10.
U-Boat Base at Brest Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander-in-chief of
the U-boat fleet, arrived in Lorient, France and chose the port as one of his five French
bases; he also selected Brest, Saint-Nazaire, La Pallice, and Bordeaux.
The U-boat bunker at Brest in France began construction in the early days of 1941 and
was finished that same summer.
A flotilla of deadly U-boats was moved from Germany to Brest, at which point it became
one of their primary bases of operation.
It had 13 main pens for the submarines, 9 secondary pens, and a roof over 12 feet (3.65
m) thick.
During the war though, the bunker was improved and the thickness of the roof was increased
to an astounding 20 feet (6.09 m).
This meant that even though Brest was attacked over 80 times by the Allies, it still remains
standing today.
It was finally penetrated in August of 1944 after the Americans finally blasted through
the roof of the pens and dropped 9 bombs inside.
Still, those bombs didn't do enough damage to ruin the structure.
The base was captured by the Americans in September after a siege that lasted over a
month.
To this day, the remnants of the base are still being used by the French Navy.
But they don't use it to hold submarines, 9.
Secret Nazi Tunnels In the northeast of Poland, five entrances
were recently discovered leading to a secret network of tunnels from World War Two.
The curious discovery was made at an abandoned Nazi headquarters by staff with the Mamerki
museum and a group of historical volunteers.
The abandoned headquarters is over 2 hectares large.
A spokesman from the museum said that based on their initial findings, the tunnels appear
to be about 150 feet (46 m) long, maybe even more.
But some have been filled in, so the experts haven't actually been able to dig their way
through them.
They can't get to the other side of the tunnels because they’re filled with debris.
But this hasn't stopped them from putting forth some pretty wild theories.
The museum experts believe this may have been the last location of the Amber Room before
it disappeared, the great treasure stolen by the Germans from Catherine Palace in Russia.
The treasure consists of hundreds of pounds of pure amber, gems, and gold, all worth over
$500 million.
While they can't get to the bottom of the tunnels to see for sure, they believe some
of this treasure may very well have been stashed here.
Then it was sealed so the Allies would never find it.
Do you think the treasure could be here?
Let us know in the comments below!
8.
A Live Explosive On Wildwood Beach in Philadelphia, a local
resident came across an unexploded bomb from World War Two.
It was a large piece of munition found just sitting on the beach like a washed-up clam
in the sand.
Except in this case, it was a clam that could have exploded and blown somebody's leg off.
The resident who found the explosive brought it back to their house and called the police.
The Atlantic City Bomb Squad quickly showed up to safely detonate it.
They identified the munition as a live 120mm projectile.
Several properties had to be evacuated for two hours while the bomb squad detonated the
explosive on the beach.
Imagine the concern of the residents, wondering if their house was about to get blown up!
How did such an explosive turn up on the beach like that?
This is the million dollar question no one has the answer to.
It's true that munitions were once transported through the area to be shipped to soldiers
in World War Two.
It could simply be that one got lost, it fell in the water, and this just happened to be
the day it washed up on the shore.
7.
Lost Bracelet 76 years ago during the height of World War
Two, an American soldier fighting in Europe lost a very precious possession.
Now, at the age of 95, he has finally been reunited with this lost object.
It's a bracelet, small and silver and not worth much in cash.
But Joe Esquibel lost it when he was 18 years old during army basic training.
To him, the bracelet is priceless.
On the front of the bracelet is his signature, and on the back is the name of his sweetheart
that he carved into it with a nail.
Joe made it out of the war alive.
He was awarded a Purple Heart.
He married his sweetheart, moved to Colorado, and had four kids.
All these years later in 2021, a metal detectorist looking through the ruins of a former POW
camp discovered a silver bracelet with Joe’s signature.
He took to a Facebook treasure hunting group, discovered the obituary of Joe's wife, and
then got help from the United States embassy and the Marines to track down Joe and his
daughter.
The veteran was finally reunited with his bracelet after 77 years apart.
6.
Supermarine Spitfire The Spitfire was arguably one of the greatest
planes from World War Two.
When the war started, Britain didn't have air superiority.
They had great naval prowess, but they really couldn't compete with the deadly German Luftwaffe.
When they created the Spitfire though, they changed the game.
Over 20,000 Spitfires were produced, ultimately saving Great Britain from being bombed mercilessly
by the Germans.
The Spitfires were able to combat the German aircrafts, leading to a more even battlefield.
These days, there are less than 44 Spitfires still flying.
But there are even more hiding across Europe and the US in hangers and stashed in barns.
One of these lost warbirds is a 1943 Supermarine Spitfire, abandoned in a warehouse since 1973.
It was used in the filming of The Battle of Britain and in The Longest Day several years
before that, but it hasn't moved much since.
The plan was purchased by a Texan stunt pilot named Wilson Edwards, who shipped it to the
US and then left it in his warehouse.
It's still sitting there in amazing condition, looking as though it could still fly if given
enough love.
Last we heard, it was selling for over $2.5 million US.
If you had that kind of cash, would you fork it over for an old, British warbird?
Let us know in the comments below and don't forget to hit subscribe if you haven’t already
before the end of the video!
:) 5.
Hitler’s Flying Saucer Prisoners of a concentration camp constructed
a deep network of tunnels in the Sowie Mountains back in 1944.
This was in Poland when the Nazis were still in control of the country.
The tunnels have remained mysterious ever since the war, as nobody really knows what
they were used for.
The Nazis destroyed all documents related to the tunnels before Soviet troops could
get their hands on them.
But perhaps the strangest part about the tunnel system is that there is a mysterious structure
built above it that appears to be a launchpad.
Yet it couldn't have been used for any conventional aircraft because of its size.
Experts believe it may have been built to launch experimental flying saucers.
It almost definitely wasn't a real flying saucer in the way we think of them today.
They may never have even finished it.
Forensic archaeologist Robert Sparling says the Nazis were experimenting with technology
beyond their knowledge, a type of flying saucer that used a glowing propulsion system to take
off vertically.
There's no evidence that they ever successfully built a prototype.
But the tunnels and the launchpad together suggest a bizarre project greenlighted by
Hitler to make the world’s first flying saucer.
4.
A Terrible Mystery Archaeologists made an absolutely terrifying
discovery last year in 2021 at the Stalag II-D camp in Stargard.
This place was once the location of a German POW camp.
And if we know anything about the Germans in World War Two, it was probably a less than
pleasant experience for the prisoners locked up here and forced into extremely hard labor.
Researchers recently excavated the bodies of 64 people here, prisoners of war who all
seem to have died over four consecutive days.
Yet the real mystery is that nobody can figure out how they died.
They don't show any evidence of being shot, or really of any kind of cause of death.
The head of the Department of Forensic Genetics at the local Pomeranian Medical University
believes most of the dead were soldiers with the Red Army.
However, they also discovered fragments of soldier uniforms from Polish and Belgians.
Regardless of who they were, all the prisoners died within just 96 hours in December of 1941.
That's over a dozen people a day.
The forensics experts are still working to figure out what exactly the Nazis did to kill
these people.
They’re also trying to work out their identities to get their remains back to where they belong.
3.
Churchill’s Secret Station Hiding 73 beneath the City of London is a
silent stretch of corridors and dark rooms unknown to most of the people living up above.
And yet in World War Two, these unlit rooms and spooky tunnels played a vital role in
keeping the city safe.
What we’re talking about is within the abandoned Down Street Tube station, a hideaway where
Winston Churchill and other military brass planned the D-Day landings and the evacuation
of Dunkirk.
It was down here in the abandoned subway tunnels where a team of 40 staff worked 24 hours a
day during the German bombing campaign.
Their goal was to plan how they were going to strike back and liberate Europe.
What's truly fascinating is that even during the war, the citizens of London had absolutely
no idea their overlords were running things out of a grimy old subway station.
It had originally opened in 1907 but closed in 1932 because nobody used it.
Then when war was declared in 1939, it made the perfect secret lair.
These days, the only way to discover the secrets of London’s hidden underground is on a private
tour.
Have you been on this tour before?
Let us know in the comments below!
2.
The Ghost Army For over 50 years after the war, nobody knew
about the Ghost Army.
It was originally formed in 1944 as a special unit of troops with a very strange mission.
But they weren't discovered, or should I say revealed, to the American population until
the 1990s.
Then it wasn't until 2022 until U.S. President Joe Biden signed a new bill finally providing
recognition to the Ghost Army for their courageous acts in World War 2.
But just what did the Ghost Army do?
Their task in 1944 was to deceive and manipulate German troops.
They were to use deception tactics to make it seem as though there were more American
soldiers than in reality.
As bizarre as it sounds, the Ghost Army used things like inflatable dummy tanks, sound
effects, fake trucks, and anything else at their disposal to skew the truth.
The Ghost Army had to do whatever they could to confuse the enemy about the number of American
troops and where they were.
They set up fake platoons in random spots to confuse the Germans, and they artificially
inflated the number of troops moving into a zone to make them appear more frightening.
1.
Bluie East Two Bluie East Two, or more casually known as
BE2, is an abandoned base used by the US Army Air Corps in World War Two.
Nothing remains of it today except empty fuel drums and piles of twisted metal, but the
scenery is pretty spectacular.
Because the abandoned base is located on Greenland’s East Coast, only accessible after a flight
from Iceland, two boat rides, and then a serious hike, pretty much nobody has been here since
the war.
The area is only ever visited by whales and other wildlife.
There are rusting military vehicles shadowed by huge, glacier-covered mountains – and
no humans for thousands of miles.
But here's the ugly part about it.
Scientists discovered the site is leaking toxic waste into the water and poisoning all
the animals.
The disturbing discovery was made just a few years ago, and Denmark has since agreed to
clean up the deserted army base.
What’s your favorite mystery from World War 2?
Let us know in the comments section down below and thanks so much for watching.
Be sure to hit that subscribe button and come back soon for more awesome historical videos.
See you then, bye! :)