There was a navy ship that’s only job was to deliver ice cream to sailors throughout the Pacific fleet.
Can you imagine that? The Japanese are getting their cities firebombed and they’re literally scraping the bottom of the oil barrel just to keep their main battleship swimming. Meanwhile, US sailors are deciding if the want vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry from the ice cream barge of fun.
That the reason Mussolini and Hitler invaded Greece was because they got oil from Albania, and were afraid the British would build air bases in Greece to bomb the Albanian oil fields.
The Castle Itter battle saw the Americans, political prisoners and German soldiers fighting against SS soldiers. Another time it happened was during Operation Cowboy
in ww1, there was a temporary christmas truce where soldiers from both sides stopped fighting, sang carols, and even played soccer together in no man’s land.
That the Germans were way closer to winning the Battle of England than most people think. Fortunately they went on to bomb London instead of overcoming the last resistance to their first endeavor
Fanta exists because coke stopped exporting its syrup to Germany during WW2 and it was Hitler’s favorite drink, so they had to come up with their own recipe.
The dead men. Germans gssed a Russian camp and thought everyone had died. When they matched on the camp in the morning, a force of “dead russians” came out to meet them. They were so shocked a retreat was called.
Turns out the Russian forces used we rats to cover their mouths, and it blocked the gas
Hitler almost died in WW1, his battalion was under attack and he was deaf for quite a while. How different German history would’ve went if he hadn’t made it.
The NAZI’s were not actually Socialist, but just socialist in name only. Hitler infiltrated the NAZI party for it’s membership then abandoned it’s socialist ideology.
Not ‘Lesser known’ but ‘Not as interesting as the exaggerated version’ or ‘still tainted by propaganda’ which is wild, given that WW1 was over 100 years ago.
The Lusitania was carrying ammo as it was sunk.
The Germans didn’t protest shotguns because they were ‘too inhumane’ but due to simple diplomatic plays. Relativizing themselves and their own horrors by saying ‘But you do bad shit too! Look at X, Y and Z.’. Look at the Russia Ukraine war, where Russia either deliberately or accidentally bombs hospitals only to then go ‘Well, but didn’t Ukraine also bomb hospitals in Donetzk? (the didn’t).
The pinning of the Canadian soldiers onto a barn wall was most likely not intentional, but just some unfortunate soul being knocked up by an artillery shell into an awkward position.
WW1 generals on both sides actively and repeatedly tried new tactics to break the stalemate. Not just ‘Let’s do the same thing for the 13th time!’ but actually clever and smart tactics. Some of the tactics are even actively used today. Defence in depth with layered defence lines is still used today and some breakthrough tactics are also still applied. But in WW1 they wee limited due to the tech of the time and weaponry.
In WWI it was discovered that coal tar was good for your skin (killed yeasts that cause dermatitis and mites and things). Coal tar was later studied for its chemical properties and a whole hosts of new drugs were developed from it.
P-38 lightning aircraft were converted to photo reconnaissance aircraft designated as F-4s and F-5s “Photo Joes”. Some were converted in Colorado Springs Co. They were unarmed, lighter, and faster than the P-38. Some were painted in a color shifting blue paint as camouflage. The paint was later omitted due to its weight, in favor of speed.
The Japanese actually bombed the mainland United States. . . using balloons. They built unmanned hydrogen balloons with bombs attached and launched them across the Pacific Ocean. The idea was that the wind would carry the balloons across the sea to North America, where they would land and the bombs would go off. Only a few actually made it there, but one of them resulted in the only American civilian deaths from enemy action during the war.
This is where they introduced the first “mobile” x-ray units.
They weren’t small and portable like today. They were built into the back of vans and the nurses drove around the battles x-raying injured people.
They were so well respected that even enemy soldiers avoided attacking them.
Unfortunately most of the nurses eventually died of cancer and what not. Didn’t know it was super unsafe to sit all day everyday in the back of a radiation box.
The US army evacuated general MacArthur out of the Philippines to Australia and then surrendered the Philippines to the Japanese. The Japanese then rounded up the American, British and Filipino soldiers and marched them in a deadly disaster called the Bataan death march, to a Japanese concentration camp where they all remained until japan surrendered.
James clavell (author of shogun) was one of the British held in a Japanese concentration camp in the Philippines.
Also, there were a group of women pilots during wwii in what was called the WASP program.
The allies had broken the German codes and knew the Battle Of The Bulge was coming. They left those green troops thinly spread on the front lines, knowing they would be wiped out and over-run, because they wanted the German forces to push in and create the bulge. The allied plan was to let the German forces advance and then pinch off the bulge from north and south and trap the German troops and tanks.
To some extent the plan worked. While the Germans were able to pull back most of their troops – they did not have enough fuel to pull back most of their tanks, half-tracks, and trucks.
This sacrifice of the green American troops was kept secret for decades – because the public and the sacrificed soldiers (and their families) would have been furious if they had know the truth.
In 1940 – before the war with Japan had started – the USA was already making more ammo a year than the Japanese made during the entire war. There was zero chance of Japan ever winning the war. When the war started Japan had three fleet carriers being built. The USA had 19 already in production and dozens more planned. Japan was just hopelessly outmatched.
i was told as a curious kid that the reason there were so many remnants of railings on walls in my town was because they were all taken for the war effort to make tanks and the like. turns out that there was way more than they needed and the whole thing was carried on just so people felt like they were helping-there was a big cover up.
There’s this term, “the Nuremberg defense.” It got its name because so many mid and low level Nazis used it to defend themselves unsuccessfully in the hearings after the war. That they committed atrocities because they were, “just following orders.”
So if so many people did horrible things because they found it easier to follow atrocious orders than to refuse, what happened to the guys who refused? It must have been horrible, right?
Well, the thing is, mostly, they didn’t. There are scattered reports of soldiers who refused to do horrible things…being quietly reassigned to other jobs, mostly by officers who understood what a big ask those orders were. There was no punishment or censure, and there was definitely no blanket policy for what to do with those who refused orders. Because so few people did.
Britain invented mobile warfare back in WW1 not the Germans during world war 2. The Brits also invented defense in depths during world war 2 which became standardized in NATO military theory until the present
I don’t know how “lesser known” it is, since I picked it up in a Dan Carlin Hardcore History episode, but he was asked which German army was better, WWI or WWII.
I don’t remember the specific answer to that, but he went on about how much the Nazis actually hampered the effects of the army, because they would promote more based on loyalty to the party vs how good you actually were at your job. This led to a lot of people at the top being extremely incompetent and a lot of wasted effort and resources.
It’s why you don’t want to run an administration like this.
My favourite, and little known fact is that my Grand father (Dads dad) fought in WW1 and my Great grand father fought (and died) in WW2 (Mum’s, Mum’s father).
My great, great grand father will probably fight in WW3.
Jack Churchill. “Nicknamed “Fighting Jack Churchill” and “Mad Jack”, he fought in the Second World War with a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword, and a set of bagpipes.” Some sources even say he used a longbow too
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies in WW2 killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
Context: As the war started escalating across Europe, the UK avoided large bombing runs so long as the Nazis kept to military targets. This changed rapidly after Hitler bombed London. Once that happened, the Allies retaliated and conducted a bombing run on Berlin. The first of those bombs that landed happened to kill the only elephant in the Berlin zoo.
William Patrick-Huston was Hitler’s nephew. He was a British-American born in Liverpool, England and would later relocate to America where he served in the US Navy against his uncle and Nazi Germany during WW2.
Australia played a significant role in Japan’s decision to create it’s isolationist policy that boiled over into WW2. This started at the treaty of Versailles at the end of WW1.
That there is an engine block from a focke wolf condor on the footpath outside a pub in county kerry in ireland.
That there is a massive mine from one of the allied offences in world war I still out there and no one knows where it is. Of the 19 mines laid with over 450 tons of explosives 2 didn’t go off. One went off in the 1950s after a lightning storm in Belgium, the other is still lost.
That there is a liberty ship which sank in the Thames estuary with over 1400 tons of explosives on board and it’s still there. It’s mast can be clearly seen.
During the battle of Osowiec in WW1, the German troops attacked with poison gas that crippled the opposing Russian forces. However, the Russian troops refusing to surrender managed to get back up. They were coughing up blood, and their skin was badly burned by the gas. They used every last bit of energy and charged at the German troops. The site of seeing men who were presumed dead was horrifying to the German troops that they retreated. The Russians, despite massive casualties, still held the fortress.
Every faction during ww2 was seeing bright orbs that would follow their planes with incredible manuvering capabilities. They were reffered to as foo fighters. The americans thought they were the nazis. The nazis thought they were the americans.
We still see them to this day. After foo fighters we started calling them ufo’s. And now a days we call them uap’s.
(And yes, its aliens. Always has been. If that sounds crazy, its because thats how youv been trained to react to this subject. Its the biggest coverup in human history. And has leaked many times. But people refuse to belive. There is no secret easier to keep than one that people refuse to belive regardless of the evidence)
17 percent of Nepal’s entire population (312k 200k Nepalese and 112k british gurkhas) fought for the allies in WWII.
Nepal also supplied a shit ton of food supplies while fighting on the burmese front. Many of the soldiers decided to stay in Burma/myanmar with their families joining them. To this day, they continue living there. You can find a lot of burmese/nepalese people working/operating stores in Malls around Thailand.
Comments
Idk if it’s lesser known but a lot of Nazi conscripts were being issued literal meth pills to amp them up for battle
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There was a navy ship that’s only job was to deliver ice cream to sailors throughout the Pacific fleet.
Can you imagine that? The Japanese are getting their cities firebombed and they’re literally scraping the bottom of the oil barrel just to keep their main battleship swimming. Meanwhile, US sailors are deciding if the want vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry from the ice cream barge of fun.
OPRÅB
That the reason Mussolini and Hitler invaded Greece was because they got oil from Albania, and were afraid the British would build air bases in Greece to bomb the Albanian oil fields.
r/lostredditor
The Castle Itter battle saw the Americans, political prisoners and German soldiers fighting against SS soldiers. Another time it happened was during Operation Cowboy
in ww1, there was a temporary christmas truce where soldiers from both sides stopped fighting, sang carols, and even played soccer together in no man’s land.
To make The USS Texass7 able to shoot further in land they flooded one of the sides to angle the guns up
About the same number of soldiers were killed in WW1 by the Spanish Flu as by combat.
That the Germans were way closer to winning the Battle of England than most people think. Fortunately they went on to bomb London instead of overcoming the last resistance to their first endeavor
Fanta exists because coke stopped exporting its syrup to Germany during WW2 and it was Hitler’s favorite drink, so they had to come up with their own recipe.
WW1: The Balfour Declaration
WW2: The Havaara Agreement
People got called heroes and went home and treated black people like shit for another 25 years
The dead men. Germans gssed a Russian camp and thought everyone had died. When they matched on the camp in the morning, a force of “dead russians” came out to meet them. They were so shocked a retreat was called.
Turns out the Russian forces used we rats to cover their mouths, and it blocked the gas
They didn’t originally call it WW1, that came later
They mass slaughtered most of the pets in the UK during WW2, to save on resources
Hitler almost died in WW1, his battalion was under attack and he was deaf for quite a while. How different German history would’ve went if he hadn’t made it.
The first American soldier to die in Europe during world war 1 was a coast Salish Native American
Léo Major story
In WW2 they split up villages between different battalions because in WW1 all the men from a village were being wiped out on the same day.
During WW II there was P.O.W camp in the middle of Algonquin Park in Ontario Canada
The NAZI’s were not actually Socialist, but just socialist in name only. Hitler infiltrated the NAZI party for it’s membership then abandoned it’s socialist ideology.
NAZI’s Not Socialists
Not ‘Lesser known’ but ‘Not as interesting as the exaggerated version’ or ‘still tainted by propaganda’ which is wild, given that WW1 was over 100 years ago.
The Lusitania was carrying ammo as it was sunk.
The Germans didn’t protest shotguns because they were ‘too inhumane’ but due to simple diplomatic plays. Relativizing themselves and their own horrors by saying ‘But you do bad shit too! Look at X, Y and Z.’. Look at the Russia Ukraine war, where Russia either deliberately or accidentally bombs hospitals only to then go ‘Well, but didn’t Ukraine also bomb hospitals in Donetzk? (the didn’t).
The pinning of the Canadian soldiers onto a barn wall was most likely not intentional, but just some unfortunate soul being knocked up by an artillery shell into an awkward position.
WW1 generals on both sides actively and repeatedly tried new tactics to break the stalemate. Not just ‘Let’s do the same thing for the 13th time!’ but actually clever and smart tactics. Some of the tactics are even actively used today. Defence in depth with layered defence lines is still used today and some breakthrough tactics are also still applied. But in WW1 they wee limited due to the tech of the time and weaponry.
In WWI it was discovered that coal tar was good for your skin (killed yeasts that cause dermatitis and mites and things). Coal tar was later studied for its chemical properties and a whole hosts of new drugs were developed from it.
P-38 lightning aircraft were converted to photo reconnaissance aircraft designated as F-4s and F-5s “Photo Joes”. Some were converted in Colorado Springs Co. They were unarmed, lighter, and faster than the P-38. Some were painted in a color shifting blue paint as camouflage. The paint was later omitted due to its weight, in favor of speed.
Vichy French forces fired on American and English soldiers in North Africa.
The Japanese actually bombed the mainland United States. . . using balloons. They built unmanned hydrogen balloons with bombs attached and launched them across the Pacific Ocean. The idea was that the wind would carry the balloons across the sea to North America, where they would land and the bombs would go off. Only a few actually made it there, but one of them resulted in the only American civilian deaths from enemy action during the war.
The huge influx of US sailors into Qld Australia after the Battle of the Coral Sea was the inspiration for the Slim Dusty song “Pub with no Beer”.
More aircraft were shot down in WW2 than are flying today.
Did you know that in WW2 the Nazis were the bad guys? I don’t think Maga does.
I’m just waiting for WW3. Today’s wars are tomorrow’s movies
In WWII a German pilot escorted an American bomber to safety after giving chase and seeing the damage onboard.
https://www.jalopnik.com/why-a-german-pilot-escorted-an-american-bomber-to-safet-5971023/
This is where they introduced the first “mobile” x-ray units.
They weren’t small and portable like today. They were built into the back of vans and the nurses drove around the battles x-raying injured people.
They were so well respected that even enemy soldiers avoided attacking them.
Unfortunately most of the nurses eventually died of cancer and what not. Didn’t know it was super unsafe to sit all day everyday in the back of a radiation box.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leica_Freedom_Train
The US army evacuated general MacArthur out of the Philippines to Australia and then surrendered the Philippines to the Japanese. The Japanese then rounded up the American, British and Filipino soldiers and marched them in a deadly disaster called the Bataan death march, to a Japanese concentration camp where they all remained until japan surrendered.
James clavell (author of shogun) was one of the British held in a Japanese concentration camp in the Philippines.
Also, there were a group of women pilots during wwii in what was called the WASP program.
The allies had broken the German codes and knew the Battle Of The Bulge was coming. They left those green troops thinly spread on the front lines, knowing they would be wiped out and over-run, because they wanted the German forces to push in and create the bulge. The allied plan was to let the German forces advance and then pinch off the bulge from north and south and trap the German troops and tanks.
To some extent the plan worked. While the Germans were able to pull back most of their troops – they did not have enough fuel to pull back most of their tanks, half-tracks, and trucks.
This sacrifice of the green American troops was kept secret for decades – because the public and the sacrificed soldiers (and their families) would have been furious if they had know the truth.
In 1940 – before the war with Japan had started – the USA was already making more ammo a year than the Japanese made during the entire war. There was zero chance of Japan ever winning the war. When the war started Japan had three fleet carriers being built. The USA had 19 already in production and dozens more planned. Japan was just hopelessly outmatched.
i was told as a curious kid that the reason there were so many remnants of railings on walls in my town was because they were all taken for the war effort to make tanks and the like. turns out that there was way more than they needed and the whole thing was carried on just so people felt like they were helping-there was a big cover up.
Ever heard of the Attack Of The Dead Men?
Mustard gas isn’t a gas, it’s a liquid and most effective as an aerosol solution.
There’s this term, “the Nuremberg defense.” It got its name because so many mid and low level Nazis used it to defend themselves unsuccessfully in the hearings after the war. That they committed atrocities because they were, “just following orders.”
So if so many people did horrible things because they found it easier to follow atrocious orders than to refuse, what happened to the guys who refused? It must have been horrible, right?
Well, the thing is, mostly, they didn’t. There are scattered reports of soldiers who refused to do horrible things…being quietly reassigned to other jobs, mostly by officers who understood what a big ask those orders were. There was no punishment or censure, and there was definitely no blanket policy for what to do with those who refused orders. Because so few people did.
My grandfather was a PT boat Captain and they sunk 2 German U boats.
The number plate on Franz Ferdinand s car was a 11 11 18- armistice day
Britain invented mobile warfare back in WW1 not the Germans during world war 2. The Brits also invented defense in depths during world war 2 which became standardized in NATO military theory until the present
Some of the tunnellers in the First World War called the water leaking into the tunnels “hero juice”.
As a Canadian, I was surprised to learn that the Geneva Convention was created, in part, due to the “moral flexibility” of Canadian soldiers.
I don’t know how “lesser known” it is, since I picked it up in a Dan Carlin Hardcore History episode, but he was asked which German army was better, WWI or WWII.
I don’t remember the specific answer to that, but he went on about how much the Nazis actually hampered the effects of the army, because they would promote more based on loyalty to the party vs how good you actually were at your job. This led to a lot of people at the top being extremely incompetent and a lot of wasted effort and resources.
It’s why you don’t want to run an administration like this.
My favourite, and little known fact is that my Grand father (Dads dad) fought in WW1 and my Great grand father fought (and died) in WW2 (Mum’s, Mum’s father).
My great, great grand father will probably fight in WW3.
Jack Churchill. “Nicknamed “Fighting Jack Churchill” and “Mad Jack”, he fought in the Second World War with a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword, and a set of bagpipes.” Some sources even say he used a longbow too
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies in WW2 killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
Context: As the war started escalating across Europe, the UK avoided large bombing runs so long as the Nazis kept to military targets. This changed rapidly after Hitler bombed London. Once that happened, the Allies retaliated and conducted a bombing run on Berlin. The first of those bombs that landed happened to kill the only elephant in the Berlin zoo.
William Patrick-Huston was Hitler’s nephew. He was a British-American born in Liverpool, England and would later relocate to America where he served in the US Navy against his uncle and Nazi Germany during WW2.
Australia played a significant role in Japan’s decision to create it’s isolationist policy that boiled over into WW2. This started at the treaty of Versailles at the end of WW1.
https://www.rusinsw.org.au/Papers/20181127S3.pdf
https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/ww1/politics/peace-negotations#:~:text=The%20appointment%20of%20Japan%20to,reparations%20and%20indemnities%2C%20Hughes%20failed.
https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/29766/horikawa_t_thesis.pdf?sequence=4#:~:text=This%20thesis%20suggests%20that%20both,a%20country%20which%20sought%20to
I dont know if its a fact in the way you mean. I have a photo of my grandfather in WWII standing with my great grandfather who fought in WWI.
It reminds me daily that the actions of one man matter.
That there is an engine block from a focke wolf condor on the footpath outside a pub in county kerry in ireland.
That there is a massive mine from one of the allied offences in world war I still out there and no one knows where it is. Of the 19 mines laid with over 450 tons of explosives 2 didn’t go off. One went off in the 1950s after a lightning storm in Belgium, the other is still lost.
That there is a liberty ship which sank in the Thames estuary with over 1400 tons of explosives on board and it’s still there. It’s mast can be clearly seen.
Operation Mincemeat!
More indians died for Britain in WW1 than British soldiers
The attack of the dead men,
some people know about it some people don’t
During the battle of Osowiec in WW1, the German troops attacked with poison gas that crippled the opposing Russian forces. However, the Russian troops refusing to surrender managed to get back up. They were coughing up blood, and their skin was badly burned by the gas. They used every last bit of energy and charged at the German troops. The site of seeing men who were presumed dead was horrifying to the German troops that they retreated. The Russians, despite massive casualties, still held the fortress.
Every faction during ww2 was seeing bright orbs that would follow their planes with incredible manuvering capabilities. They were reffered to as foo fighters. The americans thought they were the nazis. The nazis thought they were the americans.
We still see them to this day. After foo fighters we started calling them ufo’s. And now a days we call them uap’s.
(And yes, its aliens. Always has been. If that sounds crazy, its because thats how youv been trained to react to this subject. Its the biggest coverup in human history. And has leaked many times. But people refuse to belive. There is no secret easier to keep than one that people refuse to belive regardless of the evidence)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reported_UFO_sightings
17 percent of Nepal’s entire population (312k 200k Nepalese and 112k british gurkhas) fought for the allies in WWII.
Nepal also supplied a shit ton of food supplies while fighting on the burmese front. Many of the soldiers decided to stay in Burma/myanmar with their families joining them. To this day, they continue living there. You can find a lot of burmese/nepalese people working/operating stores in Malls around Thailand.