12 obscure facts from the depths of WWII history. Even Mike might not know these.
On September 1, 1939, the Polish cavalry charged German infantry at Krojanty. Initially successful, they were forced to withdraw when armor appeared. A German propaganda officer described it to Italian reporters as proof that Poles charged tanks with…
The Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) fought a three-front war: against the Germans, against Soviet partisans who wanted to install a communist government in Poland, and against Ukrainian nationalist forces (UPA) who were massacring Polish civilians i…
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 i…
The Siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days — the longest and most destructive siege in history. Over 1 million civilians died, mostly from starvation. When Lake Ladoga froze solid in winter, the 'Road of Life' became the only supply route into the city. …
On August 20, 1941, near the town of Krasnogvardeysk (now Gatchina) outside Leningrad, Soviet Lieutenant Zinoviy Kolobanov took his KV-1 heavy tank — one of the few Soviet tanks heavy enough to penetrate German armor — and positioned it in a swampy a…
Thousands of Soviet orphan children were taken in by partisan units during the Eastern Front. The partisans in Belarus maintained schools, newspapers, and hospitals in forests - running a shadow government with its own currency of wooden chips, court…
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 phot…
After Heydrich's assassination, the village of Lidice was destroyed — 172 men executed, women sent to Ravensbrück, children sent to Germany. But the Czech resistance's response to this horror was even more courageous than the assassination itself. Wi…
Historian Emanuel Ringelblum led an underground project called Oneg Shabbat — a secret effort to document life and death in the Warsaw Ghetto. Over the course of 1939-1942, Ringelblum and his team collected diaries, reports, drawings, posters, ticket…
While the movie 'Enemy at the Gates' dramatized the sniper duel, the real Vasily Zaitsev trained 28 snipers (including his 11-year-old sister) during the Battle of Stalingrad. He claimed 225 confirmed kills. The famous 'duel' with 'Major Konig' may h…
The 332nd Fighter Group, known as the 'Red Tails' for painting their aircraft tails red in red paint, was composed of African-American pilots who trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. The pilots faced segregation from their own country — the…
Most people confuse the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) with the Warsaw Uprising (1944). They were entirely separate events. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 was led by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) who rose up expecting Soviet support. Stalin delibe…