideal for training and the parking of fire appliances. On the night of April 20, fire service crews were standing by in anticipation of a heavy raid on the Capital. At precisely 1.53am, a land mine, dropped from a Luftwaffe bomber, scored a direct hit on the school. Thirty two firemen and two fire women were killed. The bodies of the two firewomen, mother of three Winifred Peters and twenty one year old Hilda Dupree, on duty in the watch room, were never found. This was the largest loss of Fire Brigade personnel ever suffered in the history of the service in Britain. SURPRISE! SURPRISE! Australia's 'invasion' of Portuguese East Timor (now Timor Luru Sae) on December 16, 1941, was the first time in history that Australia violated another country's neutrality. Aussie troops (Sparrow Force) invaded Dutch West Timor and the 2/2nd Independent Company landed on the shore near Dili, the capital of Portuguese East Timor and so pre-empt a Japanese takeover. They proceeded immediately to surround the airport. Well armed, and expecting to do battle with the Portuguese military, they approached the administration building, guns at the ready. Suddenly the main door opened and out stepped a civilian Portuguese official who tipped his hat and in perfect English said "Good afternoon". Dumbfounded, the troops stared at each other in disbelief. Not a shot had been fired. Unknown to Sparrow Force , the Australian and Portuguese governments had previously agreed to a peaceful 'invasion' of the island to help protect the inhabitants from a possible Japanese invasion which did in fact take place two months later on February 20th,1942. AWARD. The German 'Grand Cross of the Golden Eagle' was presented to Henry Ford, the American car manufacturer, by a German diplomat in the USA on July 30, 1938, on behalf of Adolf Hitler. In his book, 'Entnazifizierung in Bayern' the German author, Niethammer, suggests that the failure of the Americans to bomb the Ford car plant outside Cologne, was all a part of a capitalist plot. In that same year, the senior executive of the General Motors German branch received the same award. Both firms had invested heavily in Germany. In 1929, General Motors had bought up 80% of the German automobile firm of Opel. ISOLATIONISTS. Members of the 'America First' party held a rally on the 28th of April, 1941, in Chicago. In the speeches, mention of Winston Churchill's name drew boos from the 10,000 person audience. A speech by Colonel Charles Lindbergh, the respected US isolationist, was interrupted by applause when he said that England was in a desperate situation, her shipping losses serious, 'her cities devastated by bombs'. Two months later, the city council of Charlotte, NC, changed the name of Lindbergh Drive to Avon Terrace. DOCUMENTS. For his 50th birthday, several leading industrialists presented Hitler with a case containing the original scores of some of Richard Wagners music. They had paid nearly a million marks for the collection. Towards the end of the war, Frau Winifred Wagner asked Hitler to transfer these manuscripts to Bayreuth. Hitler refused, saying he had placed them in a far safer place. The manuscripts involved included the scores of ' Die Feen', ' Die Liebesverbot', ' Reinzi ', 'Das Reingold' , 'Die Valkure', and the orchestral sketch of ' Der Fliegende Hollander'. These lost documents have never been found. JEWS IN GERMANY. When Frederick William von Hohenzollern (1620-1688) was elected Margrave of Brandenburg, he found no Jewish permanent settlement in his state. In 1650, he invited some Polish Jews to conduct trade in Berlin, and in 1671, he welcomed fifty wealthy Jews from Vienna to settle in the capital. So began the Berlin Jewish community. In 1933, the Jewish population of Germany was 503,000. Of these, 170,000 lived in Berlin, 25% were living on charity. At the war's end, only 23,000 were living in Germany. About 100,000 German Jews perished in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Names and last known addresses of around 128,000 German Jews, victims of the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, are listed in the German Gedenkbuch (Memorial Book) in the Federal Archives in Berlin. (previously the Bundesarchives at Koblenz) Sources differ as to the exact number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. The latest statistics put the number at 5,433,900 (about 41 %) of which just over 1.2 million died in Auschwitz. Official estimates are, year by year, gradually being revised downwards. (The World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation in Paris now states that only 1,485,292 Jews died from all causes during WW11 and that there were not even six million Jews in Europe at that time. Professor Paul Rassinier, the French historian, who spent some time in concentration camps, utterly refutes the myth of six million dead and says that Jewish casualties could not have exceeded 1.2 million. Raul Hilberg, the Jewish historian, estimates an even lower figure of 896,892). The country that suffered most, was Poland, it had a pre-war Jewish population of around 3.2 million, some 2.9 million of whom were annihilated (88%). Of Europe's Jewish children, alive in 1939, only 11 percent survived the war, an estimated one and a half million being murdered. Of all the Nazi occupied countries in WW11, the percentage of Jews saved in Poland was the smallest. The attitude of the vast majority of the Polish population towards Jews was violently anti-Semitic, surpassed only by their vehemently anti-German hatred. Even the Polish police joined the Nazis in rounding up Jews for deportation to the death camps. It must be said however that around 50,000 Jews were saved by Poles who helped hide them at the risk of their own lives. The "Council for Aid to Jews' provided false Aryan documents and gave refuge to many of the persecuted Jews. Unfortunetly, many of these 'aid workers' along with their entire families, paid with their lives. (In all, Poland suffered 4,900,000 dead in WW11) CONCENTRATION CAMPS. The term was first used by the Spanish to describe their camps set up in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The first Concentration Camp, for the sole purpose of the physical destruction of prisoners was set up in Holmogor by the Bolsheviks in 1921. The idea in German minds that the British invented concentration camps was fostered by Dr.Joseph Goebbels during the 1930s. Propaganda picture postcards in 1938 of genuine Russian camps, were re-labeled for issue as 'Genuine British Concentration Camps in South Africa'. The British camps in South Africa, set up during the two and a half year long Boer War, were for internment purposes only, but the lack of proper supervision, negligence and poor hygiene, gave the camps a bad name and caused the deaths of over 30,000 inmates, mostly from outbreaks of typhoid and measles. EXTERMINATION CAMPS. The first camp in which Jews had been gassed was Chelmno in Poland. The first gassings took place in December, 1941. This was the first camp mentioned by name in the West. A train had left Holland on November 20 carrying 726 deportees, on the 24th, another train with 709 Jews departed and on November 30 a total of 826 Jews were deported. All the Dutch people knew was that the trains were heading east for Poland. The word 'Auschwitz' was unheard of in the West until April 18, 1943 when an eye-witness report reached London. However this report was never made public. In 1942, the Allies knew of the wholesale massacres taking place in camps such as Chelmno, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor and Majdanek but the horror of Auschwitz was still to emerge. Conferences were arranged, telephone calls and telegrams exchanged, discussions took place and notes were passed back and forth but nothing was actually done and all this time the deportations and killings went on and on. Even in December, 1943, when the airfield at Foggia in Southern Italy was captured, thus bringing the camps within range of Allied bombers (a round trip of just under1,300 miles) the camp at Auschwitz was still not identified as the destination of the deportee transports. On May 31, 1944, the complex at Monovitz was photographed for the second time and Auschwitz itself was photographed but the row upon row of prisoners huts, which was holding around 52,000 prisoners, failed to register as an extermination camp in the minds of Allied intelligence services. On April 7, 1944, two Jewish prisoners, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, escaped from the camp and headed for Slovakia where they reached the village of Skalite on Friday, April 21st. Next morning they travelled to Zilina where they contacted the Jewish Agency. Their report, together with the report of two other escapees, Peter Mordowicz and Arnost Rosin, eventually reached London and on June 18 brief details were heard on the radio during a broadcast from the BBC. This alerted the outside world to the reality of Auschwitz. The first photographs to reach the west was of corpses scattered around the Majdanek camp. These were taken by the Red Army on January 3, 1945. Auschwitz had still to be liberated. SAVED. Many Jewish lives were saved by an anti-circumcision operation performed by some caring doctors. Dr. Josef Jaksy, a Czechoslovakian urologist, made a small incision on the patients penis and then issued a certificate that stated that they had recently been circumcised for purely medical reasons. Dr. Feliks Kanabus, a Polish surgeon, with the help of two other doctors, pooled their knowledge and performed around 140 operations by attaching skin from other parts of the body to the penis in order to hide the circumcision. DEPORTED. Between 1942 and 1944, a total of 25,257 Jews were shipped out of Belgium on twenty eight train convoys. Among them were 5,430 children under the age of sixteen, the youngest only thirty-nine days old. At the end of the war only 1,207 were still alive when the concentration camps in Poland were liberated. A further 5,034 managed to escape across the border to seek refuge in France. Unfortunately these were rounded up after the fall of France in 1940 and deported, via Drancy, to Auschwitz. Of these, only 317 survived. BERGEN-BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP. On April 15, 1945, the camp was liberated by British troops. Scattered around the grounds were around 10,000 decaying corpses which the troops had to bury using bulldozers. Some of the survivors who had been transferred to Belsen from Auschwitz, stated that living conditions here were far superior to those in Auschwitz. But this was soon to change as trains bringing thousands of inmates from camps in the east began to arrive in Belsen. Conditions became catastrophic during the final months of the war as transports bringing food supplies to the camp were increasingly being destroyed on the roads and railways by Allied bombers. Gross overcrowding, inadequate supplies of food, water and medicines and an uncontrollable outbreak of typhus caused the deaths of about 37,000 inmates up to the day of liberation. In the few weeks after the British takeover another 13,000 died in spite of all the care taken to preserve life. But in striking contrast to the distorted press coverage at the time the Belsen Concentration Camp was not an extermination facility. There was no deliberate intention by the Germans to starve the prisoners to death at Belsen (officially designated as a convalescence camp). No gas chambers were discovered and the crematorium consisted of only one furnace in which to cremate the dead. The Camp's Commandant, Josef Kramer, along with his chief physician Dr Fritz Cline, quarantined the camp and did everything in their power to prevent the catastrophe, even appealing to higher authority for more transport to fetch vegetables and other foodstuffs from the countryside. In spite of their efforts both Kramer and Cline were executed after being found guilty at the Belsen War Crimes Trial. (In June, 1945, the whole camp had to be burned down) LEGAL RESIDENTS. By 1942 there were only 9,150 foreign Jews legally resident in Switzerland, 980 more than in 1931. Many of these were the richer Jews who had fled Germany leaving behind their shops, factories and other properties. These were quickly snapped up, dirt cheap, by unscrupulous Swiss businessmen who made their fortunes out of Jewish miseries. THE CABINET WAR ROOMS. The nerve center of British planning and conduct of the war was the War Cabinet Rooms. Situated at Storey's Gate in London, close to the houses of Parliament, the Foreign Office and Downing Street. Its location was one of the best kept secrets of the war. The War Rooms were once the cellars of the Board of Education building and covered an area of six acres with around 150 rooms including sleeping quarters, canteens and dining rooms. The roof was reinforced with tram lines and a six foot thick layer of cement. Churchill had doubts that it could withstand a direct hit from a 500lb bomb. At the height of the war, over 600 people worked in the War Rooms which were abandoned on August 15, 1945 as no longer required. Only six rooms were kept, preserved exactly as they were, as a memorial to those dark days of 1939/45. They are now open to the public. BOMBING BY THE RAF. The first of the 4,000lb bombs dropped on German soil was on the city of Emden on March 31, 1940, when two Wellington bombers raided the city. Each bomb carried a parachute to retard its descent. In 1940, 14,369 tons of bombs were dropped on Germany by the R.A.F. In 1941, 34,954 tons and in 1944, 579,384 tons. DRESS SENSE. The bombing of German cities had a curious effect on how people dressed. Afraid that their best clothes could be lost or burned, German women preferred to wear them on all occasions. In the air-raid shelters particularly, it seemed that every women owned a fur coat!. ICE CREAM SHIP. The war's most unusual ship was commissioned in 1945 at a cost of around one million dollars. It was the US Navy's 'Ice Cream Barge' the world's first floating ice cream parlor. It's sole responsibility was to produce ice cream for US sailors in the Pacific region. The barge crew pumped out around 1,500 gallons every hour! The concrete hulled vessel had no engine of its own but was towed around by tugs and other ships. A second barge, also in the ice cream business, and under the command of a Major Charles Zeigler, was anchored off Naha. U.S. PILOTS. Seven American volunteer pilots fought alongside the RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain. One, P/O William Fiske, died of wounds on August 17, 1940. (Could P/O Fiske have been the first American casualty of World War 11?) Only one of the other six, P/O Haviland, survived the war. During the Battle of Britain , the German Luftwaffe lost 1,882 planes, the RAF lost 1,265 planes. In all, 537 pilots were lost to Fighter Command, 718 pilots to Bomber Command and 280 pilots were lost to Coastal Command. EAGLE SQUADRONS. Many American pilots served in the Royal Air Force and in order to circumvent the US Neutrality Act they assumed Canadian or South African nationality. They formed the Eagle Squadrons, approved by the British Air Ministry in September, 1940, and operated within the RAF Fighter Command. The first Eagle Squadron was No. 71 Squadron, formed with Hurricanes at RAF Station Kirton-in-Lindsay, Lincolnshire. The ultimate total of US pilots thus serving numbered 243 with additional squadrons Nos.121 and 133 operating from Kirton-in-Lindsay and Coltishall respectively. After the US entry into the war the Eagle Squadrons were transferred into the US 8th. Air Force. INVASION. As of Sept.16, 1940, in spite of RAF bombing, the build-up of invasion barges in the German held Channel ports continued to increase. Reconnaissance photos showed 600 barges at Antwerp, 230 at Boulogne, 266 at Calais, 220 at Dunkirk, 205 at Le Havre and 200 at Ostend. This was in anticipation of a second attempt at an invasion of Great Britain in 1941 after the winter had subsided. SPITFIRE v HURRICANE. Contrary to popular belief, it was the Hurricane, not the Spitfire, that saved Britain during the dark days of 1940. The turn-around time (re-arm, refuel etc.) for the Spitfire was 26 minutes. That of the Hurricane, only 9 minutes from down to up again. During the Battle of Britain the time spent on the ground was crucial and as one fitter/mechanic of No.145 Squadron quipped: "If we had nothing but Spits we would have lost the fight in 1940". The Spitfire was an all metal fighter, slightly faster, had a faster rate of climb and had a higher ceiling, while the Hurricane had a fabric covered fuselage, was quicker to repair and withstood more punishment. With the for's and against's of both fighters they came out about even. The majority of German planes shot down during the four month period were destroyed by Hurricanes. For much of the Battle of Britain, the Spitfires went after the German BF 109s at the higher altitudes, while the Hurricanes attacked the bomber formations flying at lower altitudes. This cost the enemy a total of 551 pilots killed or taken prisoner. During the war a total of 14,231 Hurricanes and 20,334 Spitfires were produced. The famous Rolls-Royce 'Merlin' engine evolved through 88 separate marks and was fitted in around 70,000 Allied aircraft during the six years of war. FUEDING. During the Battle of Britain, a bitter feud developed between 12 Group Commander Leigh-Mallory and the New Zealand Commander of 11 Fighter Group, Keith Park. At the height of the battle, Leigh-Mallory failed to send his forces to the aid of Park. Park never forgave him for this. When Leigh-Mallory was made Commander of Allied Forces after D-Day the American Air Force Commander General Spatz, made it clear that under no circumstances would he serve under him. SPONSORED FIGHTERS. Many Spitfires used in the Battle of Britain were sponsored by private companies and individuals. Money raised in cities, towns and villages was used to buy a Spitfire at a cost of ?5,000 each. They bore names such as Dogfighter bought by a well known Kennel Club, Dorothy was bought by women whose name was Dorothy, Gingerbread by red-haired men and women, Unshackled by donations from POWs and so on. The largest donation received came from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands who donated ?215,000 to purchase an entire squadron of 43 Spitfires. INTO THE FIRE. In February, 1941, men of the Australian 22nd Brigade (8th Division) boarded the liner Queen Mary anchored off Toronga Park Zoo in Sydney. Embarking more troops when the ship called at Fremantle in Western Australia, the ship left harbour and turned north. It was then that the troops were told that their destination was Singapore, not Europe where all the action was. To be used as garrison troops in this outpost of Empire was a bitter disappointment for the 5,750 soldiers on board. Two weeks later Japanese forces attacked Singapore and the garrison was forced to surrender. In the defence of the city, 1,789 Australian soldiers died. The fighting in Malaya and including Singapore, cost the Australians 2,178 killed and 1,306 wounded. Two days after the surrender 14,792 Australians and some 35,000 British troops found themselves behind the walls of Changi Prison as prisoners of war. SHELTER TRAGEDY. At 11.12pm on Saturday, May 3rd 1941, the air raid sirens sounded in North Shields, a town on England's north-east coast. A lone German bomber dropped four bombs on the town, two exploding harmlessly, the third hitting a private house killing the two occupants. The fourth bomb made a direct hit on the three-storey Wilkinson's Lemonade Factory, the basement of which was used as a communal air raid shelter and on this night was crammed with 192 men, women and children. The top three storyes, filled with heavy factory machinery, collapsed onto the basement trapping the occupants and killing 102 persons including 36 children under the age of 16. Three others died later in hospital bringing the final death toll in the shelter to 105. On September 8, 1940, a direct hit on an air-raid shelter in the Peabody Housing Estate in Whitechapel, London, killed 78 persons. THE FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT SHIP to be sunk by the Japanese was the 2,140 ton steamship Cnythea Olson on passage from Tacoma to Honolulu. Sunk on December 7, 1941. The crew of 33 and two military men were all lost. LUCKY HIT. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Hawaiian DC-3 airliner, coming in to land, was hit by a Japanese tracer bullet and set on fire. A minute later, the plane was hit by another bullet which hit the valve of a fire extinguisher, thus putting out the fire!. PEARL HARBOR. The unprovoked attack on the American naval base in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, launched the Pacific War. Casualties were 2,403 Americans killed, 1,178 wounded. Four battleships were sunk and five damaged. All told, 188 planes were destroyed and 162 damaged. The Japanese attacking force consisted of 31 ships with 253 aircraft. Japanese losses were 29 planes downed and 5 midget submarines lost. In total, 64 deaths. (The first American casualty of the Pacific War was seaman Julius Ellsberry from Birmingham, Alabama, who was killed during the attack) On January 26, 1942, a Board of Inquiry found the Commander-in-Chief US Fleet, Admiral Kimmel and the Commander-in-Chief Hawaiian Department, General Short, guilty of dereliction of duty. Both were dismissed. SUICIDE? Stalin's son, Jakov Dzhugashvili, a 2nd Lieutenant in the artillery corps, was captured on May 16th, 1942 and interned in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where he was later shot while trying to escape. (Some sources say he committed suicide). In 1943, an attempt was made by the Germans to exchange Jakov for Field Marshal Paulus who was captured after the fall of Stalingrad. The request was refused by Stalin. Although he grieved for his son he is quoted as saying 'I will not exchange a private for a Field Marshal'. Over two million Soviet prisoners of war were liberated by the Red Army. All were to suffer at the hands of Stalin who always maintained that Russia had no POWs, all were considered traitors to the Motherland for allowing themselves to be captured. PLANE CRASH. The son of Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, was killed in an air crash on August 7, 1941. Twenty-three year old Bruno, second son of the Fascist leader, died when the four-engined bomber he was testing, crashed near San Guisto Airport at Pisa. Mussolini flew at once to the Santa Chiara Hospital and sat beside his son's body for hours before talking to the five wounded survivors. ASPIDASTRA. The codename given to the powerful 500KW transmitter which was purchased from America for use in broadcasting propaganda on the German controlled wave-lengths. It cost Britain ?111,801, 4 shillings and 10 pence to buy the apparatus from the RCA factory in Camden, New Jersey. Another sum of ?16,000 was spent to prepare the site and erect the masts near Crowborough in Essex. The transmitter first became