History

  • Halloween in WWII

    I know I am a day early but with all the trick or treaters calling tomorrow  I might not be have the time to do a piece then. Although Halloween is originally a Celtic event.Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the…

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  • The Liberation of Breda

    Breda was liberated on 29 October 1944 by the 1st Polish Armoured Division. led by General Stanislav Maczek. A picture sometimes tells a thousand words, therefore below some pictures of that day 29 October 1944. Dutch Resistance fighters armed with captured German weapons celebrate the liberation of Breda by the Polish 1st Armored Division Honouring…

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  • Contrary to the title and the picture above, this is not going to be a piece on ornithology. “Saw a bird of paradise today.”were some of the words that,Stanley McTacket wrote as he  prepared to go into battle on the Kokoda Track on August 19, 1942, Stanley McTackett took a moment to write a letter to…

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  • Der Stürmer was an anti-Semitic “tabloid style” newspaper published by Julius Streicher from 1923 almost continuously through to the end of World War II. Der Stürmer was viewed by Hitler as playing a  significant role in the Nazi propaganda machinery and a useful tool in influencing the “common man on the street”. It was a…

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  • Arrow Cross Party

    It wasn’t only the Germans and Austrians who had Nazi parties. The Italians had the PNF, the Dutch had the NSB, and even the UK and the US had Nazi parties or equivalent to it. The Hungarians had “the Arrow Cross Party” or “Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom” The Arrow Cross Party was a national socialist…

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  • Unusual WWII Facts:Part 14

    During World War II, the now-legendary VIII Bomber Command (often referred to as the Eighth Air Force) served as the principal American force assembled to attack Germany from the air. For several critical years in the early and mid-1940s, B-24 and B-17 bombers—the Flying Fortresses—from the “The Mighty 8th”, often in tandem with Royal Air…

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  • Under the code name “Aktion 1005” the Germans tried to cover all tracks of Nazi extermination policy in the east, by opening mass graves and cremating hundreds of thousands of bodies. The code name had its origin in the file number 1005, used in the related correspondence between Gestapo chief SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller and Martin Luther,…

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  • Today marks the 77th anniversary of Doris Miller’s death Doris “Dorie” Miller (October 12, 1919 – November 24, 1943) was a Ship’s cook Third Class that the United States Navy noted for his bravery during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was the first African American to be awarded the Navy Cross, the…

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  • Most people will be aware of the name Getty be it from Getty Oil or Getty Images Getty Oil was founded by J.Paul Getty sr. in 1957 Fortune magazine named him the richest living American,while the 1966 Guinness Book of Records named him as the world’s richest private citizen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion (approximately $8.8 billion…

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  • August Sangret (28 August 1913 – 29 April 1943) was a French-Canadian soldier  of North American Indian ethnic origin, convicted and subsequently hanged for the September 1942 murder of 19-year-old Joan Pearl Wolfe in Surrey, England. This murder case is also known as the Wigwam Murder. The murder of Joan Pearl Wolfe became known as…

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