From the Japanese fighter plane that led the attack on Pearl Harbor to how Hitler was fooled
by a homeless man – plus the real story behind Private Ryan!
Here are ten of the most unbelievable war stories you’ve never heard before!
10: The Night Witches One of the least known groups from World War
2 were the Night Witches.
These were not real witches.
Instead, they were female pilots who flew through the darkness of night in archaic plywood
biplanes from the 1920s to go beyond German lines and rain down hellfire on the enemy.
These women battled horrible harassment on the ground from their very own countrymen,
treated skeptically and as if they didn't belong in the army.
And yet by night, these ladies flew through the frostbitten air to wreak havoc on the
Germans, who feared the Night Witches so completely that when a single German airman managed to
shoot one of them down, he was awarded with an Iron Cross medal.
The Night Witches were part of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, and they dropped over 23,000
tons of bombs on the evil Nazis.
The reason they used biplanes instead of modern planes is that they could easily sweep into
enemy territory without being spotted by modern tech.
They were too small to show up on standard radar and couldn't be seen on infrared locators.
They didn't use radios and couldn’t be tracked that way either.
They were basically ghosts.
But here's the deal.
You might have thought the Night Witches were American or maybe even British – but they
were actually Soviet.
The squadron itself was the idea of Marina Raskova, known by historians as the Soviet
Amelia Earhart.
She was the first female navigator in the Soviet Air Force.
She also had an extensive record of long-distance flights.
In the end, the Night Witches proved a vital part of the Soviets pushing back the Germans
and making it to Berlin.
Their last flight was May 4, 1945, just three days before Germany surrendered.
9: The Downed Pilot A young boy in Denmark was researching the
topic of World War Two for his history class when he accidentally discovered the wreckage
a fighter plane in a field near his house, complete with the ghoulish remains of the
pilot in the cockpit.
The bizarre story behind this pilot’s death is amazing.
According to CNN, the Danish boy went out with his father and a metal detector to look
for relics from the war.
The boy's father was hopeful they would find some plates or something interesting for him
to show at school.
But then they began to find pieces of plane debris.
They actually borrowed an excavator from the neighbor and dug until they found the full
aircraft, which the father believed must have crashed in November or December of 1944, based
on an old story his grandfather had told him.
The curator of the Historical Museum of Northern Jutland was given the possessions found on
the pilot, along with other relevant clues to confirm the man's identity and find out
his story.
It's now believed that the pilot came from a German training base, though it's not clear
how he crashed.
In his pockets, the Danish boy found his wallet, a few scraps of ID papers, and three unused
condoms.
It's not clear what exactly this guy thought he was going to do with those by himself up
in his airplane – but he crashed before he ever could.
8: Pearl Harbor The Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941, just shortly before 8:00 o'clock in the morning.
People today don't really have a full idea of what happened here.
Yes, it was a brutal surprise attack from Japan.
But it didn't actually come out of nowhere.
Japan and the United States were already having serious differences.
Japan declared war on China in 1937 and continuously pushed into Chinese territory, committing
massacres and other horrible atrocities.
The Americans were not happy about this, and so they smacked Japan with economic sanctions
and trade embargoes.
They thought that without access to money and oil, Japan would behave nicely.
This sour relationship went on for quite some time.
There were negotiations between Tokyo and Washington but nothing ever worked out.
War was really inevitable by the time Pearl Harbor happened.
The only difference is that nobody had anticipated an attack so close to the North American continent.
The Americans thought if Japan were to attack, it would be somewhere closer to them, like
a European colony in the South Pacific, maybe Singapore or Indochina.
When the planes came crashing down in Pearl Harbor, it was a huge surprise.
Over 2400 United States citizens died, 20 naval vessels were destroyed or heavily damaged,
and 300 airplanes were taken out.
but as most of us know, this was a grave error for Japan.
Their goal was to wipe out the entire Pacific fleet so that the United States couldn't fight
back as Japan continued their rampage.
But of course, they did fight back and they won.
7: Without a Tail Fin The B-29 Superfortress was the most advanced
airplane, or at least one of them, during World War Two.
It had guns that could fire via remote control.
It was the heaviest production plane in the world and had a massive range, along with
huge bomb loads and massive defensive capabilities.
It utilized the high speed of a Boeing 117 while having increased lift.
They were used heavily in the war in the Pacific, with at least 1000 of them bombing Tokyo throughout
the war.
It was a B-29 called the Enola Gay that actually dropped the first atomic bomb ever on Hiroshima,
followed by a second B-29 three days later dropping the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
But there was one B-29 Superfortress that proved more capable than the others.
It was nicknamed the Rover Boys Express, and its mission was to destroy Tokyo.
The plane was part of a larger force who met serious resistance as they flew over Mt. Fuji.
While being shot, the B-29 lost its tail fin.
The whole squadron was overwhelmed and gunned down in the air.
But even without its tail fin, the B-29 kept fighting to the last second.
It made a messy crash landing into a village, killing seven civilians.
Seven crew members managed to bail but were captured by the Japanese, with only five surviving
to the end of the war as prisoners, eventually liberated and set free.
6: Hitler Fooled by a Homeless Man A dead homeless man named Glyndwr Michael
became a war hero after in January of 1943, he was found dead in the City of London from
eating rat poison.
At his time of death, he was 34 years old and destitute.
Also, there was a scheme to trick the Nazis into thinking that the Allies were about to
attack Greece instead of Sicily.
But they needed a body to trick Hitler.
So, they took this homeless guy and made him a part of what would be codenamed Operation
Mincemeat.
He was transformed into Major William Martin, he was given a death notice in a newspaper
with forged documents and love letters, he was dressed up like a Royal Marine, then his
corpse was thrown into the water where it would ultimately be found and then handed
over to the Spanish authorities.
But why was it so important for the Spanish to find the homeless guy's body?
Because the British had given him some very fake documents outlining an invasion of Sardinia
in Greece.
A fisherman dragged the homeless guy’s body from the ocean, the papers were found on his
body and turned over to the Nazi command, and eventually they made it to Hitler's desk.
Hitler then ordered a huge bulk of defenses to be diverted to Greece, taking much-needed
troops from Russia.
But instead of attacking Greece, the Allied forces landed in Sicily and won the day without
heavy casualties.
The homeless man, or at least his body, was a hero.
5: The Survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived being hit by two
atomic bombs.
He was preparing to leave the city of Hiroshima when the first bomb hit.
Of course, he wasn’t in the instant-kill zone, but he was close enough to feel the
shockwave, which apparently spun him through the air like a tornado and sent him hurtling
into a patch of potatoes.
He was about 2 miles from ground zero.
After Yamaguchi woke up, he could see the falling ash and the cloud of fire rising over
the city.
His face and arms were burned and his eardrums were ruptured.
But he had business to attend to.
He boarded a train and went on an overnight ride to his hometown: Nagasaki.
This is where his wife and child lived.
Even after being struck by an atomi c bomb, this guy went to work three days later.
He tried to explain to his boss that Hiroshima had been destroyed by a bomb and his boss
didn't believe him.
Just as Yamaguchi was being called a liar, the second bomb dropped so close that the
office windows were shattered and a mushroom cloud exploded into the sky.
Somehow, this guy survived being within close proximity to both nukes.
His hair fell out, he became gangrenous, he vomited endlessly, and he was horribly sickened
from the radiation.
Nonetheless, he actually healed and went on to live in perfectly normal life and died
in 2009 at the age of 93.
4: The Bagpipes In 1915, 18-year-old Michael McDougall left
Halifax, Canada, and spent four years fighting in World War One.
He had duties as a soldier, but he also had the responsibility of playing his bagpipes
to lift the spirits of his fellow army men.
He was a soldier in the 25th Battalion Nova Scotian Rifles and completed his service and
returned home, bringing his bagpipes with him.
But he never really told his family what the bagpipes were used for.
He would sometimes take them out, go into the garage, make some music, then come back
inside and return the bagpipes to their special box without saying a word to his family.
His granddaughter described him to Global News as being a quiet man.
It wasn't until the soldier died in 1969 that the bagpipes began to move around.
They went to his eldest son, who learned to play them.
Then after his eldest son died, they landed in the hands of somebody else in the family
who lived thousands of miles away.
His granddaughter, now a woman of her own, was visiting a War Memorial when she saw another
set of bagpipes on display.
She remembered the ones her grandfather used to play and wanted to get them back so that
she could put them into a museum as well, where they could stay forever.
What followed was a lengthy battle that lasted for nearly two years as the granddaughter
tried to wrestle the family bagpipes from another, more distant member of the family
all the way across the country.
But she finally got them back, and over 100 years after her grandfather blew them in Europe,
they were gifted to the local museum as an important piece of Canadian Military heritage.
3: Sunken Bones The wreckage of the Tulsamerican, a B2-24
Liberator bomber built in Oklahoma and the very last of its kind, was just discovered
sitting at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea in pieces near the Croatian island of Vis.
It was found split into two main sections, with the nose of the plane being found peeled
open like a banana.
According to the Smithsonian, the wreckage has painted an amazing story of the fate that
befell those who had piloted it during the final years of World War Two.
It was in December of 1944 when the aircraft was badly damaged during a battle with the
German Air Force in occupied Poland.
The crew of the aircraft tried to make an emergency landing but failed and crashed off
the coast of what is today Croatia.
Seven of the airmen were saved by brave local fishermen, three were lost.
Amazingly, archaeologists working at the crash site found military equipment, articles of
clothing, and even a boot.
Even more incredible is that human bones were found scattered amongst the wreckage.
They haven't been tested yet, but experts are pretty certain that they belong to the
three missing soldiers who went down with the aircraft.
The remains are currently pending DNA analysis.
If any matches are established, the remains are to be given a proper burial.
2: The Real Private Ryan The story of true story behind Saving Private
Ryan is far more fascinating than what was depicted in the movie starring Tom Hanks.
The movie was based on the real-life story of four brothers who joined the war and went
to liberate Europe from Germany.
Edward was the first brother to go, shot down somewhere over Burma and presumed to be dead.
Then on June 6, 1944, brothers Robert and Fritz began in the assault.
Robert was stained outside the town of Ste.
Mere-Eglise, where he held off an onslaught of Germans with the help of two other soldiers
to cover the rest of his platoon’s escape.
He was gunned down in action.
At the same time, Preston was on the shores of Utah beach.
He died with the rest of his platoon trying to destroy a Germany battery.
At this point, by June 7th, three of the bothers are believed dead.
Somehow, the War Department learned of the three brothers dying and that there was still
one left.
They decided to dispatch Fritz, the only remaining son, back to the United States.
This job fell to Father Francis Sampson, the regimental chaplain.
He finally got hold of Fritz and sent him back home.
Then the next year in May of 1945, it turned out Edward was still alive.
He’d bailed from his plane during the crash and been caught by the Japanese, then eventually
freed.
He returned to New York and the two brothers were reunited.
About 55 years later, Steven Spielberg turned their story into a movie.
1: Propaganda & Carrots During World War Two, propaganda and carrots
went hand in hand.
First of all, the truth is that carrots have a large amount of vitamin A, and vitamin A
really helps the health of a person's eye.
There was a 1998 John Hopkins study that even found supplemental pills could help those
with vitamin A deficiency to have better vision.
However, carrots are just a small piece of the puzzle and can't actually give you superhuman
vision any more than eating too many blueberries can turn you blue.
Carrots cannot help you see in the dark.
But somewhere along the line, the myth was born and it is still around today.
How did everyone come to believe that carrots improve eyesight?
It probably came because of British propaganda starting in the 1940s.
At the time, the German air force – the Luftwaffe, was attacking during the night
when it was darkest.
The British government at the time issued blackouts throughout the city to make it more
difficult for them to hit their targets.
At the same time, the British had developed a very new and very secret radar technology
that could pinpoint an incoming enemy before they reached the English Channel.
But to keep this information out of the hands of the Nazis, the U.K. Ministry instead blamed
the success of their pilots defending the English Channel in the dark of night on a
stable diet of carrots.
According to historical records, they then started a campaign of propaganda connecting
night sight with eating carrots, leafy greens, and yellow vegetables.
This was a tactic to confuse the Germans and make them think the British were excellent
pilots at night… all because they ate a lot of carrots.
What’s your favorite legendary war story?
Tell me about it in the comments and thanks for watching.
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