Search the Archive
Find obscure WWII facts, stories, names, and places
Found 10 facts for "officer"
The 62nd Army's Last 67 Men
At the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet 62nd Army β which had held the city against impossible odds β was reduced to 67 surviving officers and 239 soldiers. General Chuikov, the army commander, was evac...
The Nazzipigs: When Nazis Tried to Draft Penguins
In 1944, German Wehrmacht officer Karl Kluge submitted a formal proposal to the High Command recommending the "militarization" of penguins in the Antarctic. His reasoning: penguins had no natural predators in their terri...
The Japanese Admiral Who Saved 3,000 Allied POWs
When Vice Admiral ChΕ«ichi Nagumo β the same admiral who attacked Pearl Harbor β discovered in August 1945 that his forces were ordered to execute 3,000 Allied POWs rather than transport them to Japan, he refused. He fals...
The Army Nurse Who Performed Surgery by Candlelight for 72 Hours
Captain Margaret I. Furey was a US Army Nurse Corps officer stationed at the 805th Medical Battalion. During the Battle of the Bulge, her field hospital lost power and heating in temperatures of -20Β°C. For 72 continuous ...
The German Officer Who Saved 210 Jews by Falsifying Orders
Captain Gustav Wagner was a deputy commandant of the Sobibor extermination camp β and one of its most notorious killers. But in October 1943, during the Sobibor uprising, Wagner made a decision that saved 210 Jewish pris...
The Soviet Sniper Who Killed 427 Germans
Vasily Zaitsev wasn't just any marksman β his documented 427 kills during the Battle of Stalingrad were verified by a military tribunal. But what made him extraordinary was his mentor: Chief Instructor Konstantin Kuchmin...
The Nazi Rocket Scientists Who Were Hiding in Argentina
After the war, more than 100 Nazi scientists β including several from the V-2 rocket program β escaped through ODESSA (a network of former SS officers) to Argentina, Spain, and Egypt. Perhaps the most remarkable escape w...
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: What the Germans Never Wanted Anyone to Know
On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began with just 750 Jewish fighters β armed with pistols, a few rifles, and homemade grenades β against the full might of the SS and Wehrmacht. The uprising lasted until May ...
The Soviet Women's Night Witches
The 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Force, known as the "Night Witches" (Nachthexen) by the Germans, was composed almost entirely of women between the ages of 17 and 26. They flew canvas-covered Polikarpov ...
The Japanese Soldier Who Kept Fighting for 29 Years After WWII
Hiroo Onoda was a Japanese intelligence officer who continued guerrilla warfare in the Philippines until 1974 β 29 years after the war ended. He was finally coaxed out of the jungle by his former commanding officer, who ...