X-Nico

unusual facts about Second World War



Addington, Buckinghamshire

During the Second World War from 1940 to 1945 Addington House was the residence of the Cigna, Moravec, Strankmuller and Tauer families of the Czechoslovak Military Intelligence staff under Colonel František Moravec, who planned the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.

Arthur Ponsonby, 11th Earl of Bessborough

Later he rose to the rank of Captain in the service of the Welsh Guards and saw action in the Second World War.

Asa Benveniste

After the second world war Benveniste, at this time known as Albert, lived in Paris and in 1948 co-founded the Zero Press with George Solomos (who was then known as Thermistocles Hoetis).

Baron Davies

Lord Davies fought in the Second World War as a major in the Royal Welch Fusiliers and was killed on the Western Front in September 1944, aged 29, only three months after succeeding his father in the barony.

Breadsall


The church of All Saints has a very fine war memorial in the style of a Celtic cross within the churchyard, commemorating fourteen men who died during the First World War and nine men and one woman who lost their lives during the Second World War.

Brinckman baronets

The latter was a Colonel in the Grenadier Guards, Aide-de-Camp to the Governor of Victoria and to the Governor-General of Canada and Chief of Staff to the British Military Mission in Moscow during the Second World War.

Charles Duncombe, 3rd Earl of Feversham

He was also a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 13th/18th Royal Hussars and an Honorary Colonel in the Queen's Own Yorkshire Yeomanry and fought in the Second World War, where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1945.

Charlie Cannon

Cannon served 3½ years in the U.S. Army during Second World War, and was stationed in the South Pacific.

David I. Masson

Except for a stint in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War from 1940-45, Masson remained a librarian for the rest of his working life.

East Tilbury

A sizeable Czech workforce was relocated here, and has merged into the local community after connections were lost with Czechoslovakia after the Second World war.

Fairmile A motor launch

Shortly before the Second World War the British industrialist Noel Macklin submitted to the Admiralty an innovative plan for the series production of a motor launch.

Flag of Poland

Such armbands were worn by Polish freedom fighters during the Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919) and Silesian Uprisings (1919–1921), as well as during the Second World War (1939–1945) by the soldiers of the Home Army (AK) and Peasants' Battalions (BCh) – usually emblazoned with the acronyms of their formations.

Fleet Finch

Over several years beginning in 1939, a total of 447 Finches were built, nearly all (431) of them for use as elementary trainers in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) during the Second World War.

Frank Skinner

His father, who was born in West Cornforth, County Durham, played for Spennymoor United before the Second World War, and met his mother in a local pub after Spennymoor had played West Bromwich Albion in an FA Cup game in 1937.

FUDOFSI

Very little information is known about FUDOFSI since neither the organisation or its leader survived the Second World War (in 1944, Constant Chevillon, the head of FUDOFSI, was murdered by the Gestapo).

Gaza Airstrip

During the Second World War RAF Gaza was used by a number of RAF squadrons, including 33, 45, 127, 208, 318 and 451.

Grendon, Northamptonshire

Some Second World War memories by a village resident of being straffed in the fields by a Nazi German controlled Spitfire can be found here

Helena Pasierbska

During the Second World War she joined the Polish resistance organization (first Związek Walki Zbrojnej, later Armia Krajowa) and served as a curier and nurse.

Jena West station

The deportation of Jews, Sinti and Romani during the Second World War is commemorated by a flower-decked plaque at the track-side entrance of the entrance building.

John Cavendish, 5th Baron Chesham

He fought in the Second World War as a Captain in the Army, also briefly serving as an Air Observation Post pilot with No. 664 Squadron RCAF.

John Moorman

During the Second World War, Moorman resigned his living and worked as a farmhand in Wharfedale, and during this period completed his thesis Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century for a doctorate of divinity (Cambridge University, 1945).

John Socman

Lloyd, who had suffered shellshock while serving in the Royal Marines during the Second World War, had a breakdown after writing John Socman, and abandoned composition for twenty years.

Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency

The Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) was the organization directly responsible for Operation Paperclip, an OSS program for capturing and taking Nazi German scientists to the United States at the end of the Second World War.

Julia Pirotte

Julia Pirotte (1908 – July 25, 2000) was a photojournalist known for her work in Marseille during the Second World War when she documented the French Resistance, and for photographs taken in the aftermath of the Kielce Pogrom of 1946.

Kristian Hamon

He later returned to his studies, studying his master's (at L'Ouest-Éclair) on the German Occupation of France, receiving permission to study the department archives of Ille-et-Vilaine and focusing on the activities of the Parti national breton penduring the Second World War.

Leftenan Adnan

The movie is about Adnan bin Saidi, a young Malay from Sungai Ramal in Kajang, Selangor who had joined the Malay Regiment of the British Colonial Forces just before the Second World War broke out in Asia.

Leonard Crossland

He joined Ford in 1937 and worked in the purchasing function until 1939 before leaving to join the British Royal Army Service Corps between 1939 and 1945: these were, for Britain, the years of the Second World War.

Lesjaskog

During the Second World War during the Namsos Campaign the British No. 263 Squadron RAF operated with 18 Gloster Gladiator biplane fighters from the frozen surface of Lake Lesjaskogsvatnet at Lesjaskog.

Lotte Spira

During the Second World War she signed a statement swearing that Fritz Spira was not the real father of her actress daughter Camilla Spira, who was being held at Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands.

Magne Oftedal

He was born in Sandnes in the county of Rogaland in 1921 and began studying for a degree in philology at the University of Oslo but his studies were interrupted by the Second World War and he only managed to complete his degree in 1947.

Melville Arnott

He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1931 and was appointed William Withering Chair in Medicine at the University of Birmingham in 1946, after serving in the Far East during the Second World War.

Mitsubishi 500

The Mitsubishi 500 was the first passenger car produced after the Second World War by Shin Mitsubishi Heavy-Industries, Ltd, one of the companies which would become Mitsubishi Motors.

Mörschbach

Football enthusiasts from Mörschbach and Wahlbach founded the club SV 48 Brühltal Mörschbach e.V. after the Second World War, which marked its 50th anniversary in 1998.

RAF Gaza

During the Second World War RAF Gaza was used by a number of RAF squadrons, including 33, 45, 127, 208, 318 and 451 Squadrons.

RAF Oxenhope Moor

RAF Oxenhope Moor was a British Second World War radio station, located on Cock Hill Moor near the village of Oxenhope in Yorkshire.

Renouvin

Jacques Renouvin (1905 – 1944), royalist militant in France during the Second World War

River Kyle

During the Second World War, RAF Bomber Command operated an airfield near the start of the River Kyle at RAF Tholthorpe.

Ronnie Hilton

Born Adrian Hill in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, Hilton left school at 14 and worked in an aircraft factory at the beginning of the Second World War, before being called up into the Highland Light Infantry.

Serial number

During the Second World War RAF aircraft that were secret or carrying secret equipment had "/G" (for "Guard") appended to the serial, denoting that the aircraft was to have an armed guard at all times while on the ground, e.g., LZ548/G—the prototype de Havilland Vampire jet fighter, or ML926/G—a de Havilland Mosquito XVI experimentally fitted with H2S radar.

Shoreham Airport

During the Second World War the airfield operated a variety of military aircraft including Westland Lysanders that were later replaced by Supermarine Spitfires, Hawker Hurricanes, Boulton Paul Defiants and a pair of Bristol Beaufighters.

Solway Aviation Museum

The Buildings contain exhibits and artefacts relating to aviation in Cumbria, including World War II and also houses individual displays featuring the development of Blue Streak, Martin Baker ejection seats and the development and activities of the Airport itself since the Second World War.

Stephen McGill

At this point the Second World War was under way in Europe so, following the fall of France to the Germans in June 1940, Father McGill, as a British citizen, had to make his escape via Marseille and Spain to avoid internment as an enemy alien.

Sutherland, Saskatoon

David Vivian Currie - Sutherland born recipient of the Victoria Cross and the only Canadian to be awarded the medal during the Normandy Campaign in the Second World War

The Arsenal Stadium Mystery

The Trojans' body doubles on the pitch were players from Brentford, during the First Division fixture between the two sides on 6 May 1939; this was the last match of the 1938–39 season and Arsenal's last official league fixture before the outbreak of the Second World War.

The Colditz Story

It is based on the book written by Pat Reid, a British army officer who was imprisoned in Oflag IV-C, Colditz Castle, in Germany during the Second World War and who was the Escape Officer for British POWs within the castle.

Western Approaches

The term is most commonly used when discussing naval warfare, notably during the First World War and Battle of the Atlantic during the Second World War in which the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) attempted to blockade the United Kingdom using submarines (U-boats) operating in this area.

Whiteshill, Gloucestershire

During the Second World War a Wellington bomber crashed nearby, in the local feature called 'Bomber Lake'; it is understood that all the Canadian crew perished

William S. Evans

First Sergeant William Stanton Evans (July 16, 1910 - June 6, 1944) was a non-commissioned officer of the Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the 101st Airborne Division, United States Army during the Second World War.

Wilton Park

Wilton Park began on 12 January 1946 as part of an initiative inspired by Sir Winston Churchill, who in 1944 called for Britain to help establish a democracy in Germany after the second world war.

Yokohama War Crimes Trials

The Yokohama War Crimes Trials was a series of trials of Japanese war criminals, held before the military commission of the US 8th Army at Yokohama immediately after the Second World War.


see also

1954 FIFA World Cup

The final scene of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film The Marriage of Maria Braun takes place during the finals of the 1954 World Cup; in the scene's background, the sports announcer is celebrating West Germany's victory and shouting "Deutschland ist wieder was!" (Germany is something again); the film uses this as the symbol of Germany's recovery from the ravages of the Second World War.

29 Squadron

29 Squadron SAAF, a unit of the South African Air Force during the Second World War.

A Jewish Girl in Shanghai

One flashback scene of the film, set in 1936, sees Rina and Michaili, in what appears to be an alpine setting in Europe, escaping being bombed by Nazi planes, despite the date preceding the aerial warfare of the Second World War.

During the Second World War, approximately 20,000 Jewish refugees fleeing German-occupied Europe were given an area of approximately one square mile in the Hongkou District of Shanghai by the Japanese Empire, designated the Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees, one of the poorest and most overcrowded areas of the city.

Aconit

French corvette Aconit, a corvette of the Second World War, from the Free French naval forces, recipient of the Ordre de la Libération

Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale

Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (French for Acts and Documents of the Holy See related to the Second World War), often abbreviated Actes or ADSS, is an eleven-volume collection of documents from the Vatican historical archives, related to the papacy of Pope Pius XII during World War II.

Alfred Lilienthal

During the Second World War, he worked for the State Department (1942–1943, Division of Defense Materials, and again 1945–1948) and served in the U.S. Army in the Middle East (1943–1945).

Alison Frantz

Just before the Second World War, Frantz was charged with the task to photograph in two days more than six hundred tablets of Linear B, discovered by the famous American archaeologists Carl Blegen in the Mycenaean palace of Pylos.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley

During the Second World War Major Lord Ashley served as a British Intelligence Officer with the Auxiliary Units, which were highly covert Resistance groups trained to engage and counteract the expected invasion of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany.

Arlingham

The ferry continued in use until after the Second World War.

Arthur Soltvedt Møbelfabrikk

First established in Øystese during the Second World War, the business relocated to the village of Florvåg on the island Askøy, just north of Bergen, in 1948.

Betley Bridge

During the Second World War the Steyning Line was an important route to move sugar beet from Sussex farms from Henfield station towards the capital, and Betley Bridge was a strategic target for German bombers.

Cheong Yoke Choy

The grand colonial mansion that once stood proudly on the land before it was demolished to make way for Berjaya Times Square, housed officers from the Japanese Army when Japan controlled Malaya during the Second World War.

Christ Church, Lambeth

The Victorian 'Christ Church' was bombed during the Second World War, and only the associated Lincoln Memorial Tower, an adjoining part of the original 'Christ church' complex, remains to this day.

Derek Bailey

Derrick Bailey (1918–2009), Second World War pilot, cricketer and businessman

Digby, Lincolnshire

During the Second World War the station was home to Hurricane and Spitfire squadrons and to Douglas Bader, Guy Gibson, and poet John Gillespie Magee.

Doris Langley Moore

During the Second World War, she wrote the scenario for a ballet, The Quest, which was choreographed by Frederick Ashton for Sadler's Wells and set to music by William Walton, with costumes and sets by John Piper.

Eduard Paul Tratz

Tratz also worked with Heinz Heck on a comparative study examining chimpanzees and bonobos, most of the work for which was done during the Second World War at Munich's Hellabrunn Zoo.

Edwin St Hill

During the Second World War, he joined the British Army and took part in the Dunkirk evacuation before returning to England; he resumed his league career and played many wartime charity games.

Erkki Raappana

Major General Erkki Johannes Raappana (June 2, 1893 in Oulujoki – September 14, 1962 in Joensuu) was the commander of the 14th Division of the Finnish Army during the Second World War.

Events preceding World War II in Europe

It would prove to be a precursor to many of the tactics and methods employed in the Second World War, such as the test bombing of Guernica, which aimed to see how effective bombing of civilian areas could be.

F24 camera

During the Second World War, the F24 was also manufactured by Vinten.

Francis Beckett

He has written a biography of his own father, John Beckett, a Labour MP from 1925 to 1931 and whip of the Independent Labour Party group of MPs; later chief propagandist for Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and co-founder (with William Joyce) of the National Socialist League, who was interned during the second world war for his fascist activities.

Graham Balcombe

During the Second World War, Balcombe was stationed in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, where he continued to develop his diving equipment, which was put to use at local sites such as Alum Pot, Keld Head and Goyden Pot.

Graylingwell Hospital

During the Second World War the hospital was not requisitioned but the Summersdale block was commandeered to serve as an acute battle neurosis unit for front-line casualties.

Guderian

Heinz Guderian, (17 June 1888–14 May 1954) a military theorist and innovative General of the German Army during the Second World War.

Hilda Gibson

Hilda Kaye Gibson (1925-30 December 2013) was a member of the Women's Land Army, colloquially known as the Land Girls, during the Second World War, and campaigned to gain official governmental recognition for the service of WLA members.

International Radio of Serbia

In November, 1941, during the occupation of Belgrade in the Second World War, a Free Yugoslavia radio station started its work and it broadcast its program until 1945, from the city of Ufa on the Ural River (Russia).

Joseph L. Lichten

In 1963, shortly after the initial production of Rolf Hochhuth's play, The Deputy, and while serving as director of the International Affairs Department for the ADL, he wrote a monograph defending the actions of Pope Pius XII during the Second World War.

L101

the Letov L-101, an airliner designed in Czechoslovakia shortly after the end of the Second World War.

Leo Theron

Subsequently he specialized in the technique called dalles de verre sous beton, a method using coloured glass and concrete, developed in France after the second world war, and which he developed as a distinctive style during a return visit to France in 1964, when he studied the work of Gabriel Loire in Chartres, which profoundly informed his approach to the medium.

Linda Bellos

Bellos was born in London to a Jewish mother, Renee Sackman, and a Nigerian father, Emmanuel Adebowale, who came from Uzebba and joined the merchant navy during the Second World War.

Louis Osman

During the Second World War he was a Major in the Intelligence Corps serving with the Combined Operations Headquarters and Special Air Service as a specialist in Air Photography.

Louise McIlroy

After the Second World War she returned to her retirement, residing with her sister in Turnberry, Ayrshire, Scotland.

Moshe Shalit

During the Second World War, the Nazi authorities solicited Shalit to sit on the Judenrat, the consultative committee designed by the occupiers and formed of prominent Jews from the city's two Jewish Ghettos.

Nikos Kavvadias

Another is about the execution of Andalusian poet and writer Federico García Lorca by the Franco dictatorship, which, in the poem, is associated with the destruction of the Greek village of Distomo and other brutal acts done by the Nazi forces occupying Greece during the Second World War.

Panzerknacker

The nickname of Heinrich von Vietinghoff (1887–1952), General (Generaloberst) of the German army during the Second World War

Peover Hall

During the Second World War the house was requisitioned and used by General George Patton and his staff.

Peter Carmichael

After leaving school he joined the Royal Navy in 1942 and undertook pilot training in the United States and South Africa, before flying Supermarine Seafires and Chance-Vought F4U Corsairs during the final days of the Second World War.

Photographic lens design

The last important Zeiss innovation before the Second World War was the technique of applying anti-reflective coating to lens surfaces invented by Olexander Smakula in 1935.

Point of divergence

In Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, an alternate history novel in which Germany and Japan win World War II, the point of divergence is Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempted assassination by Giuseppe Zangara in 1933, which did take place in its timeline and led to an Axis victory in a prolonged Second World War in 1948.

Radical Governments of Chile

The German-Soviet Non Aggression Pact of 1939 during the Second World War led to the dismantling of the left-wing coalitions, as the Komintern then denounced the Popular Front strategy.

Ted Badcock

Immediately after the end of the Second World War, he played a series of games for New Zealand Services against a Lord's XI, Australian Imperial Forces, WR Hammond's XI, Sir PF Warner's XI, and the Royal Air Force, including a final first-class match in September 1945 against HDG Leveson-Gower's XI.

The Land of Lost Content

The book is divided into seven chapters, respectively covering Chenevix-Trench's ancestry and early childhood, his education at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford, his military service in the Malayan Campaign during the Second World War, and his successive spells of teaching at Shrewsbury, Bradfield, Eton and Fettes.

Thorpe Acre

Following the Second World War, Loughborough needed more housing and part of Thorpe Acre was developed, largely for employees of Brush Engineering Works, during the 1950s.

Tignes

After the second world war, France needed electricity and it was decided to build the hydro-electric Tignes Dam in the Isère valley.

Trad jazz

In Britain, where boogie-woogie, "stride" piano and jump blues were popular in the 1940s, the Humphrey Lyttelton band pioneered a trad revival just after the Second World War, and Ken Colyer's Crane River band added a strong thread of New Orleans purism.

Wolfgang Degenhardt

He migrated to Greta, New South Wales in the Hunter Valley in January 1955, with his wife Irene and sons Fred and Alex after the second world war.