Most people know about World War 2 but there is just soooooooo much history that is completely forgotten or just downright strange. Here are eight lesser known facts.
1. The United States Forgotten Campaign and the forgotten unintentional internment
On June 3rd 1942 the Japanese attacked the Aleutian Island chain. The generally accepted reasoning is that they were trying to draw to split the American Pacific Fleet as the battle of Midway commenced only a day later. They landed on these volcanic rocks of little value however we sent in the Army to kill them all as they had were directly off the North American mainland. Nearly 1500 Americans were killed there with many more missing and wounded. However there is a very tragic thing about this. There were people living on these islands, The Aleut Tribe a recognized tribe who were one of the few not displaced in the 19th century. However we realized that these were citizens even if generally regarded with disdain by a lot of people and we evacuated them. However the conditions in the evacuation camps were awful and it was similar to the Japanese internment only instead of out of fear it was out of stupidity and bad decisions. Some Aleuts died there.
2. Benito Mussolini lived off of crackers and milk for a year and was very embarrassed about it.
Mussolini tried to hide it as best he could but he had severe digestive problems that made it hard to eat. So he only ate crackers and milk for a year which then caused more digestive problems, he actually made it illegal for newspapers to print anything about it as he thought it would ruin his image.
3. The last Defenders of the Reichstag were French SS
The last defenders of the Reichstag were the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French) The Nazis allowed members of the places they conquered to serve and many anti-communist hardliners actually signed up and the last defenders of the Reichstag at the battle of Berlin were French SS and interestingly enough after the war ended many former nazis escaped into serving in the French Foreign legion and a large part of the french forces in then French Indo-China now Vietnam were former Nazis.
4. The Battle for Castle Itter where American soldiers, surrendered wehrmacht soldiers, yugoslav partisans and high ranking french prisoners fought the Nazi SS
During the very last days of the war in Europe the Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps took Castle Itter which held a number of important french officials including a former prime minister and generals and yugoslav partisan prisoners. The Wehrmacht surrendered easily and the castle was taken, however an SS division advanced on the castle, the Americans were outmanned and turned to THE FREAKING GERMANS FOR HELP AND THEY ACCEPTED. The surrendered Germans also had a stake in it as they were afraid of reprisals against the nearby towns by the SS. So Freed prisoners, Former Wehrmacht and American soldiers fought side by side. The German Commander, Major Gangl saved the Former French Prime minister Paul Reynaud and ended up dying in the act.
5. The British used the Skills of Jasper Maskelyne a stage magician to help win several key battles in North Africa
The British Magician did things like create decoy armies made from wood and at one point set up a massive light display 3 miles away from the city of Alexandria in a bay so as to trick the German's night time bombing raids into missing the city entirely or at El Alamein where he created a massive amount of wooden decoys of British Vehicles to trick Rommel.
6. The Last War-Chief of the Plains Indians
Joe Medicine Crow was a young man in the second world war, a member of the Crow Nation he served in Europe where of all things, the young man decided to complete all four tasks necessary to become a War-Chief of the Plains Indian tribes, touching an enemy without killing him, taking an enemy's weapon, leading a successful war party, and stealing an enemy's horse. He disarmed and spared the life of a german soldier who cried for his mother and LED A PARTY OF HIMSELF TO SINGLEHANDLY STEAL 50 FUCKING HORSES FROM AN SS BATTALION. However Sadly, Joe Medicine Crow passed away at the age of 102 this year on April 2nd 2016. i guess you could say we just saw the very very last remnant of any part of the old west go away this year.
7. The Battle of Ramree island where at least 400 japanese soldiers died in the largest crocodile attack known.
During the night Japanese forces on Ramree island Burma were forced to spend it in a swamp. The British Forces included naturalist Bruce Stanley Wright and he says that the extremely high population of Saltwater Crocodiles ate at least Japanese soldiers of the nearly 1000 Japanese there. Whatever happened only 20 of them came out of that swamp.
8. The American who served with first the U.S army then the Soviet Army
Joseph Beyrle was a paratrooper with the 101st screaming eagles on D-Day who unfortunately for him got separated from his Unit for days and ended up captured by Germans and taken Prisoner and eventually ended up at Stalag III-C POW camp in Alt Drewitz, in January 1945 where he escaped and fled east. Where of all things met up with a soviet tank brigade and shouted, 'Amerikansky tovarishch!' meaning American Comrade while holding a pack of lucky strikes. He persuaded the Commander to let him fight alongside of this. Eventually when fighting in the Soviet Army he was wounded in action and sent to a soviet hospital where he lived and ended up joining a military convoy to moscow. There he went to the American Embassy, where they were incredibly shocked to see him AS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE HAD LISTED HIM AS FREAKING DEAD. After the war he went home to Michigan and got married.
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