6 obscure facts from the depths of WWII history. Even Mike might not know these.
Dentist Lytle S. Adams (a personal friend of Eleanor Roosevelt) proposed dropping bomb-laden Mexican free-tailed bats over Japan. The bats were chosen because a single bat could carry a small timed incendiary device, they hibernate in buildings, and …
British intelligence obtained the body of a homeless Welshman named Glyndwr Michael, dressed him as a Royal Marines officer 'Major William Martin,' and planted fake documents suggesting an Allied invasion of Greece instead of Sicily. They even create…
British inventor Geoffrey Pyke proposed building an aircraft carrier from 'Pykrete' — a mixture of 86% sawdust and 14% water frozen together. Pykrete was as strong as concrete but would float. The ship, called Habakkuk, would have been 2,000 feet lon…
German Luftwaffe pilot Leutnant Franz Stigler spotted a badly damaged American B-17 bomber named 'Ye Olde Pub,' piloted by 2nd Lt. Charles 'Charlie' Brown, limping across the North Sea on the way back from a bombing raid over Bremen. The B-17 had los…
The Great Panjandum was a massive contraption consisting of two 10-foot wooden wheels with rockets attached to the rim, designed to be a self-propelled mine-clearing device. It was tested on beaches in Devon and was an absolute catastrophe. The rocke…
Japan launched over 9,000 Fu-Go balloon bombs across the Pacific using jet streams — the first intercontinental weapons delivery system in history. These paper-mache balloons carried explosive payloads and traveled 6,000 miles in 3-5 days, reaching a…