Strange WWII Facts

[shouldazagged]

It was reported that a Gurkha rifleman serving in the CBI theater was cut off from his unit far behind Japanese lines. He was assumed to have been captured or killed, but returned to his regiment much later, having found his way through a great many miles of trackless jungle.

His CO asked how he had made it back with no aids to navigation, and he replied that he had a map. A very good map. He showed it to the officer.

It was a street map of London.

Wonderful soldiers, the Gurkhas. Read John Masters' Bugles And A Tiger and The Road Past Mandalay. Beautifully written by a British officer who commanded Gurkha troops and came to love and trust them absolutely.

 

[Double-O-Dave]

It was reported that a Gurkha rifleman serving in the CBI theater was cut off from his unit far behind Japanese lines. He was assumed to have been captured or killed, but returned to his regiment much later, having found his way through a great many miles of trackless jungle.

His CO asked how he had made it back with no aids to navigation, and he replied that he had a map. A very good map. He showed it to the officer.

It was a street map of London.

Shouldazagged: I love that story, but the way I heard it told, it was a London subway map. My favorite Gurkha story was the one where a seriously wounded Gurkha trooper was ordered by his lieutenant to not die. So he didn't.

Dang, that ol' boy was tougher than woodpecker lips.

Regards,

Dave

 

[shouldazagged]

Bill Mauldin relayed a legend about Gurkhas serving in Europe. It was alleged that they liked to find two German soldiers sleeping together in a foxhole and quietly cut the throat of one, leaving him for his buddy to find him in the morning.

I kind of doubt that one, but it's quite a story. Certainly would make an impression...

 

[Toyman]

I have read "THE ARMS OF KRUPP " and I believe it states that the US bought rights to the BOFORS guns and paid royalties to BOFORS. Krupp was part owner of BOFORS so part of money went to Germany.

 

[30-30remchester]

Number 12, reminds me of a story my uncle told. I cant remember if it happened to him or a friend. While a POW in Japan, a US food drop was underway when a 5 pound can of American pork and beans came through the roof of the barracks, landed between the legs of an ill GI and took the bunk beds to the ground. He would laugh and imagine the letter the government would have had to write to some mother had it killed a soldier. "Dear Mrs. Smith, It is with deep regret to inform you that your son survived the war but was killed in a US bombing raid loaded with beans".

 

[cmort666]

I dont know if you can consider this a strange fact? but, Josef "Sepp" Dietrich--was NOT this historic soldier he played uo to be (from his service in WWI-in the German Tank Corps) I dont remember detyails but--Sepp Dietrich was one of those who in a backhanded way--gave himself several medals--like Hermann Goring did to himself. That said, Dietrichs WWII service was somewhat different.

From what I've read, Wehrmacht officers held Dietrich in some disdain on the basis of his at best sketchy military skills. Apparently, Dietrich, who held a rank equivalent to an Allied general, could barely read a map.

 

[cmort666]

Lots of good stuff here, but I'm wondering about #10. I didn't think the Soviets had hostilities with Japan until they knew Japan was finished, and jumped in for a land grab. But, it does seem like I'm forgetting some episode.

The Soviets crushed the Japanese at the Battle of Nomonhan on the Manchukuo-Mongolia border in 1939.

Large numbers of Japanese surrendered to the Soviets and never returned home. Some of them, knowing they could never return home after surrendering, became communists. It wouldn't at all surprise me if ethnic Koreans were recruited to the Soviet side by Kim Il Sung (himself later an artillery officer in the Red Army) and those of his ilk.

 

[cmort666]

My late Father-in-law served in the wehrmacht as a fallschirmjäger (paratrooper) during WW-II. He had a great laugh when I told him this story about the Korean conscript German troops at Normandy that I believe I first read about in a Stephen Ambrose book.

A New Jersey ARNG Armor officer I met at Ft. Knox in the '80s was an ethnic Kalmuck. Kalmucks are native to Central Asia, and like Kazakhs and Tatars, their native territory was conquered by the Russians before the fall of the Tsars.

His father had started the war in 1941 in the Red Army. He'd then been captured by the Germans in the catastrophic defeats of 1941-1942. Rather than starve to death, he joined the Wehrmacht. He was then captured by the U.S.

Unlike the Cossacks who served in the Wehmacht, most of whom were captured by the British in Italy and returned to the Soviets for execution or the Gulag, most of the Kalmucks were captured by the United States. Many of them were resettled after the war in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

My acquaintance looked remarkably like Nursultan Nazarbayev, the current president of Kazakhstan. He said that he'd had a hell of a time getting a security clearance since he had relatives currently serving in the Red Army.

 

[cmort666]

Bill Mauldin relayed a legend about Gurkhas serving in Europe. It was alleged that they liked to find two German soldiers sleeping together in a foxhole and quietly cut the throat of one, leaving him for his buddy to find him in the morning.

From what I've read, the Japanese were genuinely afraid of the Gurkhas and their kukris. During the retreat from Burma, the Gurkhas were the only ones running at the Japanese instead of away from them, and were no more afraid of the Japanese than a bull shark is of a perch.

 

[cmort666]

Speaking of people switching armies during the war, in 1979 there was a Special Forces SGM from one of the universities at ROTC advanced camp at Ft. Riley, KS as a platoon adviser when I was there.

He'd started WWII in the Polish army.

When Poland fell, he fled to France and joined a Polish formation in the French army.

When the French surrendered, he fled to Britain and joined a Polish formation in the British army. He finished the war fighting with the Brits.

After the war, he joined the U.S. Army under the Lodge Act, becoming a Green Beret, earning his citizenship. He'd been in Special Forces ever since.

 

[sheepdawg]

19. The largest veterans hospital built during WWII was the Kennedy Veterans Hospital built in Memphis, Tennessee. It was built at the intersection of Park and Shotwell. After a while a letter to the editor of The Memphis Press Scimitar brought up the fact that a veteran's hospital built on a street named Shotwell was a terrible idea. They renamed the street Getwell.

Keyword:Memphis: Get Well

 

[LVSteve]

Bill Mauldin relayed a legend about Gurkhas serving in Europe. It was alleged that they liked to find two German soldiers sleeping together in a foxhole and quietly cut the throat of one, leaving him for his buddy to find him in the morning.

I kind of doubt that one, but it's quite a story. Certainly would make an impression...

I would not be surprised if it were true. A former boss's father told tales of being in WWII with a Gurkha unit, I think in Italy. By all accounts the front lines were close to each other and lots of probing patrols roamed the battlefield at night.

The Gurkhas were always the night guards. If you left you tent to go for a whiz, you had to remember to don your jacket. He said the first thing you knew about a Gurkha guard being nearby was when he patted your shoulder looking for the correct type of epaulette. You never heard a thing except maybe a whispered "Very good, sir" afterwards. Those with the wrong jackets were found around the camp the next morning with their throats cut.

 

[shouldazagged]

The reason for my doubt was that dying of a cut throat probably tends to be messy and involve some brief but frantic struggle on the part of the victim. Stuff that might wake the sleeping buddy.

But your story is damned impressive!

 

[rwsmith]

Question....

That's no surprise. FDR picked Ike for the job because he was the best politician.

@@@ Check. Ike was the least egotistical.

Churchill played FDR like a violin.


@@@ You can say that again. Church was no dummy and got anything he needed or even wanted from us by playing his cards very carefully and well. He knew better than to slight the US, even if it meant letting the US feel like it won the war single-handedly and everything good that happened was our idea.

The Brits were still re-living WWI and never wanted a cross-channel invasion.

@@@ This one I don't understand. I don't see how the Brits could feel like they were fighting in Europe as in WWI after they got ejected from the continent. They had to know they had to cross the channel to get back into the war.

Oh, ten characters go here

 

[rwsmith]

Speaking of people switching armies during the war, in 1979 there was a Special Forces SGM from one of the universities at ROTC advanced camp at Ft. Riley, KS as a platoon adviser when I was there.

He'd started WWII in the Polish army.

When Poland fell, he fled to France and joined a Polish formation in the French army.

When the French surrendered, he fled to Britain and joined a Polish formation in the British army. He finished the war fighting with the Brits.

After the war, he joined the U.S. Army under the Lodge Act, becoming a Green Beret, earning his citizenship. He'd been in Special Forces ever since.

The group of Polish pilots that served with the RAF were notorious for 'doing their own thing' by communicating in Polish and developing convenient 'radio trouble'. They didn't like being told to back off or head for home if there were still German planes in the air.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

I would hate to be the one to write the letter home about the unlucky marine killed by the can of Spam.

 

[Smoke]

Don't know all the details but there is a plaque in Omaha (Dundee) commemorating a Japanese "balloon bomb" that apparently landed there

http://www.ketv.com/Omaha-Was-Bombed-During-WWII/10122674

 

[LVSteve]

The group of Polish pilots that served with the RAF were notorious for 'doing their own thing' by communicating in Polish and developing convenient 'radio trouble'. They didn't like being told to back off or head for home if there were still German planes in the air.

For first hand examples of this, read "One of the Few" by Group Captain Johnny Kent, AKA Johnny Kentowski to the Poles. At one time he was with them in 303 Squadron.

To add to the weirdness, Kent was Canadian, flying for the RAF with Poles and expected to communicate with them in French. However, as a native of Winnipeg, his French was not all that good, and the Poles reverted to Polish whenever things got frantic anyway.

 

[kaaskop49]

Many Poles were impressed into the German Army. When Poles in German uniform were captured in NW Europe, they were handed over to Allied Polish units. They could join the Polish units as badly-needed replacements, or be killed.

Today, if offered such an option, some people would actually say, "Let me think about that, I'll get back to you tomorrow."

A harsher, more direct time back then.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

The Germans never hesitated to include other nationalities in their army.
Finns, Poles, Czechs, Serbs and others were in the German army.
My dad build houses. If he was building one in my school bus route area I would take that bus and go there after school.
I did that one day and when I walked in, he tells me there is a Russian working in the back bedroom. I was dying to meet this guy. Never met a Russian. When I get a chance to start a conversation I say something like my dad tells me you're a Russian.
He replies with a curse phrase I'm not Russian, i'm a Ukrainian. Turns out he was one of the Ukrainians who fought the Russians in the German army. Okay. Met a Ukrainian, still hadn't met a Russian.