WWII Challenge

When Germany invaded Poland, the Polish cryptologists who had broken Enigma were evacuated east. Three of them — Rejewski, Rozycki, and Zygalski — made it to France and continued working from PC Bruno, a chateau near Paris. When France fell in 1940, they escaped again to unoccupied Vichy France, continuing to decrypt German messages. Rozycki died in 1942 when the ship carrying him back to France from Algeria was torpedoed. Rejewski and Zygalski eventually made it to Britain, only to be told they weren't cleared to work for Bletchley Park — the very people who had cracked Enigma were deemed a security risk and put to work on manual labor.

Geoffrey Pyke proposed building an aircraft carrier from Pykrete - 86 percent sawdust and 14 percent water frozen together. Pykrete was as strong as concrete but floated and self-repaired. The ship would have been 2,000 feet long. A 60-foot prototype lasted an entire summer at Patricia Lake in Alberta. Cancelled when the refrigeration system alone would weigh as much as a conventional carrier.

Major General Percy Hobart designed specialized tanks for D-Day that were unlike anything the Germans had ever seen. There were 'Duplex Drive' (DD) swimming tanks with inflatable canvas screens, 'Crab' flail tanks that cleared minefields with chains that detonated mines ahead of them, 'Bobbin' tanks that unrolled a canvas mat over soft ground or seawalls, 'ARK' (Armoured Ramp Carrier) tanks that drove up to obstacles and extended a bridge, and 'Crocodile' flame-throwing tanks. These tanks were so unique that Churchill demanded they be included in the invasion plan. The Flail tanks cleared a combined 90% of their assigned mines on Sword Beach.

The Normandy bocage — thick hedgerows of earth and tangled bramble that separated centuries-old farm fields — created conditions worse than any planner anticipated. The hedgerows were over 2000 years old, planted by the Romans and reinforced over millennia. Each hedgerow was effectively a natural defensive wall with firing positions carved into it by the Germans. An American lieutenant, Curtis G. Culin Jr., improvised 'rhino tanks' by welding steel teeth from destroyed German beach obstacles onto Sherman tank noses, allowing them to plow through the hedgerows. Within weeks, 60% of American tanks in Normandy were so equipped.

The 1st and 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiments of the U.S. Army were composed of Filipino-Americans, many of whom were California farm workers who volunteered after Pearl Harbor. They served as scouts, interpreters, and intelligence specialists in the Philippines. Their knowledge of the local language, customs, and terrain made them invaluable for intelligence operations and for organizing guerrilla forces. One member, Pvt. Jose Calugas, earned the Medal of Honor on Bataan before escaping to join the regiment. His descendants had to fight for decades to get his medal officially recognized.

The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (MFAA) — the 'Monuments Men' — consisted of 345 men from 13 nations who recovered and returned more than 5 million artworks stolen by the Nazis. They found caches in salt mines, castles, and caves across Europe. The Merkers salt mine alone contained Reichsbank gold, stolen art masters, and the German national treasures — all hidden underground. Curator George Stout (the inspiration for the George Clooney character in the movie) personally cataloged thousands of pieces under artillery fire. Many of the Monuments Men had been professors, artists, and architects before the war.

On D-Day night, the RAF dropped 500+ dummy parachutists (code-named 'Ruperts') across Normandy. Each dummy was rigged with explosive charges and firecrackers to simulate gunfire. German troops were dispatched to hunt phantom paratroopers, tying up entire battalions. Some German commanders refused to believe the dummies were fake for days. The operation was so effective that German radio reports claimed 'thousands of British paratroopers' had landed near Falaise, 60 miles from any actual drop zone.

Japanese intelligence officer Hiroo Onoda was deployed to Lubang Island in the Philippines in December 1944 with orders never to surrender. He and three comrades hid in the mountains, attacking local villagers and Filipino police patrols for 30 years. Leaflets and newspapers dropped from planes telling them the war was over were dismissed as Allied propaganda. Onoda's last companion was killed in 1972 by local police during a firefight. In 1974, a Japanese adventurer found Onoda and brought his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, to the island to personally relieve him of duty. Only then did Onoda surrender, still armed and in uniform, on March 10, 1974.

The US 23rd Headquarters Special Troops used inflatable tanks, sound trucks, and fake radio signals to convince German intelligence that the invasion would come at Calais. The unit included fashion designer Bill Blass and artist Ellsworth Kelly. Their existence remained classified until 1996.

While the 442nd Regimental Combat Team is celebrated for their battlefield heroics, a smaller group of Japanese-American soldiers performed equally critical work in intelligence. The Military Intelligence Service (MIS) trained over 6,000 Nisei (second-generation Japanese-Americans) as translators, interpreters, and interrogators. Many of these soldiers had families in American internment camps while they were deployed to the Pacific theater. Nisei linguists translated captured Japanese documents — including the famous 'Z Plan,' which revealed Japanese fleet dispositions before the Battle of Leyte Gulf. They interrogated prisoners (many of whom had never been captured alive before), translated suicide notes, and even wrote propaganda leaflets dropped over Japan. General Douglas MacArthur called their work 'invaluable,' and General Willoughby estimated that they 'shortened the Pacific War by two years.' After the war, Nisei soldiers served as interpreters at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials and helped translate the Japanese surrender documents.

The Normandy American Cemetery at Coleville-sur-Mer overlooks Omaha Beach and contains 9,387 graves — mostly of Americans who died in the invasion of Normandy and later operations in France. But the lesser-known fact is that approximately 300 of those buried are unidentified. The cemetery also features a Garden of the Missing with 1,557 names on two curved marble colonnades. But the most remarkable detail: the cemetery was one of the first places on French soil to be designated as permanent American territory. Under a 1945 agreement with France, the 172.5 acres of the cemetery were granted to the United States 'in perpetuity' — it is effectively American soil on the coast of Normandy. The stars and stripes fly over the cemetery alongside the Tricolor. The first burial was on July 9, 1944 — just one month after D-Day. The cemetery was designed to align precisely with the cliff face of Pointe du Hoc visible to the west, creating a visual connection between the cemetery and the site where U.S. Rangers scaled 100-foot cliffs.

Polish social worker Irena Sendler smuggled 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto. She buried their real names in glass jars under an apple tree. The Gestapo broke both her legs but she refused to name anyone. She escaped execution when a bribed guard let her flee. Her story was unknown until 1999 when Kansas school students found a brief mention and researched it.

When Cherbourg fell to American forces on June 26, 1944, German General Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben was ordered by Hitler to fight to the last man and destroy the port facilities completely. Von Schlieben defied these orders and instead surrendered, keeping his own engineers from destroying the harbor. As a result, Cherbourg's port — while damaged — was partially functional within two weeks, allowing massive Allied supply ships to dock. Von Schlieben was court-martialed in absentia by Hitler and spent the rest of the war in a British POW camp.

The famous 'Great Escape' from Stalag Luft III involved three tunnels (Tom, Dick, and Harry). Few people know that Dick was never found by the Germans and remained hidden. After the war, it was rediscovered but collapsed. What is even less known: the POWs who escaped through Harry dug 111,781 cubic feet of sand from beneath the camp — that's over 4 million individual bucket trips, with the sand disposed of 'a little at a time' under buildings and scattered around the compound. 76 men escaped; 73 were recaptured; 50 were executed by the Gestapo on Hitler's personal order.

General Douglas MacArthur was a 33rd-degree Scottish Rite Freemason and served as Grand Master of the Philippines. During the occupation of Japan after WWII, several Japanese military officers who were Freemasons before the war (the Japanese military suppressed Masonic lodges in 1940) reportedly reached out to MacArthur through Masonic channels. MacArthur himself reportedly protected several Masonic organizations in Japan during the occupation. His Masonic ring was a personal item he never removed.

During the brutal fighting in the Eastern Front, thousands of Soviet children became orphans and wandered into the forests. Many were taken in by partisan units. But the most remarkable story is of Masha Bruskina — a 17-year-old Minsk girl whose photo of her being led to the gallows by the Germans, with a defiant expression and a white dress, became one of the most haunting photographs of WWII. The partisans in Belarus maintained schools, newspapers, and even hospitals deep in the forests — effectively running a shadow government. The 'Forest Republic' of western Belarus had its own currency (wooden chips used as payment between partisans), its own courts, and its own postal service connecting partisan groups across hundreds of miles. The Germans could never fully eliminate it even with massive anti-partisan sweeps like Operation Cottbus.

On October 14, 1943, Jewish prisoners at Sobibor escaped after killing 11 SS men with axes and knives. Approximately 300 escaped through minefields, only about 50 survived. The Nazis demolished Sobibor, built a farm over it, and planted trees attempting to erase it. The camps existence was not widely known until the 1960s.

Operation Hailstone in February 1944 was a two-day American attack on Japan's primary naval base at Truk Lagoon (modern-day Chuuk) in the Central Pacific. The assault sank 12 warships, 32 merchant ships, and over 275 aircraft — effectively destroying Japan's forward naval presence in a single operation. The Japanese had considered Truk their 'Gibraltar of the Pacific' — an unsinkable fortress with underground tunnels, a submarine base, and an airfield. The Americans learned that Truk was largely empty of its major warships (the Japanese fleet had already departed), but the lagoon still held a massive concentration of supply ships, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft. The lagoon floor now contains over 60 shipwrecks, making it one of the world's premier wreck diving sites. The sunken Fujikawa Maru, a seaplane tender, still has its original Zero fighters sitting in the hold. The Fuso Maru hospital ship was marked with red crosses but was carrying military cargo and was sunk in the attack. Over 4,500 Japanese personnel and civilians died, and the attack permanently eliminated Japan's ability to resupply its forces in the Central Pacific.

On August 20, 1941, Soviet Lt. Zinoviy Kolobanov buried his KV-1 tank in a swampy overlook near Krasnogvardeysk. A column of 43 German vehicles from the 4th Panzer Division advanced. Kolobanov single-handedly destroyed 22 tanks and 2 anti-tank guns in 30 minutes. His gunner loaded 150+ rounds. The rest of the Germans retreated in panic. He received only the Order of the Red Banner despite being recommended for Hero of the Soviet Union.

In the mountain village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in southern France, the entire Protestant community — led by Pastor Andre Trocme and his wife Magda — conspired to hide Jewish refugees and French resistance fighters. Magda Trocme hid resistance fighters in her bread ovens and cellar, and when French police came searching, she served them tea and lied to their faces with complete calm. The villagers forged documents, hid people in forests, established escape routes to Switzerland, and essentially ran an underground railroad from right under the Vichy government's nose. The pastor, when asked by the Vichy authorities why he was helping Jews, replied: 'We do not know what a Jew is. We only know men.' The village saved between 3,000 and 5,000 people during the war. The entire village was recognized collectively as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem — one of the only collective honors ever given to an entire community.