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‘Shell Shock’
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Captain John Harris was completely exhausted when he collapsed on 24 July 1916. At Pozières, his battalion had suffered under one of the heaviest bombardments of the war. Harris recalled seeing descending shells in their last 40 feet of flight. ‘The only thing to do was grin and bear it.’ …
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On 20 June 1942, four prisoners escape Auschwitz through the front gate, disguised as SS officers.
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Among them is the Polish 22-year-old Kazimierz Piechowski. During the first days of the war, he saw how the Germans killed his friends from the boy scouts, who were perceived as potential sources of resistance. Knowing that he will suffer a similar fate if he doesn’t flee, Piechowski decided to…
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On May 11, 1943, 12,500 U.S. soldiers landed on the northern and southern ends of Attu Island. For over two weeks, battles raged over the tiny island.
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There were few large-scale engagements; as in the rest of the Pacific Theater, the Japanese preferred to employ “small group” tactics, using the rough terrain of Attu to their advantage and lying motionless for hours in foxholes until they could pin down American units with sniper fire. As they moved…
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During World War I, the youngest soldier was a 7-year-old boy, Momchilo Gavriku.
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The youngest soldier ever who was officially a soldier and fighting in a unit was the 7-year old Momčilo Gavrić. He was born in 1907. near Loznica, Serbia. At the beginning of the war, in August, 1914., Austro-Hungarian soldiers of the 42nd Croatian Home Guard Infantry Division maimed and hanged…
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On This Day 77 Years Ago…
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On June 15, 1944, U.S. Marines stormed the beaches of this strategically significant Japanese island of Saipan with a goal of gaining a crucial air base from which the U.S. could launch its new long-range B-29 bombers directly at Japan’s home islands. Saipan, the second largest island in the Marianas,…
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Last weeks of 1942 were a turning point of WWII. At Stalingrad, German 6th Army was already doomed, while the second battle of El Alamein and “Operation Torch” neutralized the Axis threat to North Africa, the Suez Canal and the Middle East.
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➡ In November, New York saw the premiere of “Casablanca,” set in the Vichy France colony of Morocco. One of the main characters in the movie was Victor Laszlo, member of Czech resistance fleeing from the Germans. Some people say he was modelled on a real person. ➡ If so,…
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Evidence of early human presence in the Arctic found on an ancient Woolly Mammoth :
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Paleolithic records of humans in the Eurasian Arctic (above 66°N) are scarce, stretching back to 30,000 to 35,000 years ago at most. Pitulko et al. have found evidence of human occupation 45,000 years ago at 72°N, well within the Siberian Arctic. The evidence is in the form of a frozen…
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Pictures taken during the Battle for Hill 192 in Normandy – June/July 1944
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Note that some of these pictures were taken in or near Saint-Georges-d’Elle Hill 192 was located between the cities of Saint-Lô and Bayeux in Normandy. The Battle was fought between elements of the 2nd US Infantry Division and the 16,000 strong 3rd German Fallschirmjäger (Parachute) Division, commanded by Generalleutnant Richard…
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In August 1961, a daring East German soldier defied orders to aid a young boy’s escape across the newly built Berlin Wall.
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The picture capturing this act likely dates back to when the wall was first erected. The boy was caught on the wrong side, separated from his parents who were in West Berlin visiting relatives. Despite the stern commands of the East German government prohibiting passage, the soldier chose to help…
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In the 1720s, a Scottish woman named Margaret Dickson was found trying to abandon the body of her newborn baby near the banks of the River Tweed.
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It isn’t known whether she lost the child in the late stages, or whether it died shortly after being born. Nonetheless, she was arrested charged and taken to Edinburgh to face trial, where she was found guilty and sentenced to death. In 1724, Dickson was hanged but somehow survived. She…