Would you believe or Did you know?

well i find the uber conservative rants very funny. Then again I have an odd sense of humour.

[Cpl Rootes]

Originally Posted by Kitty

Then again I have an odd sense of humour.

i concur

Pfft! Cheeky brat!

[Kyt]

Von Poop mentioned the Channel Islands Occupation in another thread and so I had another look at the Occupation website and did you know......

That amongst the forced labourers who died on the islands were many Algerians and one Chinese!

http://www.thisisjersey.com/hmd/index.html

[Peter Clare]

THE ADOLF HITLER FUND
Steel Baron Gustav Krupp, proposed that all employers contribute a quarterly sum based on their payroll. Called the 'German Industry's Adolf Hitler Fund', it was administrated by Martin Bormann and added many millions to Hitler's coffers. In the twelve years of his dictatorship Hitler disposed of over 305 million Reichsmarks. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was unable to stand trial for war crimes because of his senility and died at Blühnbach near Salzburg on January 16, 1950. However, his son Alfred was tried as a war criminal because large numbers of concentration camp inmates were used as slave labourers in the Krupp factories. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison but was released three years later in 1951 and allowed to return to his position as head of the Krupp Steel Works. Towards the end of the war, the Krupp factories were producing more tanks than it did in previous years, proof that Allied bombing had failed. However, production had to stop because of the bombing of the German rail network. There were simply not enough trains to transport the tanks to the fronts. (Gustav Krupp is buried in the Meysenburg Cemetery at Essen-Bredeney)

[spidge]

ADMIRAL SIR BERTRAM RAMSAY
Allied Naval C-in-C for liberation of Europe. On January 2, 1945, he was due to fly from his H/Q near Paris to a meeting with General Montgomery in Brussels. At 11.30, he and four others took off from Toussus-le-Noble airfield in his private plane, a Hudson bomber. The plane climbed slowly as if the engines were labouring, then banked sharply to the left and crashed straight into the ground killing all on board. (Admiral Ramsay, the mastermind behind the Dunkirk evacuation, is buried in the Nouveau Cemetery at St. Germain-en-Laye)

AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR TRAFFORD LEIGH-MALLORY
Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Air Forces in Europe and the highest ranking officer to serve in the Royal Air Force during WWII, was killed when his aircraft, an Avro York, crashed into the rock face of a mountain in the French Alps on November 14, 1944. Sir Trafford was on his way to Ceylon to take up his new appointment as Air Commander for South-East Asia. His wife, Lady Mallory and all crew died in the crash. Buried in snow, the wreck was not found until June, 1945. (Leigh-Mallory's brother, George Mallory, also died on a mountain in 1924 while attempting to climb Mt. Everest)


GENERAL FRANK MAXWELL ANDREWS
Often referred to as the 'father of the United States Air Force'. In February, 1943, he took over from General Eisenhower as Commanding-General of the European Theater of Operations. Iceland was part of the ETO and an inspection of the bases there was scheduled for April. A Liberator B-24 bomber named 'Hot Stuff' was put at his disposal for the flight to Iceland. The plane and crew had completed 29 of its 30 missions and was due to return to the US for a triumphant tour. The crew were disappointed that their last mission was not to be a bombing raid over Germany. At 8 PM on Monday May 3, 1943, General Andrews and staff took off from Bovington airfield. Over Iceland they encountered foul weather, low cloud, mist and rain. The aircraft crashed into the slope of a 1,600-foot mountain. Of the 15 persons on the plane, there was only one survivor, Staff Sergeant George Eisel, the tail gunner.

[spidge]

LIEUTENANT GENERAL W.H.E. GOTT
Killed when his plane was attacked and shot down by Luftwaffe fighters on August 8, 1942. He was about to take command of the British 8th Army in North Africa. The command was now given to General Montgomery who assumed command on August 15, 1942. On August 19, Monty was directed by General Alexander to hold the line at El Alamein until his manpower build-up was completed.

[spidge]

FRIENDLY FIRE (Italy)
On April 29, 1944, a group of American P-47 Thunderbolt fighters mistakenly strafed the airstrip at Cutella on Italy's Adriatic coast, the pilots thinking that it was a Luftwaffe airfield. The airstrip was a base for the Royal Australian Airforce 239 Wing which included 3 and 450 Squadrons. One 3 Squadron Kittyhawk fighter was destroyed and three more damaged. Human casualties were one pilot of an Air Sea Rescue Walrus float plane killed and a few other ground personnel wounded. Tragedy was to strike again next day when a pilot of one of the attacking Thunderbolts, realizing a mistake had been made, flew to the airstrip to apologize. Unfortunately he was killed when his plane crashed when taking off to return home.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Normandy)
On July 24, 1944, 300 US planes dropped a total of 550 tons of bombs on the St. Lo front. It was during 'Operation Cobra' (The breakthrough from St Lo) that the most devastating incident of Friendly Fire ocured. Some of the bombs fell short upon the 30th Infantry Division (Old Hickory) killing 25 men and wounding 131. Next day, the Americans flung in 140,000 shells while 2,730 planes dropped 3,300 tons of bombs and napalm canisters into an area 7,000 long by 2,500 yards wide. The bomb loads of 35 heavy bombers and 42 medium bombers again fell upon the 30th Infantry Division. In this second disaster in two days, the bombing killed a further 111 men and wounded 490. The 30th Division alone suffered 662 casualties from friendly bombing on 25 July: 64 killed, 374 wounded, 60 missing. There was also 164 cases of combat fatigue induced by the stunning effects of the heavy bombardment. Among the casualties in this second disaster was General Lesley J. McNair, Commanding General of US Army Ground Forces. He had flown over from England as an observer to the raid taking place. He was the most senior American General to be killed in the Second World War. His grave can be found in the US Military Cemetery above Omaha Beach in Normandy. This is one of the fourteen permanent WWII military cemeteries that the USA built on foreign soil. In the 172 acre site lie the remains of four women and buried side by side are a father and son as well as thirty-three pairs of brothers. The cemetery contains a total of 9,386 graves. (It is estimated that about 15,480 Americans, fell victim to Friendly Fire in World War II)

[Peter Clare]

FIRE BRIGADE TRAGEDY
April 20, 1941, was Hitler's birthday and the Luftwaffe celebrated the event by dropping 1,000 tons of bombs on London. Many schools in the city were standing empty, the children already evacuated to the country. The Old Palace School in St. Leonards Street, Poplar, was now sub-station 24U of the London Auxiliary Fire Service. The playground was ideal for training and the parking of fire appliances.
On the night of April 20, fire service crews were standing by in anticipation of a heavy raid on the Capital. At precisely 1.53am, a land mine, dropped from a Luftwaffe bomber, scored a direct hit on the school. Thirty two firemen and two fire women were killed. The bodies of the two firewomen, mother of three Winifred Peters and twenty one year old Hilda Dupree, on duty in the watch room, were never found. This was the largest loss of Fire Brigade personnel ever suffered in the history of the service in Britain.

[jacobtowne]

Speaking of general officers falling in combat: During the American Civil War, six generals were killed at Antietam, and another six at Franklin.

At the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, November 30, 1864, General Hood's Confederates lost over 6,000 of 21,000 effectives, most of them in about two hours. Six Confederate generals died in that battle.

At Antietam in 1862, 6 Brigadier and Major generals were killed, and another six wounded.

JT