Lesser known details of WW2 part four

Richard Perlia, Luftwaffe test pilot

Perlia, Richard — Hubschraubermuseum Bueckeburg

How old is he? 103 years?

 

Kenneth D. Williams - Murder Inc. - WWII POW

The Saga of Murder, Inc.

A German Propaganda Victory
by Kenneth Daniel Williams - 351st Bomb Group

 

Hitler had assured Dönitz on 24 September 1943 and again on 26 February 1944 that he would support any measures to accelerate production of the new U-boats, in April 1944 he suddenly granted fighter production top priority.This confusion in armaments production also contributed to delays.

Hitler, Dönitz and the Baltic Sea by Howard Grier

 

Aircraft can also be used for minesweeping. For instance, during World War II, fifteen British Vickers Wellington bombers were modified to carry a large magnetic induction loop and an electrical generator. The Directional Wireless Installation, (DWI) a cover story for the true purpose of the magnetic loop) was used successfully on May 10, 1940 to sweep a path for the escape of the Dutch Royal Family to the UK.

Minesweeper (ship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

 

I can not find a picture of a real Ju-52 mine sweeper but here is a picture of a model. Must have been exciting when a mine went off at sea !

Google Image Result for http://www.collectorsaircraft.com/Photos/AA36902_JU.52.jpg

 

Churchill typically smoked between eight and 10 cigars per day, although he did not constantly smoke his cigars but often allowed them to burn out so that he could chew on them instead. In this manner of consumption, the cigars often became mauled and frayed. To address this problem, Churchill devised what he called a "bellybando," which was a strip of brownish paper with a little glue on one end. To prevent the cigar from becoming excessively moist and to keep it from fraying, he would wrap the bellybando around the end.

The bellybandos also made it somewhat easier for Churchill to smoke so many cigars every day, because they limited direct contact with the tobacco and, therewith, Churchill's intake of nicotine. Churchill smoked his cigars down to about the last one or two inches, and, later in life, when he spent much of his time in the country at Chartwell, his staff would save all of the ends of his cigars in order to give them to one of the gardeners at Chartwell, a Mr. Kearnes, who liked to break them up and smoke them in his pipe.

Cigar Aficionado | People Profile | Winston Churchill

 

The V Campaign

The BBC engaged in overt propaganda with its extraordinarily successful V-For-Victory campaign. The Belgian Service started it, exhorting listeners to adopt the V-sign as a rallying emblem. Soon the whole of the European Service had joined in, and with them audiences across the Continent. Placards and posters and chalked Vs appeared everywhere. The morse code for V – three dots and a dash – was replicated by the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It soon became the European Service's call sign and interval sign. Across Occupied Europe people hummed and whistled the tune, and in Britain the V made its way onto badges and other items. Prime Minister Churchill made the sign his trademark.

At first the Nazis were enraged by the campaign but, in the end, recognising that they couldn't win, they adopted it as their own, putting a V on the Eiffel Tower, and renaming one of Prague's main thoroughfares Victoria Street.

BBC - The BBC Story - The BBC at War

 

Gas Vans

 

AL CAPONE'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WAR EFFORT

Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Secret Service wanted to acquire an armored car for President Roosevelt. The only one available on such short notice was one that had been owned by Al Capone. Capone was in jail at the time. Source: "Washington Goes to War" by David Brinkley

World War Trivia and Cartoons - Riebel-Roque Publishing Company

 

Here's a fun fact some of the specialized SS Waffen Nazis actually had a form of self-heating M.R.E.! It was put to trial before being deemed too expensive and unreliable as in some of the tests the packet would explode scalding the soldier! STill fun tot hink about thoughj!

 

On 12th jan 1943 ( During the Stalingrad siege ) as Göring celebrated his 50th Birthday he decided to invest 2 million Reichs Marks to Karinhalle´s enlargement.

From a document on Göring´s life by Jörg Müllner ( 2006 )

It´s good to request total war from the people when you yourself do the opposite...

 

"Irving Berlin's World War II musical This Is the Army toured Great Britain just as Prime Minister Winston Churchill was reading war dispatches by the brilliant Oxford don Isaiah Berlin [head of the Special Survey Section of the British Embassy in Washington].

"Churchill asked for a meeting. A communications snafu sent the luncheon invitation to the wrong 'I. Berlin,' and Irving showed up at Number 10. The PM addressed him as Professor and grilled him about the progress of the war.

"Bewildered, the composer answered in monosyllables, until a frustrated Churchill gave up and turned to the guest on his left. Later, he commented: 'Berlin's like most bureaucrats. Wonderful on paper, but disappointing when you meet them face to face.'"

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

 

Wrong time to invest in real estate as well.

 

Airwar over Denmark by Søren C. Flensted. Air War over Denmark

Approximately 1025 flyers from Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Holland, Norway and Poland and 135 American flyers have rested or now rest in Denmark, the first body being found washed ashore on 17/11-1939.
Most of the Americans were brought out of the country in April / May 1948 and transferred to Belgium and later to the United States.

The first German aircraft to come down in Denmark was on 7/10 1939, and on 8/10 1939 the first German flyers were picked up by a Danish ship.

The first German flyer to be washed ashore in Denmark was on 26/11 1938.

Approximately 9700 German military personnel today rest in Denmark of which approximately 7300 died during the last six month of the war. Only a minority of which were from the German Luftwaffe.
Most of the deceased Luftwaffe personnel died due to training accidents and only very few due to actual air combat.

 

Colin 'Hoppy' Hodgkinson, 1920 - 1996

Famous Hodkinsons and Hodgkinsons

In the summer of 1938 Hodgkinson spent an idyllic holiday riding with the French Cavalry School at Saumur, in the Loire, before being accepted for pilot training as a midshipman in the Fleet Air Arm. After training aboard the aircraft carrier Courageous, he had gone solo and completed 20 hours in a Tiger Moth biplane trainer when he collided with another aircraft. At the time, accompanied by his instructor, Hodgkinson was practicing blind flying on instruments with a hood over his head. The Tiger crashed from 800ft at Gravesend, killing the instructor and so grievously injuring Hodgkinson that his legs were amputated.

Inspired by the example of the legless fighter ace Douglas Bader, became an accomplished fighter pilot in the RAF. Although he called himself "the poor man's Bader" Hodgkinson had no cause to cast himself as an understudy. Such was his courage that he succeeded despite bouts of claustrophobia and an admitted fear of flying and combat. He also had a horror of being forced to ditch in the Channel and stuffed his hollow legs with ping-pong balls, hoping that they would help to keep him afloat. Once, at 30,000 ft, he took violent evasive action before realising that what he had taken to be a clatter of gunfire was the noise of ping-pong balls exploding at that altitude.

In November, during a high altitude weather reconnaissance his oxygen supply failed, and he crashed into a French field. Badly mangled and minus one of his tin legs he was rescued from the blazing Spitfire by two farm workers. He was reunited with them in 1983, when they presented him with a part of his aircraft's propeller.

After 10 months Flt-Lt Hodgkinson was repatriated, being deemed of no further use to his country. Yet such was his irrepressible spirit, that after being mended again by McIndoe, he resumed flying, ending the war with a ferry unit at Filton, Bristol.

 

I have not heard of him ! Thank you for the story. I can't think what a bunch of ping pong balls exploding would sound like. Must have felt like he was hit in the leg stumps too.

 

Ian Fenwick was a noted cartoonist for Punch and other magazines.

Ian Fenwick was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Leicestershire Yeomanry in 1937. After serving with the Royal Artillery and King’s Royal Rifle Corps, he joined the Special Air Service, having gained his wings with the Army Air Corps.

He commanded “D” Squadron, 1st S.A.S., during operation ‘Gain’, parachuted into France on the night of 16th/17th June 1944, with six men. Working on foot some thirty to fifty miles south of Paris, in the gap between the Loire and the Seine, they proceeded to blow up railway lines and, working with the French Resistance, Fenwick’s party derailed many trains. This was all occurring too near the Gestapo’s Paris stamping ground to be long tolerable, and finally a double agent enabled the Gestapo to raid Fenwick’s base.

On the 7th August, 1944, the base was surrounded by a large enemy force. The base party was successful in breaking out, while Ian Fenwick was out on an operational patrol at the time. On his way back he received garbled reports which must have indicated that most of his party had been captured. “It was typical of him” wrote another officer, “that his first thought should be for the safety of his men. It was in an attempt to relieve them immediately that, after successfully attacking an enemy column, he was ambushed in his jeep and killed instantaneously. Thus died a very gallant Englishman.”

Lot Information

Also on " The last Ditch" by David Lampe

 

Medical-personnel awarded the Knight´s cross

Dr. Rudolf Jäger, Oberarzt, Truppenarzt i. d. Fallschirmjäger‑Sturmabteilung"Koch" (Einsatz Eben‑Emael), RK (Ritterkreuz) am 15. Mai 1940.

Dr. Werner Wischhausen, Oberfeldarzt, Divisionsarzt der 22. ID u. Kdr. der Sanitätsabt. 22, RK am 26. Mai 1940.

Dr. Heinrich Neumann, Oberstabsarzt, Truppenarzt in einem Fallschirmjäger‑Sturmregiment, RK am 21. August 1941.

Dr. Horst Wilke, Oberarzt d. Res., Truppenarzt im III./I.R 120 (mot), RK am 25. Juli 1942.

Willi Pieper, Sanitätsunteroffizier in der Stabskompanie (Pionierzug) Grenadierregiment (GR) 478, RK am 8. April 1943; gefallen am 13. Juli 1943 als Sanitätsfeldwebel im Raum Kursk-Orel.

Franz Schmitz, Sanitäts‑Uffz. i. d. 3./GR 279, RK am 13. September 1943.

Rudolf Bäcker, Sanitätsfeldwebel i. Stab d. II./GR 36, RK am 18. September 1943.

Dr. Hans Joachim Schulz‑Merkel, Stabsarzt, Truppenarzt i. d. I./Panzerregiment 35, RK am 23. Dezember 1943.

Manfred Jordan, Sanitäts‑Uffz., Zugführer i.d. 4./Panzergrenadierregiment 66, RK am 11. Januar 1944; gefallen am 10. Mai 1944 als Sanitätsfeldwebel im Osten.

Karl Nowotnik, Sanitätsfeldwebel i. Stab/Füsilierbataillon 212, RK am 15.März 1944.

Dr. Walter Keup, Assistenzarzt, Bataillonsarzt im I./GR 202, RK am 21. März 1944.

Dr. Friedrich Salamon, Stabsarzt, Abteilungsarzt im II./Panzergrenadierregiment 26, RK am 20. Juli 1944.

Dr. Ernst Gadermann, Stabsarzt, Truppenarzt im III./Stukageschwader 2 „Immelmann", RK am 3. September 1944.

Dr. Heinrich Hüls, Oberarzt, Hilfsarzt im II./Panzerregiment 11, RK am 21. September 1944 (posthum); gefallen am 16. August 1944 bei Raseinen.

Dr. Carl Langemeyer, Stabsarzt, Kdr. der 1. Fallschirm‑Sanitätsabteilung, RK am 18. November 1944.

 

The Autoscritcher and the Superscritcher

The Autoscritcher and the Superscritcher

At the US Army Signal Security Agency during World War II, two systems were built to assist cryptanalysts in breaking messages enciphered on Enigma-type machines. Called the Autoscritcher, the first machine used relay technology. The final system, the Superscritcher, was fully electronic and contained about 3,500 vacuum tubes. Both machines operated successfully. The system approach in both machines was the same, but differed from that of the "Bombe" mechanical machines in use to do a similar job. The Superscritcher proved the practicality of electronic digital technology for computing applications. It showed, however, that a more flexible architecture was needed to enable the solving of more than one class of problems.

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Madame X

Used thousands of telephone relays to attack the three-wheeled Enigma, more relays than the telephone exchange for a town of 18,000 people. It nonetheless proved very slow after its completion in 1943 and was used mostly as a research machine. Plans for a four-wheeled version of the machine were scrapped because it would have needed another five hundred thousand relays, then in short supply. The Superscritcher, a more advanced design that used vacuum tubes and electronics rather than relays, wasn´t ready until after the war.

From " The secret in building 26" by DeBrosse and Burke

 

Spitfire and diving ( 1940 )

Rolls-Royce Merlin engine would accept every challenge except one: a sudden dive.

Negative-g made the Merlin cough twice. The first power loss was a "weak cut", little more than a hesitation, quickly followed by what engineers called a "rich cut", lasting about one and a half seconds. What pilots called it can easily be imagined. In combat, one and a half seconds is ample time to be killed.

From "Invasion,1940" by Derek Robinson