35 Amazing Facts about World War II (Part II) | Amazing Facts 4U
- In 1935, British engineer Robert Watson-Watt was working on a “death ray” that would destroy enemy aircraft using radio waves. His “death ray” amazingly evolved into radar or “radio detection and ranging”.
- The US Military was ranked amazing 17th (in terms of size) before WWII began. Romania was 16th.
- After the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt searched for a bulletproof car. However, because government regulation prohibited spending more than $750 to buy a car, the only one they could find was Al Capone’s limo, which had been seized by the Treasury Department after he was arrested for tax evasion.
- Large, inflatable barrage balloons were in fact used to protect major towns and cities in Britain from air raids. The balloons were launched before a raid and trailed a network of steel cables beneath them. Bombers had to fly high to avoid becoming tangled in the cables, thus reducing their accuracy.
- The Messerschmitt BF-109E was produced in larger numbers than any other aircraft in World War II. The amazing fact is that Germany made nearly 36,000 of them.
- Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945 while Japan surrendered on 2 September 1945 ending WWII when Japan signed a surrender agreement on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay after droppings of atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki respectively on the 6th and 9th of August 1945.
- During WWII, penicillin was recycled and extracted from the urine of soldiers already on the antibiotics.
- During WWII, Pilots would intercept V-1 flying bombs also known as the Buzz Bomb, and tip them over with their wingtips causing them to crash.
- Coconut juice or water inside not only is sterile but has the same electrolytic balance as human blood, which enabled medics in the Pacific Theater in World War II to use it as an emergency substitute for plasma.
- During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies in fact killed the only elephant of the Berlin Zoo.
- There were American soldiers during World War II, who used fake tanks and pre-recorded sounds to deceive the Nazis into thinking their army was bigger than it actually was. They were called the ‘Ghost Army’.
- During World War II, A woman slipped and fell at the top of the stairs of Bethnal Green tube station in London. It was being used as a bomb shelter. Amazingly the resulting domino effect killed 176 people.
- SS Wien of Austria was sunk in 1918 during World War I. It was raised again, salvaged, refitted, and returned to service as SS Po. It was sunk again in 1941 during World War II.
- The Taj Mahal was in fact covered with a huge scaffold during WWII to make it look like a stockpile of Bamboos and misguide any Japanese bombers.
- During WWII, there was a secret program used by American forces to disguise plastic explosives as flour. It was such a good disguise that even baked goods could be made with it, which could then be used to blow things up.
- Night Witches were the members of an all-female bomber regiment in WWII Russia. These pilots would turn off their engines, glide, and bomb German targets to avoid being heard. They dropped 3,000 tons of bombs over German lines and were exceptionally good at evading enemy planes.
- Switzerland claimed neutrality during WWII and therefore thousands of people deposited their hard-earned money in Switzerland. When the depositors died, the relatives were denied any access to their funds, funds that the banks continued to make interest off. They also funneled hundreds of millions into Nazi Germany.
- During WWII, Britain shipped most of its gold reserves and foreign securities to Canada in crates labeled as “Fish”. They were stored for years in an office building in downtown Montreal, where about 5000 people worked throughout the war without having a clue about what was hidden in their basement.
- The fact is the USA firebombed Tokyo during WWII resulting in 100,000 deaths, which was more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
- It’s amazing that because all factories were being used to support the war by manufacturing supplies, United States was only able to manufacture 139 cars during World War II.
- Fritz Haber, a German chemist created a process of producing fertilizer that makes about half of the world’s food today. He also created chlorine gas in WWI. After his death, what he created to be a pesticide was used in WW2 gas chambers.
- During WWII three bombs hit a single church in Malta. Two of them just bounced off and did not explode. The last one pierced the church roof, landing among a congregation of 300, but didn’t explode.
- Pooli, the American cat was a World War II veteran, who earned three service ribbons and four battle stars.
- During World War II, American pilot, Alan Magee fell 20,000 feet without a parachute before smashing through the glass roof of a train station. Amazingly he survived and lived to 82.
- During World War II, a Russian pilot, Alexey Maresyev was shot down over Nazi Germany. He dragged himself 18 days to Soviet territory and had to have his legs amputated. Later, he mastered the use of prosthetic devices and returned to flying combat missions.
- WWII Canadian soldier, Leo Major, singlehandedly captured about 93 Nazis in the Netherlands. He also later singlehandedly captured the town of Zwolle, also in the Netherlands from the Germans. It’s amazing that he was blind in one eye all along.
- Adrian Carton de Wiart, a British officer who fought in the Boer War, WWI & II, was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear, survived a plane crash, tunneled out of a POW camp, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor wouldn’t amputate them.
- Roza Shanina was a female Soviet sniper who fought in WWII and achieved 54 confirmed hits. Allied newspapers called her, “the unseen terror of East Prussia.”
- During World War II, Japanese Army officers hosted a party for the Japanese Navy officers, and when they ran out of meat they served the liver of a recently deceased American soldier.
- There is a separate US cemetery in France for US soldiers, who were executed for rape or murder during WWII.
- Nutella was invented during WWII because chocolate was in short supply due to World War II rationing.
- After World War II, Denmark declined an offer of $100,000,000 from the United States to buy Greenland.
- Britain only finished paying its WWII debts off in 2006.
- Germany was forced to pay for all loss and damages to the allies after WWI. They just finished paying it in October 2010. The WWII debt is still outstanding.
- There is a Twitter account posting events that occurred in WWII, in real-time, on the exact same time and date (except 70 years later).
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