32 obscure facts from the depths of WWII history. Even Mike might not know these.
Jean-Baptiste Biaggi, a French schoolteacher and resistance member, memorized the names of every German officer in the Cherbourg area and their daily routines. He smuggled this intelligence to the British using invisible ink written on children's exe…
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, k…
The Germans had built a sophisticated coastal radar network along the Atlantic Wall, but Allied intelligence had missed that the major radar installation at Pointe de la Percée, overlooking Omaha Beach, had been dismantled three days before D-Day. Th…
Before D-Day, the U.S. 23rd Headquarters Special Troops — known as the 'Ghost Army' — deployed inflatable tanks, sound trucks broadcasting fake radio traffic, and even fabricated unit patches near Calais. Their deception operation convinced German in…
The Allies created two massive artificial harbors (Mulberry A at Omaha Beach, Mulberry B at Arromanches) by towing 115 massive concrete caissons — each the size of a small building — across the English Channel. Each caisson weighed up to 6,000 tons. …
The very first combat action of D-Day occurred at 00:16 on 6 June — even before the naval bombardment — when six Horsa gliders carried 181 men of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, commanded by 26-year-old Major John Howard, to captu…
The citizens of Sainte Marie du Mont, a town of about 500 people, hid in their basements and cellars during the D-Day fighting. When American paratroopers from the 101st Airborne arrived (several landed right on the church steeple), they found civili…
The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops (Ghost Army) didn't just deceive before D-Day. After the invasion, they mounted over 20 deception operations across Europe, using inflatable tanks, planes, and artillery — plus sound trucks broadcasting the moveme…