163 obscure facts from the depths of WWII history. Even Mike might not know these.
The Venona project was a top-secret American-British intelligence effort that decrypted Soviet communications from 1943-1980. The project revealed that the Soviets had deeply penetrated the Manhattan Project, the U.S. Treasury, the State Department, …
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising lasted 28 days — April 19 to May 16, 1943 — making it the largest single act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. A force of approximately 750 poorly armed Jewish fighters (with handguns, homemade grenades, and Moloto…
Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, siblings from a deeply moral German family (influenced by their father's repeated arrests for criticizing Hitler), distributed six anti-Nazi leaflets at the University of Munich. In the final leaflet, they wrote: 'We wi…
Of the 29 DD (Duplex Drive) Sherman tanks launched from landing craft toward Omaha Beach, 27 sank in the rough seas because the canvas flotation screens collapsed. Only two made it to shore. The tank commanders and crews drowned inside. The decision …
Fourteen Comanche code talkers served in the European Theater, using their language to transmit tactical messages on D-Day and throughout the Normandy campaign. They were among the most effective code talkers because Comanche, with only a few hundred…
Captain Frank Lillyman of the 101st Airborne was the first Allied soldier to land on D-Day, parachuting into Normandy at 00:15 to mark the drop zone near Sainte-Mere-Eglise. Weather and cloud cover scattered his team - only two pathfinders landed cor…
Omaha Beach was divided into sectors named with colors: Easy Red, Easy Green, Fox Red, Fox Green — but the two least talked about sectors were 'Uncle Red' and 'Dog White.' The 116th Infantry Regiment assaulted Dog White sector and suffered devastatin…
The Germans at Normandy were partly misled by 'Operation Bodyguard' — the strategic deception that the main invasion would come at the narrowest point of the Channel (Calais/Dieppe), not the beaches. This deception included fake radio traffic from a …
Spanish citizen Juan Pujol Garcia managed to convince the Germans he was a fanatical Nazi, then convinced the British he was a valuable spy, then played BOTH sides simultaneously. He created a fictional network of 27 sub-agents that didn't exist, fab…
When Brigadier General Norman Cota waded ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day, he reportedly told Col. George Taylor of the 16th Infantry: 'There are only two kinds of people on this beach: the dead and those who are going to die. Now let's get the hell of…
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 mil…
Percy Hobart designed swimming DD tanks, flail mine-clearing tanks, Bobbin canvas-laying tanks, ARK bridge carriers, and Crocodile flame-throwers. Churchill personally demanded their inclusion. Flail tanks cleared 90 percent of Sword Beach mines. But…