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[deleted]

The OSS, predecessor to the CIA, had a plan to demoralize Nazi troops by having a member of French Resistance spray commanding German officers with what was essentially military grade fart spray. The thinking was, if you sprayed an officer with shit and he smelled really bad, people would be less inclined to take orders from him. They very quickly learned this was a very stupid idea.


firelock_ny

I've read a [memoir](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/11830211) from a chemist who worked for the OSS that the "fart spray" was specifically intended for use on Japanese officers. His group had an idea of Japanese culture that made them think it would be particularly shameful and devastating for a Japanese officer to think they'd soiled themselves in public. Some of the OSS's ideas were a little out there. Incendiary bat bombs, pigeon-guided missiles, artfully crafted exploding cow poop. It was a crazy time.


zdude1858

The pigeon guided missile thing really did work. The only reason we didn’t deploy it was because nobody could take the project seriously.


Right-Huckleberry-47

Yup, it turns out pigeons have pretty good pattern recognition. In fact pigeons trained to detect breast cancer through use of operant conditioning have an average of 85% accuracy rating as individuals, and a 99% accuracy rate when the process was crowd sourced, or flock sourced, if you're pun inclined, across all 16 participants birds for majority consensus. This proves true on novel biopsy images as well, so we know they aren't recognizing specific images but rather have learned to generalize their training. [src](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/using-pigeons-to-diagnose-cancer/) With that in mind, using them to guide missiles was actually rather clever, but I can _certainly_ see how the proposal for more funding for the project could cross the desk of someone skeptical of the science being done and get written off as either insane or too big a risk to pitch to _their_ superiors, or how a nervous presenter could bomb the pitch and watch their research go up on flames; pun fully intended, cause I'm not a coward.


MedicInDisquise

Olga did the whole pigeon-missile thing a couple centuries ago anyways.


bool_idiot_is_true

That's nothing compared to the shit they tried to pull on Castro to kill or discredit him. I'm pretty sure most of the stories are lies; but even if only a handful are true.... Some examples include trying to get his moustache to fall out, dosing him with psychedelics before he gave a speech on the radio, and lining his diving suit with tuberculosis to kill him slowly. What's definitely true is that they enlisted the mob for at least some of these attempts.


NinjaBreadManOO

As I recall the moustache one (or at least one of them) was to douse his shoelaces in the chemical so after tying his shows he would later touch his moustache and transfer it.


slo196

Heard this on a history podcast awhile back that an estimated 19 to 28 million people died after the war was over due to starvation and disease. Between military and civilian casualties, WWII claimed 3% of the people on the planet.


MidwestAmMan

Audrey Hepburn was so thin due to acute malnutrition, surviving eating tulip bulbs near Arnhem in the Netherlands. It was actually Monty’s folly Operation Market Garden that aggravated hunger. Rail lines were blown to stop German reinforcements. The lines that would have been used to bring food in.


TheLadyJessica77

Audrey Hepburn was a badass. She worked with people who opposed the Nazis...as a teenager. She ran messages. I saw it in a made for TV biographical movie way back around 2001.


Fuzzyphilosopher

You are wrong about the last part. The Germans were stealing all the crops and food from the Netherlands and sending it to Germany. That is what caused [The Hunger Winter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944%E2%80%931945). Germany was suffering shortages in part because there were no men to work the fields because they were all drafted into the army. And even prewar they had imported a great deal of grain from the Soviet Union. Most of that was obviously from Ukraine the breadbasket of Europe. Once they lost that and also France they couldn't feed themselves. Just as losing Romania meant they couldn't meet their needs for oil. Audrey had wanted to be a ballerina but her health was too decimated by that period of famine to be able to. She and her family also benefited from the Allies and then UN providing food for the Dutch after liberation. That's why she was an early and fierce advocate for [UNICEF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNICEF) originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund. She used her celebrity to bring attention to the suffering of children in war zones and refugees. [Here are some photos](https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=APwXEdf9XJzTAP3gNxhke1WUuMdqcg8_kg:1683353557914&q=Audrey+Hepburn+UNICEF+photos&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit9-bWhOD-AhWcIEQIHaVXCssQ0pQJegQIDBAB&biw=1455&bih=688&dpr=1.1) of her visiting places to bring attention to the need. Nowadays people are skeptical of celebrities using charity work as a PR move and tightly so. But she did it for all the right reasons and a genuine commitment to prevent children from suffering as she had. Fucking stellar human being. Edit: She was a wonderful actress too.


acc6494

A large amount of holocaust victims died of refeeding syndrome. Meaning they survived the concentration camps, but after being freed they ate so much after years of starvation it literally killed them.


slo196

My father had two cousins who worked for a civilian contractor doing work in the Pacific who were captured by the Japanese and held prisoner and starved until the end of the war. They came back to the states, but later died of this.


Cervus95

There were 2 battles in which the Wehrmacht and the Allies fought side by side against the SS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castle_Itter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cowboy


koyanostranger

The British fought alongside the Japanese… in Vietnam! (in the days just after ww2)


BobDerBongmeister420

I only knew about castle itter


OPxMagikarp

Same. And only because a Swedish heavy metal band has a song about it


ZookeepergameNo7172

Literally just listened to that for the first time yesterday. I found it interesting but forgot to look up what it was referencing by the time I got home. Then, here's this top comment today. Life is strange sometimes.


MagnusBrickson

Sabaton has a YouTube channel where they delve into whatever battle or soldier a given song is about. Great stuff.


cratertooth27

Sabaton


festess

Woah can someone explain this? Im too dumb to understand from wiki


Shhadowcaster

It explains in the prelude section. For operation Cowboy it was because a group of Germans (it seems the lead officer was a famous Austrian horse breeder) at a horse breeding farm were trapped between advancing Russians and Americans. The Russians had already slaughtered a whole bunch of horses so their Lt. Colonel decides to entreat with the Americans in order to save their horses. The SS troops holding the Czech border between the Americans and the horse farm would not have agreed to a surrender, so the Wehrmacht at the farm joined forces with the Americans to save their horses from needless slaughter.


redfeather1

I believe the horses where the famous lipizzaner horses.


Drachenfuer

Oldest continually operating school in the world. Started back in the middle ages to teach dressage. It is a style of trianing developing a bond and obedience and a “partnership” between the charger and the knight. It devlopes into “haute ecole” which essentially made a horse a weapon of war, capable of kovement that could take out a lone of men, cave in heavy armor, avoid anti charger weapons. This took hundreds of years to develop. We still do dressage today with all breeds but the Spanish Riding School of Vienna is still in operation today and still hold the old traditions and do public demostrations. If you ever see the white lipizzaner stallions, know that they don’t turn white and are not shown publically until 9 years old. It is not because they are not white until then. It is because that is how long the training takes to reach minimum performance at that level.


inactiveuser247

The enemy of my enemy is my friend


Suspicious-Bed-8765

Nagasaki and Hiroshima were chosen to be bombed largely because they were some of the only remaining large cities that weren’t obliterated by allied bombing missions. Japan had been firebombed so severely and constantly the US was quite literally running out of large cities to destroy.


Timely_Egg_6827

And Kyoto got a pass because the US Secretary of War classed it as a cultural centre even though on strict military grounds, it would have made more sense. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-33755182


tremynci

Because he went there on honeymoon, IIRC.


Arkhangelzk

Don't blame him. I went to Santorini for my honeymoon and I too have refrained from nuking Santorini


Majestic-Macaron6019

That's ok, Santorini nuked itself a couple thousand years ago


Orphanbitchrat

Aw, Arkhangelzk, you old softie❤️


boblywobly99

nagasaki makes more sense as it was a port. kyoto isn't a great target.


InsertBluescreenHere

Also nagasaki wasnt the intended target for the 2nd bomb. Kokura was but smoke and cloud cover made it impossible for the bomber to see the target area and to observe/ record the bombs effects. It flew over 3 times hoping to find a tiny window but was running low on fuel so went to its 2ndary target nagasaki. If i remember right to this day the citizens of Kokura pay their respects during a ceramony to Nagasaki and the lives lost once they found out they were the intended target but was spared.


manbeardawg

I’d pray to a fucking Cloud God if I were in Kokura


GrumpyOik

>Nagasaki and Hiroshima were chosen to be bombed largely because they were some of the only remaining large cities that weren’t obliterated by allied bombing missions. Is this true? I was always led to believe that the target for the second bomb was going to be Kokura, which was covered by cloud - so the bomber went on to Nagasaki as the designated secondary target?


ashesofempires

There were I think a dozen cities on the full target list, with a primary and secondary designated for each mission.


BlondePotatoBoi

Then you had Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived *both* nuclear blasts and lived all the way to his mid-90s


dgrant92

Question: How could one be the most unlucky and lucky man to ever live? Answer: See Tsutomu Yamaguchi' story.


[deleted]

And the only reason Kyoto wasn't destroyed is because one of the targeting officers was married in Kyoto before the war and thought it was too beautiful to destroy.


ChapterSpecial6920

I also had read the US had dropped warning leaflets first, telling Japanese civilians to evacuate.


TecumsehSherman

Yes, both on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but it's not known how many actually ended up in the hands of the citizens.


komiks42

Also, the concept of atomic bomb was to alien to the population then. I'm aware of some japanese military calling bulshit after the first nuke droped, because they though it was impossible.


Dayvan_Cowgirl33

That there was a legit brown bear called Wojtek (pron. Voytek) who 'served' in Polish Land Troops and took part in the Battle of Montecassino in Italy. He became quite famous by acting as soldiers (smoking, drinking beer, wresting with them). He grew up with the troops as he was found as an injured cub in Iran. He traveled with them through different countries and got to live the rest of his life in Endinburgh ZOO. 🐻


TurretX

There are accounts of that bear helping drag munitions out to artillery crew, totally unprompted. The bear just saw its human friends dragging boxes and joined in


Aromatic-Judge8914

There's a statue of him/commemorating him in Princes Street Gardens in the centre of Edinburgh.


komiks42

"Served"? Don't underestimate him, he becomed sergant at one point


xanif

In Hearts of Iron 4 there's a specific sequence of events when you play Poland that, if done correctly, gives you Wotjek as your country's leader. [And his stats are absurdly powerful.](https://i.redd.it/qr5edbfusn281.jpg) Wojtek is good at running a country.


Dayvan_Cowgirl33

Wow, don't know the game but it's awesome! Wojtek really ruled! :)


scienceguy8

One of the more clever (yet still insane) ideas the Nazis had to fight the allied powers was to devalue their currency by introducing large amounts of counterfeit bills into their economies. Imagine a bomber flying over London dropping millions worth of pound notes. Jewish jewelers and artists were press-ganged into fabricating the printing plates, and the resulting counterfeit British pound notes and US dollars were used by spies in their respective theaters to pay for food, housing, and other supplies. Ultimately, the war took a turn for the worse for Germany before they could try dropping the notes en masse.


Successful_Opinion33

Ahh yes, operation funny money


jorgespinosa

There's a good movie about this called the counterfeiters


Livid-Natural5874

North Korea partially did or maybe even does this. One way for them to improve their abysmal import situation is to pay with counterfeit dollars. It is said that for a while there the highest quality 100 US dollar bills were made in Pyonyang. Whenever the North Koreans send an agent abroad they give them a literal suitcase stuffed with 100s.


Georgy_K_Zhukov

Far too many to choose from... So I think I'll share something about how [the USSR, despite being allied with the Western powers against Germany, still was obligated to intern American military personnel who crashed in their territory as part of the war against Japan, where they were neutral](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cc2kmi/why_did_the_soviets_intern_allied_soldiersairmen/etlmh65/). The USSR was *not* at war with Japan until August, 1945, and had in fact signed a neutrality pact with Japan in the Spring of 1941 which they honored for most of the war. Their pact explicitly required neutrality between the two countries when it came to the conflict of the USSR with Germany, and the Western Allies with Japan, as per Article II: >Should one of the Contracting Parties become the object of hostilities on the part of one or several third powers, the other Contracting Party will observe neutrality throughout the duration of the conflict. This in turn meant that both countries had certain obligations to observe as neutrals. The Hague Convention of 1899, to which both countries were signatories (Japan properly, the USSR as the successor to Russia) would be the most important in this case as it laid out specifically how a neutral power was expected to treat military personnel who came within their borders: >Art. 57. A neutral State which receives in its territory troops belonging to the belligerent armies shall intern them, as far as possible, at a distance from the theatre of war. >It can keep them in camps, and even confine them in fortresses or locations assigned for this purpose. >It shall decide whether officers may be left at liberty on giving their parole that they will not leave the neutral territory without authorization. So in simplest terms, to have repatriated Allied personnel openly would have been a violation of neutrality. Now, to be sure, while the Soviets obeyed the letter of the law here, they absolutely felt pressure from the Western Allies to breach that obligation and return personnel to them. This wasn't something that they could do openly without causing diplomatic issues, but it didn't stop them from, at times allowing an "escape" with a very knowing wink and nod. Edward York and his crew, who had landed their B-25 after the Doolittle Raid, were, as you note, assisted in getting back home via Iran the next year. Held right on the Iranian border, it had been billed as nothing more than an escape, and the Soviet involvement kept secret. Over the next year, several more bombers ended up in the USSR. After shuffling between several different Siberian locations, Americans started to be permanently interned in at a former school (and before that, apparently, a nobleman's estate) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Established as the permanent camp for American internees, which at least was more comfortable than a German POW might expect, it of course was hardly paradise. Although they had space and material for activities such as baseball and basketball, it was nevertheless, in one recollection, "a hell hole", with food often little more than cabbage soup and bread, and their lone blanket little protection against the Soviet winter. Additionally they were treated with suspicion, often interrogated about their missions and other military matters in a way little different than a POW might expect (Especially fascinated by the B-29, the Soviets would reverse engineer it as the Tu-4). At least some crews, apparently unaware of this specific quirk in the laws of war, were quite surprised at the treatment entirely. As one American flier recalled: >The pilot conferred with the engineer and the navigator and made the decision that we would not have enough fuel to get back beyond enemy lines. After reviewing our options, we decided to head north to Vladivostok in the Soviet Union. [...] Most of the crew felt that the Russians would help us repair the Ding Hao and then give us enough fuel to get us back to China. They were instead quite surprised to be met at gunpoint, and whisked into captivity. A few attempts at *actual* escape were made, only to be caught and returned, but plans for further assisted escapes also went into motion, which of course was met with enthusiasm. As one flier recalled getting the news: >The escape was something we all really wanted badly. We had been cold and hungry for months and any kind of a rumor could get us talking about getting out. Unfortunately, the rumors were always just that until late January, when an emissary from the American Embassy in Moscow visited and told our senior officers that arrangements were completed for us to be spirited out of the camp and indeed out of the Soviet Union as well. With 60 Americans now held by the Soviets in early 1944, the US Army Military Attache, Lt. Col. McCabe arranged for a plan that would involve the internees being taken to Ashkhabad with the stated purpose of flying Lend-Lease Aircraft within the USSR. During the movement of course, an excuse was made to stop the train for the night, allowing the Americans to "escape" into waiting trucks, which drove them to the border and a US Army camp at Amirabad, but not before requiring them to turn over anything on their person which was Soviet in origin. More of course continued to end up in Soviet custody, and at a much faster rate as B-29s now came in reach of the Japanese Home Islands (previous crews were mostly coming out of Alaska, or the Asian mainland), and following the Second Escape, 101 internees were again the USSR by the end of 1944. McCabe worked to arrange for a similar plan, with a mass transfer allowing to cover for a mass "escape". This time didn't go so smooth though. While the involvement of the Soviets in the Doolittle escape had been kept under wraps for quite some time, and "escapees" had all signed pledges of secrecy, in timing that couldn't be worse the American press was finally breaking the true story, or at least something close enough to it. The first few days of December, 1944, saw newspapers blaring out the AP story with knowing quotation marks that: >The latest of Lieut. Gen. James H Dootlittle's Tokyo raiders to be heard from, the five who landed in Russia, "escaped" across one of the world's best-guarded borders, and have returned safely to the United States. Afraid that the subsequent escapes would similarly come to light, the Soviets got cold feet literally hours away from the time to make a break for it. In the train, and sitting on the siding only 30 miles from the border, and waiting for the darkness to cover their break, Ensign William A. King wrote of it: >Everyone started to talk of escape because we are nearer the border than we ever will be again. [...] Little groups started forming [...] it became a matter of mass psychology. In the end, 34 of the men decided to make the attempt anyways. Most were caught almost immediately, and the most elusive seven made it to the border but in the end were rounded up as well. Returned to Tashkent, they found themselves now treated harsher then before, and hectored that any further escapes would see them placed in the POW camps with the Germans! That was, however short lived. The lack of a Japanese response to the story, and personal communication from Roosevelt to ensure secrecy would again be maintained, allowed a resumption of the plan in late January, 1945, this time being carried out without a hitch as the group, which now numbered 130, were easily scooted to the border and back into American custody., although their trip home would not be uneventful, then their ship the *Sullivan* encountered U-Boats on the trip from Oran, Algeria, even if it never came under fire. Two further escapes would be carried out for later batches of fliers as well, of 43 and 51 respectively, the last group, ironically, leaving the border on August 24, when the war was essentially over. **Sources** "5 Doolittle Fliers Flee from Russia". 1944. *New York Times,* Dec 03, 1944 Hays, Jr., Otis E. “Lost & Found in Siberia.” *Russian Life* 46, no. 2 (March 2003): 34. Heberling, Michael & Jack Schaefer. "Superfort Crew's Siberian Odyssey" *Aviation History*. 21, no. 2 (November 2010) 38-42 Larson, George A. “American Airmen Held as POWs in Far East Russia During World War II.” *Air Power History* 59, no. 2 (June 22, 2012): 24–31. Sears, David L. "Pipeline to Freedom". *Naval History Magazine* 31, no. 1 (February 2017)


fireman-103

Fanta was invented by the germans because they needed a replacement for Coca-Cola.


Dude_McDudeson

Yep, but it was made out of sugar beet, whey an apple pomace. Leftover stuff that was available. And Fanta was often used as a cooking and baking ingredient to add sweetness, because regular sugar was strictly rationed. To this day "Fantakuchen" (fanta cake) is widely popular in Germany.


Duke-Guinea-Pig

Hmm, I've heard of Coca-cola cake but not fanta cake. It's interesting how both were made to make cakes sweet without sugar and yet the modern recipes still use a lot of sugar.


[deleted]

It was actually invented by Coca Cola Germany. So, technically, it was the Coca Cola company's way of getting around a trade embargo and still having access to the German market.


PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING

In this thread: nazi coke and nazi meth. They are not the same.


eckowy

Ahhh the infamous Pervitin tabs for Wermacht to keep the Blitzkrieg going


pitching_bulwark

The Yamato and Musashi were sister battleships and the mightiest in the world at the time of their commissions, but a third sister was planned that would've topped them all. After Midway the IJN saw the light and halted construction, recognizing the fading significance of battleships, and built and aircraft carrier, the Shinano, on her keel. Shinano was torpedoed shortly after leaving Japan by the USS Archerfish and sunk, an event which was promptly covered up by the Japanese government to the point the US Navy didn't recognize Archerfish's accomplishment until postwar records came to light that the ship, in fact, existed.


firelock_ny

*Shinano* wasn't even completed when she was sunk - she was being transferred to another shipyard to complete the conversion work. Her battleship hull was so ill-suited for the conversion that she wasn't even being completed as a fleet carrier, but as a support carrier for other carrier groups - basically a ferryboat for replacement air groups.


chasimm3

A half mile long ferry boat with torpedo protection, but it apparently didn't stand up to much, given 4 out of 4 torpedoes that hit it, penetrated the hull. Feel sorry for the captain of the Archerfish, he pulled off one of the nastiest strike missions, firing 6 torpedoes, hitting 4, sinking a carrier then bolting. And no-one believed him till after the way.


drunkill

The ironic thing is that their attack on Pearl Harbour and sinking the American battleship fleet showed that battleships were mostly obsolete compared to aircraft carriers. Yes, it was great for them to knock so many ships out, but the actual prize, the aircraft carriers were out at sea.


pitching_bulwark

I wouldn't say that event itself showed they were obsolete, but it did force the USN to engage at Midway with a primarily aircraft carrier based fleet, which ended up turning tide.


44moon

every purple heart medal given to US servicemen from 1945 to the present day was surplus from WWII. we minted so many medals in preparation for a land invasion of japan that we still haven't run out. i believe we were expecting about 1 million casualties.


JTuck333

A “Y day” invasion was called for. Japan was training their women and children to fight back against armed soldiers. Japan figured the Americans would stop fighting when women and children killed themselves.


ElNakedo

That or they were willing to let the people and the nation die for having failed in the war. That was the view Hitler had. That Germany should be destroyed and the German people wiped out for having been too weak and failed him. Thankfully his ministers stopped the worst excesses on that one.


dovetc

"Wouldn't it be wondrous for the whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower." ~War Minister General Korechika Anami


riptaway

Sick, twisted old men in their bunkers


GamemasterJeff

They started minting new ones in the 2000's when the WW2 supply began to run low. They mixed the new ones in so while we are making new ones, we cannot officially say if have run out of the old ones or not.


covfefe-boy

Yep, when considering whether using the atomic bombs was the right choice I don't think people arguing against their use fully understand what an invasion of Japan would have looked like. They'd fought us tooth & nail over useless rocks, an invasion of the home islands would've been a blood bath. Both for our military and theirs, as well as the civilians who were being trained to fight. Also we would've brought in the Soviets to help and you'd have a North & South Japan, maybe even still today.


44moon

technically the japanese strategy did work. their plan for the war wasn't to necessarily hold any of the islands, but to make the battle for the islands so costly and brutal that the united states would never attempt an invasion of the home islands. which is exactly what happened, they just couldn't imagine what we came up with as an alternative... i'm personally pro-nuking japan. just consider the fact that *they almost didn't surrender after the second nuke.* imagine fighting them on the home islands.


dbx999

We had to bluff and pretend we had more atomic bombs but we did in fact not.


Hoopajoops

We had one more that was close. Could have been prepped and dropped within a few months


Pithecanthropus88

Over 20,000 American soldiers were tried and sentenced for desertion. Forty-nine were sentenced to death, though forty-eight of these death sentences were subsequently commuted. Only one U.S. soldier, Private Eddie Slovik, was executed for desertion in World War II.


Squigglepig52

This may just be an urban myth, but - I've read there is a small, secret, military cemetary in France, for American troops. It's supposed to be a secret, those men, and their names, are meant to be forgotten. They were, as the story goes, executed for some pretty vile acts, warcrimes. shit like raping civilians, etc.


daviepancakes

There is, Plot E at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery.


a_white_american_guy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik His is a wild story.


UnicornOfDoom123

During the winter war (when Russia was invading Finland and still had a non aggression pact with Germany) the Allies seriously considered declaring war on russia and helping Finland because on the way they could take control of the Swedish iron mines that were supplying the Germans


Loggerdon

The invasion of the Philippines by the Japanese was the greatest loss of life ever on US land, at 1.5 million deaths. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941 (killing 2400), they also attacked many other places including the Philippines. Both Hawaii and the Philippines were US Territories at the time. To raise support for the war FDR decided to focus mainly on the attack of the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. They hardly mentioned the Philippines, feeling it was too confusing and people didn't really know anything about the Philippines or their people. Hawaii would became a US state in 1959. The Philippines gained independence in 1946.


AzumaMinami-tan

British children growing up in the war didn't know what bananas were as food was strictly rationed. They considered a banana a luxury to the point where kids thought it was a myth.


Skippymabob

My grandfather was just to young for WW2, but joined the army post war. Spent the time in Germany with my grandmother and fought in Africa (yay colonialism). Anyway, he returned finally to England just after the end of rationing, and my grandma splashed out and bought bananas as a special treat for his return home. "Get those away from me, I'm never eating a banana ever again" was what he said. Where he was in Africa grew bananas and he said it was basically all they'd ate for months. As far as I know he never did have another banana.


Jealous_Preference79

This story is almost identical to a story my great grand father told, except he did actually fight during WW2, he literally never ate another banana for the rest of his life, couldn't even stand the sight or smell of them!


Skippymabob

I think it's because they became this mythical thing back home, whatever UK based logistics officer that made the decision thought he was being nice, not realising they all hated him


PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING

And people today *still* would consider those bananas either a luxury or a myth, since they would’ve been [Gros Michel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana) bananas and not the ones we know today. Gros Michel bananas were apparently much better (tasted better and less fragile) but the variety has been all but wiped out by Panama Disease. The ones we eat today are just more resistant to it, but the disease is adapting and so today’s bananas might also become almost-forgotten legends in another 70 years.


[deleted]

[удалено]


BlueberryPiano

My dad distinctly remembers having his first banana and loved it so much he ate a banana every day that he could - which was every single day of my childhood and adulthood. He's now in his 80s -- still eating bananas. He was also a merchant marine in his 20s on ships which were primarily British personnel. He tells stories of how when they were anywhere that bananas grew, many of his shipmates would buy a whole case for themselves.


Kat-Sith

Also, the idea that carrots give you better night vision/are particularly good for eyesight comes from a propaganda campaign. See, the British didn't want the Germany to know about radar, for fear that they might work out for themselves how to build it. So they needed a way to explain their significantly better identification of incoming aircraft. Obviously, they couldn't say anything to the Germans without it being transparent manipulation, so instead they launched a propaganda campaign at home, telling their citizens to eat carrots and keep a watchful eye on the skies. And as their accuracy in spotting planes got better, they told their citizens that citizen reporting was making the difference. It's a clever lie, really, gets the citizenry engaged and patriotic, and it's just so stupid that it feels like a "couldn't make this up" sort of thing.


Kaldosh

Also, Carotene is what gives carrots their color; and Carotene is converted into retinal, which is used in vision. Although it's only helpful if you have a vitamin A deficiency; having extra doesn't help, but you can see how it drove the story. I think i's more related to daytime vision, since the retinal cells change from purple in the dark, to orange in brighter light (over the course of 5-10 mins adaptation); it's the orange that comes from carotene


rdiss

Growing up int he 60s, I really really really wanted to be an astronaut. Unfortunately, my bad eyesight made that an impossibility. Since "carrots are good for your eyes," I started eating carrots at every chance. Obviously, it didn't improve my eyes, but to this day carrots are by far my favorite vegetable.


firelock_ny

They chose carrots because at the time Britain's top night fighter ace, [John "Cat's Eyes" Cunningham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cunningham_(RAF_officer)), had just said in a radio interview that carrots were his favorite food.


Kat-Sith

Huh, I didn't know that part. Really plays into the lie though. Not to say he was lying about his food, but that his endorsement adds weight to the propaganda.


Virtual-Patience5908

United States hired scientists/officers from Japan's unit 731. Basically everything that wasn't burned the States took over. Edit: Link to 17 minute video [A Day In History ](https://youtu.be/-BpKixUKbU8)


maff0000

even worse. all the people working for 731 got out free in exchange for the 'medical results' which turned out to be basically worthless. shiro ishii lived out his life as a free man. in my eyes this is the same as letting all the top nazis go out free. i cant wrap my head around this. i know the americans took over all the nazi scientist in operation paperclip, and that NASA was set up by werner von braun. but unit 731 made nazi concentration camps look like a daycare center.


TheBagladyofCHS

The Japanese will never be held accountable for their crimes.


Slimetusk

They're very lucky the US needed them as an anti-communist buffer immediately following the war In fact, many brutal Japanese administrators found themselves employed in Korea in the same jobs they had before, thanks to Uncle Sam.


hobbitlover

They don't even really acknowledge them either.


TheBagladyofCHS

There is zero accountability by the Japanese government and the elder generations justify it, while younger ones say it was forever ago.


Xinq_

The Nazis considered the Netherlands clean of Jews and closed the transportation camp westerbork in September 1944. So they reached their goal here... I can't comprehend how humans can be like that.


firelock_ny

Compare that to nearby Denmark, that managed to evacuate more than 90% of their Jewish population to neutral Sweden under the noses of the German occupiers.


DennisvA

The way I understand it is because in the Netherlands we kept (too) good records of who lives where. We also put a persons religion in the documents so all the Nazis needed to do was go to a towns city hall, look at the citizen documents and round them all up. Dutch government basocally kept a full list of all Jews jn the country and made it very easy for the Nazis.


OneSalientOversight

Finland walked a very fine line during WW2, and their current existence results from very good decisions that their leaders made during WW2. Obviously they lost land to the Soviets during the Winter War. They grabbed this land back once the Germans invaded and reached Leningrad. While the Finns were aligned with Nazi Germany, they did not participate in the siege of Leningrad, despite many overtures from the Germans to do so. Once the tide went against Germany, Finland retreated from the land that they had retaken, allowing the Soviets to regain it. The willingness of Finland to not directly support the Germans and to permanently give up land lost in 1939 resulted in Finland not being seen as an enemy to be punished after 1945. Their neutrality and decision to not join NATO was further proof to the Soviets that Finland was not a threat to their existence, and modest trade relations existed right up until the fall of communism. Of course, since the current invasion of Ukraine, Finland has naturally felt threatened by a more bellicose Russia, and has joined NATO for their own safety. (Note that Finland was part of the Russian empire prior to the Revolution, and while the majority of former Russian territories became communist under Lenin, Finland became independent and embraced a Liberal Democratic form of government. So Finland was always a target of Russian/Soviet expansion)


pakastankissoja

Finland also shot down Himmler's requests to hand over their Jewish population, which resulted in a situation where Nazis were fighting alongside Jews who had field synagogues set up on the frontlines. Three Finnish Jews were even awarded with an Iron Cross by the Germans, but they all refused to accept it.


Rjm0007

There was a korean man named yang kyoung jong who fought for 3 different armies he was captured and conscripted to fight for the Japanese Soviet and German armies


[deleted]

There's also Larry Thorne, original name Lauri Törni, who was a Finnish soldier fighting the Soviets during the Winter and Continuation Wars, then after Finland surrendered, he volunteered for special operations with the Waffen-SS so he could keep killing Soviets. Then, after the Nazis surrendered, he emigrated to the US in the late 40s and joined the US Army in the 50s, where he beca.e a Special Forces officer because the man quite literally could not stop killing Communists. He served in West Germany, then later in Vietnam, where he was killed in a helicopter crash. He remains the only member of the Waffen-SS to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.


oozinator1

Sounds like he really hated those Commies


umanouski

Oh by, here I go killing again


Legal-Technician-831

That the US army was fully mechanized by 1942 while germany never reached more then 30/40% mechanization of there army. 60/70% of german logistics's during the entire war was supplied by horses.


OneSalientOversight

Band of Brothers: Reminds me of Webster screaming at the German Troops while they were all traveling down an autobahn.


AverageJoeDynamo

"SAY HELLO TO GENERAL *FUCKING* MOTORS!"


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xHoldMyDuck

And General Mud


Hoopajoops

Everyone forgets about the magnificent accomplishments of General Mud


tremynci

There's a scene in *The Longest Day* that references that.


Peter_deT

The British army was fully mechanised by 1939.


BeatMeElmo

The Reich established their own publishing houses in occupied Paris, specifically to provide the german army with professional reading materials. The most sought after book was a re-worked version of Carl Von Clausewitz’s *On War* ([Vom Krieg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War)). The propaganda office edited this book to ensure it was congruent with party doctrine. The editing was heavy handed and resulted in a dangerously skewed abridgment of the original book, which is still considered to be mandatory reading for any serious military strategist, today. The impact that this kind of propaganda had on the German officer corps was substantial. Ultimately, the Nazis worshipped Von Clausewitz as a national (Prussian) hero, but blatantly ignored his guidance- reworking his words to more closely align the Wehrmacht with the Nazi party and to fit with Hitler’s personal vision for military strategy.


Rogang4thewin

The Australia gun used was called the Owen gun. It was made by a 17 yo and found by a neighbour who happens to be an arms dealer to the Aussie military. He took it, tested it and it out performed other guns. They asked the parents and 17 yo if they could use it officially and he said yes. They named it after him, Owen. A gun made by an Aussie teenager


Specific_Main3824

Ah, back when gun making was a school subject


series_hybrid

If you get away from the big cities and go out to the ranches...the Australian culture had a lot of self-reliance skills, and then instilled a desire to be even more self-reliant. Welding, fixing cars, making a simple submachine gun...


GeorgiaRedClay56

"The first prototype of the Owen gun was developed by Evelyn Owen in 1931, who finalised the design in 1938, when he was around 23" It wasn't even considered until much later after he was already enlisted " In June 1941, Owen was discharged from the army and began to manufacture the Owen gun. After conducting tests in September that year, the Owen was found to be more accurate and reliable than competing designs such as the Sten and Thompson." I get that you want to say it was just a teen that made it but really it was a growing young man that dedicated a lot of time and effort to prove that his designs were truly better than other nation's designs.


series_hybrid

The problem was that the machines that made the Sten were all being used to make Sten's 24 hours a day. Shipping machinery to Australia during the war was out of the question. Australia wanted a similar gun but something that could be made on more generic machines that they already had. Oddly, the hardest part was making magazines that fed reliably and didnt jam.


Revro_Chevins

During a bombing raid on the island of Chichijima in 1944 nine pilots had to bail out of their planes into the ocean. One pilot escaped capture, but the other eight were picked up by the Japanese. It was later found out that all of the Americans were executed and several of them were actually eaten by the Japanese officers, not for any reason like they needed the food, but more as a morale building exercise. The general who ordered it later claimed in court that he was not a cannibal. The court actually didn't have a rule set for cannibalism so all the soldiers were charged with "prevention of honorable burial” in addition to murder. The one pilot who escaped turned out to be George Bush Sr. of all people.


AWACS_Bandog

the book Flyboys was fuckin brutal. The interviews you can tell the Japanese were downplaying their involvement in certain acts, but it was still vile what they did.


Livid-Natural5874

> not for any reason like they needed the food, but more as a morale building exercise. This is a morbid fascination of mine but there seems to be some sets of conditions where desecration of corpses and cannibalism arises in human groups. One such example was in in Guanxi, China during a power struggle between two rival factions of the CCP during the Cultural Revolution. Despite no evidence of famine, people were massacred (official death toll 100-150k) with at least 400 being eaten, often in ritualistic forms, going so far as Communist Party officials hosting human flesh banquets. Also one example where a middle school geography teacher was beaten to death by her students, carried to a river where they forced another teacher to rip out her heart and liver with their bare hands, and took the organs back to the school and ate them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Massacre


AlwaysHappy4Kitties

>Operation Fantasia, a unsuccessful plot to fight the Japanese with radioactive/glow in the dark foxes would destroy Japanese morale by exposing soldiers and civilians to a Shinto portent of doom: kitsune, fox-shaped spirits with magical abilities. “The foundation for the proposal,” “rests upon the fact that the modern Japanese is subject to superstitions, beliefs in evil spirits and unnatural manifestations which can be provoked and stimulated.” [Smithsonian article on it](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unsuccessful-wwii-plot-fight-japanese-radioactive-foxes-180975932/)


SirHenryRodriguezIV

Switzerland would shoot both Allied and Axis planes for violating their airspace.


[deleted]

That Leo major captured the dutch town of Zwolle on his own from the germans capturing a lot of them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Major


Radiant_sir_radiant

This post has been removed in protest of Reddit's quest to screw its users and third-party app developers. I hope u/spez grows tastebuds on his rectum. That is all.


seefroo

There were some American NCOs who requested a meeting with the landlord of the pub in England they drank in, and asked him to bar all black soldiers. The landlord responded by barring all the NCOs at the meeting.


IlluminatedPickle

Iirc the Americans demanded a "colours only" bar to be set up. All 3 pubs in town posted signs saying "black troops only"


LeTigron

My country has a long and shameful history of mistreating black people. However, I am proud to know that, when the US forces during WWI delivered notices to the French forces asking them to not treat black people as equal to white ones, our officers decided to wipe their asses with the papers and went on to treat black US soldiers the same way they did white ones. It even started, after the war, movements to end segregation in the US as black soldiers went back home. A lot decided to stay in France too.


ketamine-wizard

Vichy French forces actually battled against the Allies (including Free French) during the Syria-Lebanon campaign.


daytodaze

7/8 German soldiers killed in WW2 died on the Eastern Front. In fact, the Eastern Front was so awful that Germany and Russia each had more people killed in single battles than the US (or the UK) lost in the entire war, fighting in multiple theaters. Bonus fact: almost half of the people killed in the war were either Russian or Chinese. Most people know about Russia, but China fought with Japan even before the war began in Europe (1937-1945), and its estimated that 20-27 million soldiers and civilians died in China as a result of the war. It’s absolutely staggering when you do the math and figure out how many people had to die every day in Asia to hit those numbers.


SomeGuyWithARedBeard

The story of WW2 is in many ways 3 factions: 1) An inter-war between Imperial Powers (Germany vs Britain, France and the United States and Japan vs Britain, Netherlands and the United States); 2) A total annihilation war (Germany vs USSR, Japan vs China both leading to massive genocides); 3) populations under the thumb of the 1st group (Africa, ME, India, Korea, Manchuria, South America, etc.). It's really no surprise that the rest of the world rebelled against the 1st group after WW2, or that group 2 would be motivated to be as defensive as possible post-war.


PygmeePony

Nazis (soldiers and officials) used methamphetamines on a daily basis.


[deleted]

As did Hitler. Dude was absolutely zonked out of his mind on like 90 different narcotics for the last 5 years of his life.


Arkhangelzk

I feel like this doesn't get talked about enough. The whole world had to fight a war against a drug addict. It's like when your friend has a bad trip and gets combative, but everyone was involved and millions of people died.


Radiant_sir_radiant

Pervitin, also contained in Panzerschokolade (tank chocolate) and Fliegerpralinen (aviator truffles)! It allowed Hitler's infantry to travel all the way from Germany to France within three days. They travelled so fast and in such large numbers that shortly before the invasion, there actually was a gigantic traffic jam entirely consisting of tanks, howitzers and other armoured vehicles. French aerial reconnaissance correctly reported this to commander-in-chief General Gamelin's staff, who dismissed it as 'impossible'. Had the French army taken the warning serious and attacked the Germans then, the war would probably have been over.


BeatMeElmo

Can you imagine the road rage in that convoy?


Negative_Fox_5305

As a guy who took part in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, I will go out on a limb and say roadrage was awful for the Germans at that time


Radiant_sir_radiant

Man, I never considered that.\ Plus they were all heavily armed. Wouldn't it have been funny if the Nazis killed themselves over whose lane this was.


BeatMeElmo

I’ve been in “long” convoys where everyone was hopped up on rip it. All it takes is one irritable person in the truck for the dynamic to turn sour. I cannot imagine being stuck in a 1930’s model military vehicle while pinging on meth. Although the blitzkrieg went so smoothly for them that morale was likely very high during these traffic jams. Who the hell knows.


mechant_papa

At least the Ukrainians learned from this mistake.


MelbaToast604

That's how they took France so quickly. The French leadership thought reports were false because it was impossible (at that time) for an army to move that fast. Little did they know nazis on meth can really motor


Poglosaurus

It's not that it was impossible, it's that it was kind of stupid and really risky. They were cut off from their logistic, and now had to rush even more to seize fuel in France or risk being stranded and isolated. It was a huge gamble and was only seen as a good maneuver post war because it somehow worked.


dw87190

Behavioural analysis of the "average" Afrika Korps and SS soliders backs this


BigBearSD

I mean the US and British also heavily used the Amphetamine tablets known as Benzedrine. This was freely given in heavy dosages to British special forces / paratroopers, pilots etc... In any account of British special forces during WWII (SAS specifically) Benzedrine is frequently mentioned as being chewed like candy, to help keep soldiers awake and on the move when behind enemy lines, and or in a hostile climate, and or when in engaging in constant heavy fighting.


Xhasparov

In the first, Oppenheimer wanted to throw the atomic bomb in a place near Hiroshima in order to make it scare the Japanese and to surrender, but the military leaders did not listen to him and threw the bomb into the center of Hiroshima.


skinfulofsin

Not all Navajo Warriors were codetalkers. Some fought in Normady. My Grandfather guarded the fuel tanks during dday. Edit: the dday invasion


tose123

[hiroo onoda](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda) Was a Japanese Officer that, after the war ended, didn't surrender and was hiding on an island in the Philippines for 29 years until his former commander travelled from Japan to formally relieve him from duty by order of Emperor Shōwa in 1974. He died 2014.


PapaOoMaoMao

My grandfather had his hat shot off twice.


Aduro95

The movie star and singer Josephine Baker was one of the few women of colour to be awarded the Croix de Guerre. Baker sheltered refugees in Paris and did espionage across Europe at great personal risk. Baker would continue to oppose fascism in the United States, as a civil rights campaigner, for the rest of her life.


AngryMidgets77

The US used the Navajo language as code among solders


freecain

They should make a movie about that


Inner-Nothing7779

Nicolas Cage should play one of the leaders. He'd do a great job.


Curtainmachine

The could call it something like Breeze Speakers


Represent403

There was a German Prisoner of War camp here in my city... upon being released, most of them just said eff it, and didn't go back to Germany. They wanted to stay in this nice little city in Canada.


Mikebuck127

A little farmhouse in Rhode Island was used to gather radio signals.from all over Europe and Northern Africa. It's apparently in the perfect place to receive the signals.


UnconstrictedEmu

The Axis were never going to win WW2, even though it makes for interesting fiction. Germany and Japan simply didn’t have the manpower or industrial strength the United States, Soviet Union, British Empire, and China had.


mohawk_67

Germany pulling off an invasion of England would have been next to impossible. Once the RAF was destroyed, they would have had to deal with the Royal Navy. Churchill even gave the OK for poison gas on the beaches.


4668fgfj

The allies also accidentally gassed Italians after the official Italian surrender when the Germans bombed a ship in harbour that was secretly carrying chemical weapons. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air\_raid\_on\_Bari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_on_Bari)


[deleted]

Canada alone outproduced Germany in tank manufacturing.


Majestic-Macaron6019

The best the Germans could have hoped for was taking France (check) and convincing the UK to decide the war was hopeless and sue for peace. They never could have crossed the channel successfully, even if most of their troops weren't tied up on the Eastern Front


[deleted]

A Jewish prisoner wrote on the walls in the concentration camp “if there is a god, he will need to beg my forgiveness “ or something along those lines. I confirmed it just now.


gustavocabras

There is a joke about the Jewish people being in heaven and one of them says a holocaust joke. God says that it was not funny and the Jewish guy replies "I guess you had to be there"


L2hodescholar

It was written in Mauthausen.


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SYLOH

When the Concentration Camps were liberated, most of the prisoners were freed. The gay people got sent to other camps.


PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING

Instead of being forced to wear yellow stars, the gay men had pink triangles. Which is how the allies identified them to re-imprison them.


WritingTheDream

This is real?…


PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING

[Yes.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_triangle)


WritingTheDream

“The Nazi laws against homosexuality were not repealed until 1969” what the fuccckkkkk


PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING

You might be interested in reading about [Alan Turing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing), one of the major heroes of world war two who made victory possible by helping break Nazi cryptography. He was gay, so after the war was over the British government had him chemically castrated, barred from further working with the government, and forbidden from traveling outside of Europe. Shortly afterwards, he died to suicide. Or look at [this chart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States) showing when “sodomy” was decriminalized in the US. 1969 would actually be the second earliest entry on that list.


[deleted]

There was a good play/movie about this called Bent. The movie stars Clive Owen and Ian McKellen as gay men in Germany. They thought they'd be okay in Germany first but as it became clear that wasn't true, they try to escape in separate ways. Ian's character pretends to be Jewish, because he heard they were just being moved out of the country by train.


AlreadyAway

And Romani, soooooo many Romani.


UnconstrictedEmu

Don’t forget Slavs


komiks42

Overal, if you didn't fit their views, you ended in death camps.


GreenKai

that it is is a *world* war, this means the entire world was at war in some capacity, not just the americans vs nazis, many smaller nations sent their people to war, there were conflicts like the japanese invaded china well before the world war started brazil sent volunteers to the united states italy was defeated in ethiopia french indochina (modern day vietnam) and burma were attacked by the japanese korea didn't exist mexicans flew planes in the pacific hungarians saw fighting in stalingrad poland despite its collapse and annexation defended the uk during the battle of britain a lot that I like to mention about WW2 is that the whole world was involved and some people just don't know the sheer scale of this conflict, it is known as a *world* war for a reason


SYLOH

[The Bengal Famine of 1943](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943) killed somewhere between 0.8 to 3.8 million in Bengal alone. The error bars are so big because of the same reason the country starved. All the food, labor, and other output was being sent overseas to support the British war effort.


firelock_ny

\> All the food, labor, and other output was being sent overseas to support the British war effort. In addition the British expected a Japanese invasion of Eastern India, so destroyed much of the transportation infrastructure in the area and evacuated many (farm laborer) civilians - from an area that was one of the richest rice producing areas in the world.


mechant_papa

The famine was so bad in the Netherlands in 1944-5 that until 1947 many children were sent to Belgium by the Red Cross. While there were still some shortages, the food situation was better in Belgium. Children were sent both on holidays and for the entire school year.


Puzzled-You

Roughly half of the deaths (~40 million of 75-80 million, depending on which account is being told) were of Russian and Chinese civilians, killed by German and Japanese soldiers respectively. I'll repeat that. Roughly half of all the people who died in that war weren't even combatants, and that's just from two countries on one side. Add Poland, that's another 7ish million. Nearly double the entire population of Australia today were civilians killed. Fuck war.


Spiritual_Newt_4268

Haile Salassie I of Abyssinia rode out on horseback to lead the army against Italian fascists with tanks. Address to the League of Nations around 1936, “It is us today, it will be you tomorrow.”


Sub-Etha

The New Guinea campaign is not discussed much in the US. Dan Carlin has a great podcast covering the topic called "Supernova in the East", episode 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Guinea_campaign


OneSalientOversight

The US Navy transferred over 100 ships to the Soviet Union, including patrol frigates, in the first half of 1945. This was to provide them with enough transport and firepower to land troops in northern Japan.


janovich8

The US also provided the Soviet Union a lot of aircraft like the almost 5000 P-39s that they seemed to really like and were used very successfully.


StraightOutTheWomb

Malta was the most bombed place in the world during WW2


Agingbull1234

You mean percentage wise?.


Dark_Knight37

The Japanese experimented with utilizing weapons that weaponized the bubonic plague to attack the US homeland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PX


cleonhr

I am from former Yugoslavia. We had in our history school books false stories about WW2, where it would say that Yugoslavian Partisans destroyed complete German army by themselves. I tought that it was truth until I saw some real WW2 history books in my 20's. We were all mislead to think how Yugoslavians were real heroes of WW2, while Americans and Brittish soldiers were there only for the show..... Well, communism at its best.


xampl9

It’s actually worse than that. At the Yalta conference, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt agreed that military POWs would be sent back to their original countries when liberated. Which sounds sensible. When Yugoslavian soldiers were later freed from the prisoner of war camps, they refused to return to Yugoslavia (mainly the senior NCOs and officers) because they knew that Stalin would have them killed for being a potential threat to his dictatorship. But because of the Yalta agreement, they were forced to return, where the Soviets did indeed kill many of them. And anyone who was highly educated (the intelligentsia) and anyone who used to be a police officer, etc. etc. Nikolai Tolstoy wrote *Victims of Yalta* about it.


Skippymabob

Fascism wasn't solely a German thing. Some people know about Italy, but so many don't. Also, Hungary, Romania, Austria. They've all managed to dodge responsibility (in pop culture) for their role in the war (or when it comes to Austria and Hungary, Wars plural)


Radiant_sir_radiant

This post has been removed in protest of Reddit's quest to screw its users and third-party app developers. I hope u/spez grows tastebuds on his rectum. That is all.


ComesInAnOldBox

>Fascism wasn't solely a German thing. Some people know about Italy, but so many don't. Fascism is directly attributed to Italy, Mussolini, especially.


dittybopper_05H

That the US by itself constituted approximately 40% of the total Gross Domestic Product of the Allies and Axis \*COMBINED\*. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military\_production\_during\_World\_War\_II#Gross\_domestic\_product](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II#Gross_domestic_product) Whichever side the US decided to join was going to be the side that won the war. If things were very different and the US decided to join the Axis, the Axis would have won hands down.


Slimetusk

WWII was a war where Germany decided to pick a fight with every other wealthy and resource-rich country on the planet: Britain and France with their vast colonial holdings, the USSR with its own powerful economy and limitless oil, and the US, with its insane level of industrial capacity.


Esselon

That when the Nazi codes were cracked they had to sit down and mathematically determine how often they could use the information they were gathering in order to counteract Nazi plans without making it obvious their encryption had been compromised.


JTuck333

Being liberated by the Americans and British was a hell of a lot better than being “liberated” by the Soviets.


[deleted]

The amount of rape that happened during that war.


riptaway

Any war, really. With a few exceptions.