We try our best to stick to fact on this channel, but not everything in our reality
has been proven or disproven. That doesn't, however, make the unproven any less compelling,
so we're going to give in to our compulsions and explore some paranormal stories
associated with the Second World War, focusing solely on ghosts in this video,
as they seem to be the most common stories out there.
Ghosts — if we're to believe them to be real — are often the product of tragic deaths.
Or, at least, tragic ghost stories are the stories you hear about. It makes sense, then, that a great
many souls unstrung from their bodies would linger in places touched by war. Millions of humans died
terribly in World War II, and many lives were cut short, their aspirations forever unfulfilled.
The beaches of Normandy are said to be haunted by the ghosts of the soldiers who died attacking and
defending the position in the D-Day landings in June 1944. Bearing in mind that this particular
story comes from a forum, one man claimed he was exploring the old German bunkers with
his seven-year-old daughter in — I'd estimate — 2008, only for his daughter to tell him later on
of the "men who were looking and pointing guns at her." His daughter did not know what
World War II-era German soldiers were, yet when he questioned her about what she saw,
she described just that. She even drew what she saw from memory, depicting an MP40, a German
helmet, and even a German medal. When asked by her father if she was scared, she replied, "Yes,
but I knew they weren't trying to hurt me. [...] There were a lot of them. Everywhere I
looked. [...] When we would walk out of a bunker, I would see one in the grass, or behind a tree.
Then when I was in the car, I could see them looking at me from behind a fence in a field."
Other visitors to the bunkers at Normandy report shadow figures lurking in the dark,
and some claim to have taken photos of ghost soldiers too.
Apparently, the Japanese island of Okinawa is one of the most haunted places in the world, and it's
also not without its World War II ghost stories. When the Americans and their allies invaded
Okinawa in March 1945, many Japanese civilians killed themselves so they wouldn't fall into the
hands of the Americans, who would purportedly do something *worse* than murder them. Many jumped to
their deaths from the Okinawa's cliffs. Visitors to the island now claim to hear footsteps dash
past them, followed by screaming as the Japanese civilians who leapt from the cliffs in 1945 do so
once again, reliving their tragic demise over and over. Some even claim to *feel* the spirits brush
past them, likening it to being hit by a wind. Japanese women committed suicided in some of the
caves of the island too, and these are also said to be haunted. Elsewhere on the island, on a site
which is now a golf course, the ghosts of Japanese school girls have been spotted, and it's said that
these girls killed themselves to avoid serving in the Japanese Army in the defence of the island.
The Japanese occupation of Singapore in the Second World War was brutal, and out of that brutality,
many ghosts were born, supposedly. Changi Beach is meant to be one of the most haunted places
on the entire island. In February and March 1942, Japanese troops in Singapore and Malaysia enacted
*Sook Ching* or the "purge through cleansing," executing between 5,000 and 25,000 Chinese men
they believed were a threat. It's said that 66 of these men were lined up on the shore at Changi
Beach and gunned down. Visitors to the beach claim to hear the echoes of their suffering,
reporting screams and even weeping — these sounds, however, are possibly the reactions of the ghost
family members who watched these 66 men die. Some visitors report headless bodies and even floating
heads — ghastly remnants of the prisoners the Japanese beheaded instead of shot. Nearby Changi
Hospital is said to be incredibly haunted too, and this is only exacerbated by the cultists who've,
apparently, since used the supernatural power of the haunted ground for their rituals. Here, some
50,000 Allied men were held prisoner and tortured by the Japanese throughout the Second World War.
The SS Alkimos was a merchant ship built in the United States and sold to the Norwegians
in October 1943. She served in the war for about a year and a half in total, transporting
troops and cargo and surviving attacks by German subs and aircraft. In August 1944,
one of her crewmembers shot to death another crewmember and then turned the gun on himself.
Thereon, the Alkimos was cursed. After the war, she was purchased by a Greek shipping company,
under whom she crashed into a reef just off the coast of Western Australia. During repairs in
Fremantle, Western Australia, the ship caught fire. On her way out of port, when she was
finally ready to leave, her tow line snapped, and she drifted off and struck the shore. Severely
damaged, she was ultimately stranded off that same coast. While the Alkimos was busy sinking,
she was popular with divers and salvagers, who claimed they heard unexplained footprints and
voices while exploring her unsubmerged chambers. Strange, unsettling feelings and spontaneous
fires were also reported, as were the smells and sounds of cooking in the ship's kitchen.
The engines of many boats which neared the wreck inexplicably failed, and its said that horses
ridden along the beach across from where the Alkimos was stranded became nervous and refused
to cross the section of the beach in front of the accursed ship. Divers drowned and even went
missing while exploring the wreck, and many became terribly ill when they got back on land. True or
not, the Alkimos eventually sunk beneath the waves and disintegrated, taking her secrets with her.
Saipan, the largest Northern Mariana island, was under Japanese control until US forces took it in
the Battle of Saipan in June and July, 1944. Many Japanese civilians, just like they did on Okinawa,
jumped from the cliffs to their deaths, though this story isn't about those poor souls. In 2008,
an American woman visited the island and explored an old bomb shelter there. In was the middle of
the day, yet when she entered the shelter, she was caught in a storm of ghostly activity. The
woman claimed she saw "cigarette-smoke-like" apparitions, about five feet tall and adorned
in Japanese military uniform, dashing into the shelter. She said, "I could see their heads and
bodies, but not their hands or feet. [...] They were [...] going through me to get inside the bomb
shelter." She also claimed she heard a rumble, distant yet getting close and even explosions.
In Russia, after the war, battlefield looters were excavating a site near the Makaryevsky monastery,
not far from the town of Lyskovo. Things were going well enough, but then night set in,
and they noticed what seemed like a bonfire lighting up the sky from some distance away. As
they neared it, they learnt it was not a bonfire but a ball of fire suspended somehow in the air.
When they dared closer, the fire went out — snuffed like a candle between a finger and thumb.
As the looters tried for sleep, screams echoed through the forest surrounding them,
and the next day, one of the men ventured just a short distance into the forest, only to get
completely turned around. With an expression of both terror and madness on his face, he eventually
returned to the group, but refused to tell them what he saw lingering out there among the
trees. Other battlefield looters reported similar unexplained occurrences in dark forests elsewhere
on what had been the Eastern Front. One group reported the sound of tank treads clanking over
the forest floor, and when they woke they next morning, they were shocked to find *fresh* tank
tracks exactly where they had heard the tank in the night. *Nothing* is as scary as a ghost tank.
Well, that's certainly something we've never tried before. But what do you think?
Would you like to see us cover more paranormal World War II-related
stories? How about just other generally creepy or mysterious stories — not necessarily paranormal or
supernatural? Please share your thoughts down in the comments.