Increase your knowledge
about World War Two.
(These little know tidbits are taken from 'The World War II quiz & fact book, vols 1&2' by Timothy B. Benford. Believe me, they're well worth reading!)
Interesting and sometimes little known facts about WWII.
Click here for not so famous quotes by famous people!
Did you know?
The Battle for Monte Cassino lasted over 5 months.
The U.S. Marines suffered over 3000 casualties on Tarawa alone.
There were 7 Infantry Divisions involved in the amphibious landings on Sicily, July 1943, only 5 were involved in the Normandy landings.
The death rate for allied prisoners captured by the Japanese was about 57%, compared to a death rate of about 1% of those captured by the Germans.
The campaign in France involved mainly American, British, Canadian & some Free French forces. The campaign in Italy involved forces from all the above plus Australia, New Zealand, India, Poland, French North Africa, Nepal and even Brazilian troops.
The Japanese empire stretched from the border with India in the west to the Aleutian Islands in the east and from the Soviet border in the north, to the Soloman Islands in the south, an area over three times as large as that occupied by the Germans.
There were 3,300 vessels involved in the invasion of Sicily and only 2,500 involved in the Normandy landings.
Approximately 700 journalists followed U.S. forces around the globe, over 450 participated in D-Day alone!
The Messerschmitt BF 109-E was produced in larger numbers than any other aircraft of WWII, nearly 36,000 were produced.
The flag that flew aboard the U.S.S. Missouri during the surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, was the same flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on December 7, 1941.
The U.S.S. Corry was the only U.S. Navy ship sunk by enemy gunfire on D-Day.
The Douglas A-20-G Havoc, was the first U.S.A.A.F. aircraft type to see action in Europe.
By 1945, the Japanese had lost 450,000 troops trying to prevent the U.S. from retaking the Philippines
. The first air raid on Britain (September 6, 1939) resulted from a disastrous false alarm. British Spitfires mistakenly shot down two British Hurricanes. There were no German aircraft over England.
The U.S. did not officially declare the war with Germany had ended until October 19, 1951. Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war with Germany as officially over on July 9, 1951.
The Germans succeeded in destroying approximately 2,000 Russian planes during the first 72 hours of Operation Barbarossa.
When the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal sank on November 14, 1941, two days after being torpedoed by U-81 off Gibraltar, the crew suffered only one casualty.
After the U.S. shot down Admiral Yamamoto's plane with the help of the British Ultra Code-breaking team, American fighter pilots talked over the air so much about the incident that the Japanese suspected their codes had been broken and immediately changed them. It took another four months to break the new codes!
U-134 gained the distinction of shooting down the only airship lost by the U.S. during the war. It successfully defended itself from attack by airship K-74 off the Florida Keys on July 18, 1943.
U.S. submarines sank more enemy tonnage than all other naval and air combatants combined.
Crewman from the U.S.S. Guadalcanal boarded and captured U-505 on June 4, 1944. It was the first enemy ship so captured since 1814.
Britain suffered the greatest Merchant Marine losses during the war, 4,786 ships, followed by Japan at 2,346, Germany 1,595, and the U.S. 578.
12 British Minesweepers were the vanguard of the Normandy invasion, clearing the waters close to the French shore on the night of June 5, 1944.
The production rate of the American aircraft industry in 1944 was one plane every six minutes!
More than 2,800 Merchant ships were sunk by German U-Boats between 1939 and 1945. 630 U-Boats were lost and out of 40,000 U-Boat crew members, only 13,500 survived. This was the greatest losses suffered by any branch, of any service, of any nation involved in WWII, the next closest being the losses suffered by allied bomber crews.
135,000 people were killed in the Allied raids on Dresden on February 13-14, 1945.
The Battle of Berlin started on April 16, 1945 with an artillery barrage by 20,000 guns, followed with an air raid by 6,500 Russian planes.
On November 21, 1939, a Japanese passenger ship the Terukuni Maru became the first ship sunk by German mines in the Thames estuary.
After being driven out of Manila Bay by the Japanese in early 1942, U.S. Navy vessels did not return until PT boats began night reconnaissance missions on February 14, 1945.
In the Battle on Leyte between December 20 and 31, 1944, the U.S. 77th Division suffered 17 casualties whilst the Japanese troops opposing them suffered 5,779 casualties.
When told that Britain and France had declared war on Germany, Adolf Hitler slumped in his chair, was silent for a moment, then looked at his generals and asked, "Well....what do we do now?"
In the greatest naval battle in history (The Battle of Leyte Gulf) the Japanese lost 34 ships, including four aircraft carriers and three battleships. The U.S. lost six ships, including one light aircraft carrier (Princeton), and two escort carriers (Gambier Bay and St. Lo).
In the battle for Okinawa, the U.S. lost 36 ships, none larger than a destroyer, while the Japanese lost nearly 200 ships of various sizes, including the world's largest battleship, the Yamato (72,000 tons).
The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Intrepid, had the nickname "Evil I" because she was torpedoed and bombed so frequently.
More bombs were dropped on Germany in the eleven months after D-Day, than in all the years before combined.
The greatest US naval loss of life at sea was the sinking of the cruiser Indianapolis. Nearly 900 men were lost, mostly to sharks. The last major US ship lost in the war, the 'Indie' was returning to Tinian island having delivered the uranium used in the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima when she was torpedoed by the Japanese sub I-58. The 'Indies' mission was so secret, it was several days before she was even listed as missing and details of the tragedy were covered up for many years after the war.
The 'Windship weapons' were paper and rubberized-silk balloons that Japan launched against the U.S. Northwest. More than 9,000 of these devices were launched, 6 Americans were killed by them and one reached as far east as Michigan.
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