Some Random WW2 Facts

Yewen · 11 Dec 2006 at 12:54

They are random and most are not true if you read through and do a bit of research.

It is mostly rubbish someone has thought up, Germany being able to bomb the USA is a load of rubbish to put it politely, if they had a heavy bomber then why did they not use it in Europe, oh wait its because it was a concept.

Going by those facts you could also add that the Nazi's had an atomic bomb, although only the infrastructure to start building a test version.

2billion it cost the USA to fund the Manhattan Project and countless manhours by thousands of people. The Germans could not hope to do such a project during wartime.

Im surprised that one is not mentioned actually, would have thought it as a much better one than some of the rubbish there!

Samtheman1k · 11 Dec 2006 at 12:57

Yewen said:
2billion it cost the USA to fund the Manhattan Project and countless manhours by thousands of people. The Germans could not hope to do such a project during wartime.

But surely Germany was developing an Atomic bomb, but kept getting setbacks, such as the bombing of the Norwegian heavy water plant by Norwegian commandos? I don't think that the US had such a problem with terrorism in those days

do_ron_ron · 11 Dec 2006 at 12:58

philstanbridge said:
I think the majority of those are true - I know the statement about the Koreans in Normandy was factually based. I think I've got a photograph somewhere here showing captured Koreans in German uniform.

I dont know for sure about the Waffen SS statement though - although it could be true - a lot of Austrian/Swiss/Dutch were part of the SS.

Very interesting find there Zip thanks!

Some of the best Waffen SS troops were Muslims from Yugoslavia. They were so good Himmler forbade any form of descrimination against them on pain of death.

TbirdX · 11 Dec 2006 at 12:58

Toxicseagull said:
you can argue the the world war started during the mancurian crisis (sp?)

so could be true.

i can add another one...

the first plane a spitfire shot down was a hurricane.

On that basis you could argue that WW2 started when man started walking upright.

Toxicseagull · 11 Dec 2006 at 12:59

well the Me-264 had a combat range of 6000km. unloaded it had a range of 15000km.

but it never flew and never went past design and prototyping.

Stolly · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:01

The bit about the airborne troops is tosh. The German Fallschirmjäger that dropped on Crete and were used earlier in Belguim were members of the Luftwaffe.

The Luftwaffe did include conventional troops though, including the Herman Goering panzer division

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landespolizeigruppe_General_Goering#Panzer_Division_-_Sicily_-_Italy

The Germans had three armies in effect, indicative of the division of effort that caused their downfall. People like Goering and Himmler were seemingly as interested in building their own empires as they were in Germany itself.

robmiller · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:05

philstanbridge said:
I dont know for sure about the Waffen SS statement though - although it could be true - a lot of Austrian/Swiss/Dutch were part of the SS.

There were loads of Norwegians and Danes too, as well as some Swedes; they were all volunteers (obviously, since Sweden was neutral). Read up on the SS divisions Wiking and Nordland, it's pretty interesting.

Anewbe4u · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:05

I take back what I said, it wont be interesting if these are confirmed.

You're ruining it all for me!

Stolly · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:06

Oh the bit about the US General being killed by the USAAF is true, even if a higher ranking man died later on.

It was during one of the Normandy breakout battles. They were using strategic bombers in a tactical role and one group dropped short killing hundreds of US troops. That was only a few percent of the total tonnage dropped on that day, which gives you some idea of the hell being rained down in the "right" area.

Samtheman1k · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:12

Stolly said:
Oh the bit about the US General being killed by the USAAF is true, even if a higher ranking man died later on.

Then the statement

The highest ranking American killed was Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps.

is not true. It may well be that Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair was killed, but he wasn't the highest ranking officer to of died in WW2.

Yewen · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:37

Samtheman1k said:
Then the statement

is not true. It may well be that Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair was killed, but he wasn't the highest ranking officer to of died in WW2.

Yeh, it defeats the point somewhat.

A John Smith will have died probably, but its the same thing that it makes the fact useless unless it is correct!

Good read, just would not quote any of them in a serious sense as they containt far to little information and nothing to back them up.

Even the pictures could be something else quite easily.

do_ron_ron · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:37

robmiller said:
There were loads of Norwegians and Danes too, as well as some Swedes; they were all volunteers (obviously, since Sweden was neutral). Read up on the SS divisions Wiking and Nordland, it's pretty interesting.

Even some British recruited from POW camps

Stolly · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:46

Samtheman1k said:
Then the statement

is not true. It may well be that Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair was killed, but he wasn't the highest ranking officer to of died in WW2.

Sorry, wasn't making myself clear, I meant true in the sense that he was a general as was killed by the USAAF, not the part about him being the highest rank to die.

That bit is apparently wrong, i don't know either way so if someone says so then all i can do is believe them

Sorry for the confusion

robmiller · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:48

do_ron_ron said:
Even some British recruited from POW camps

And some British volunteers too, sadly

Stolly · 11 Dec 2006 at 13:55

Little known fact is that many of the "German" troops defending Hitlers bunker in the last days of the Berlin battle were in fact French troops from the SS Charlemagne division.

Many of the survivors committed suicide rather than be captured. Pretty desperate situation. A lot of them were not Nazis per se, but anti-communist.

Toxicseagull · 11 Dec 2006 at 14:45

indeed, there are pictures of a fez SS "hat" floating around somewhere on a history forum i used to visit. countrymen from all nations joined the SS

tbird, that could be said about most human activities. and if i was to take it literally then no it couldnt. as there was no nations so a declaration of war which would start a war as it is defined could not exist. however it is debatable that the war that was known as WW2 happened when japan attempted a imperial empire. it all depends on peoples individual views.

billabong · 11 Dec 2006 at 14:47

do_ron_ron said:
Some of the best Waffen SS troops were Muslims from Yugoslavia. They were so good Himmler forbade any form of descrimination against them on pain of death.

Just a bit more info on these guys. The SS unit in question was known as the 13 'Handzar' SS Division, known for wearing fez's with the skulls and crossbones insignia. They mainly fought in and around Bosnia in anti-partisan operations and I believe they were never sent out to any other fronts.

They had some notable successes though they were probably far from the best. Another SS division the 7th Prinz Eugen SS Division were one of the main Axis SS formations in Yugoslavia, made up with a lot of ethnic germans from the region, and were a very effective and feared formation.

Other countries with SS formations also included the Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia, who I believe mainly fought against the Russians.

SCM · 11 Dec 2006 at 15:11

Yewen said:
Going by those facts you could also add that the Nazi's had an atomic bomb, although only the infrastructure to start building a test version.

2billion it cost the USA to fund the Manhattan Project and countless manhours by thousands of people. The Germans could not hope to do such a project during wartime.

They did however have a working nuclear reactor or near enough one during the war, saw a programme about it on the history channel. So in one way they were close to one nuclear solution in power but for the bomb they thought they needed huge amounts of uranium and were nowhere near a bomb at any stage.

In fact the Americans captured most of the German nuclear scientists and during taping of their bugged quarters found out they were useless in regards to making a bomb. So they let them all go

SCM

WIBSBOT · 11 Dec 2006 at 15:12

An accidental off-loading of bombs by a German pilot over London, changed the course of the war - (watched Battle of Britain last night

)

robmiller · 11 Dec 2006 at 15:15

SCM said:
In fact the Americans captured most of the German nuclear scientists and during taping of their bugged quarters found out they were useless in regards to making a bomb. So they let them all go

That's because the Russians captured the ones that did work—including the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics.