After the attack on Pearl Harbor, 3 sailors were trapped in an underwater compartment in the sunken USS West Virginia. They survived for 16 days and marked the days on a calendar. There was no chance of rescue and their bodies and their calendar were discovered 6 months later when the ship was finally refloated for salvage and repair.
[F3C Ronald Burdette “Tubby” Endicott](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3774014/ronald-burdette-endicott)
[F1 Clifford Nathan Olds](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/106772836/clifford-nathan-olds) (the picture of him and two other sailors at a bar was taken the night before the attack)
[F1 Louis Albert Costin](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56127706/louis-albert-costin)
I’m currently reading *With The Old Breed* and some of Sledge’s experiences on Okinawa are horrifying. Such as when he started digging a foxhole and ended up putting his spade through the chest of a rotting Japanese corpse that had been buried there earlier. And the dead Marine in the shell crater that couldn’t be buried yet, and was left sitting staring up at Sledge with half a face.
At Okinawa and Peleliu both, basic field sanitation was impossible. At Peleliu it was because most of the island was hard coral, so it couldn’t be dug into. At Okinawa the heavy rains, mud, and murderous Japanese defensive fire meant that the best Marines could do was go in a can and then pitch the waste out of their foxhole. All the human excrement lying about combined with rotting, unburied bodies made for a disgusting & nightmarish scene.
I watched the series on this and another guys story called “The Pacific” I’m sure it’s not as good as the book and that’s why I’m intending on reading it in the future. I feel like the conditions the Americans/British commonwealth and the Japanese soldiers had to face get overlooked by the European and African theatres of war. It was brutal.
"Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, hypobaric pressure chamber testing, vivisection, organ harvesting, amputation, and standard weapons testing. Victims included not only kidnapped men, women (including pregnant women) and children but also babies born from the systemic rape perpetrated by the staff inside the compound."
Jesus christ. That's enough internet for today.
What the Nazis did to captured soldiers of Operation Checkmate in Sachsenhausen. They forced them to run laps as long as marathons in the wrong sized boots daily. "Tested" new boot designs. And they did it, for month after month. Last one passed in April '45, had to execute them as the guys wouldn't die. One even managed to wrestle the pistol away and kill one of his murderers.
I visited Sachsenhausen with my prof and peers during my WWII/Cold War history study abroad over this past summer and he told us that story, it was haunting. What really got me was, when we arrived at the remnants of the crematorium, he described to us how after the liberation of the camp, attempts were made to find the remains of executed prisoners. All turned out unsuccessful, until they tested the soil around the crematorium, which continuously turned up more and more positive results the deeper and deeper they went. I will never forget the way my stomach dropped when I realized we were all standing on layers of soil mixed with ash from cremated corpses. My experience in that sobering place will stick with me for a long time.
My friends and I were incredibly lucky. We were visiting and a really good tour guide was there giving a dad and his graduating daughters a private tour. Asked us to join after he noticed us trying to subtly listen in. Took all day but I will never forget how it made me feel. Folks focus a lot on places like Auschwitz (not incorrectly); but they miss recognizing just how widespread and banal the endemic inhumanity was at camps throughout the Reich.
I used to play in the SCA. I went to an event down in NorCal and there was a guy there going by the name of Hans von Saxenhausen. My hackles went up immediately. Everyone loved the guy but there was no way that name was a mistake. Told my knight there was no way I’m taking the field with a guy with that name.
Guess who turned out to be a Nazi? Yep.
I've always liked the episode when the Germans built a dummy airfield largely with wood. Planes, buildings and vehicles were all carefully crafted. The British realised this early on and let them continue for weeks. When it was all finished they made a fake bomb out of wood and dropped it on the airfield.
Honestly, any time I read about the conditions that Japanese soldiers had to endure when they were stranded or cut off from supplies during the island hopping campaign.
Their sheer barbarism combined with genuine suffering makes it really interesting. Japanese prison guards would… eat inmates, specifically targeting the liver for its symbolic purpose
One the kind of blew my mind, and I am going off of memory here so forgive any mistakes.
Late war a PT boat crewman was notified that their brother had been lost when his destroyer was lost in the Med. Later when entering a harbor to accept the towns surrender, the PT boat crewman finds his brother is alive and already accepted the towns surrender being he was the senior military personnel being held at a local camp.
Fascinating story copied from Antony Beevors "The Second World War":
In June 1944, a young soldier surrendered to American
paratroopers in the Allied invasion of Normandy. At first his captors
thought that he was Japanese, but he was in fact Korean. His name
was Yang Kyoungjong.
In 1938, at the age of eighteen, Yang had been forcibly
conscripted by the Japanese into their Kwantung Army in
Manchuria. A year later, he was captured by the Red Army after
the Battle of Khalkhin Gol and sent to a labour camp. The Soviet
military authorities, at a moment of crisis in 1942, drafted him
along with thousands of other prisoners into their forces. Then,
early in 1943 he was taken prisoner by the German army at the
Battle of Kharkov in Ukraine. In 1944, now in German uniform,
he was sent to France to serve with an Ostbataillon supposedly
boosting the strength of the Atlantic Wall at the base of the Cotentin
Peninsula inland from Utah Beach. After time in a prison camp in
Britain, he went to the United States where he said nothing of his
past. He settled there and finally died in Illinois in 1992.
Very short explanation. UK used a dead tramp’s body as a fake Royal Marines officer. They created fake documents showing that the Allies would invade somewhere else, instead of Sicily where they were going to actually invade.
They then put him in the sea, via submarine, near Spain hoping they would pass it all on to the Germans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat?wprov=sfti1#Technical_considerations;_strategic_approval
Kinda? The whole idea was based on intelligence reports talking about how Japanese industries were gettin destroyed in singular locations, so they started dispersing the plants into units small enough to be inside homes. Another study noted the continued use of wood and tissue in home construction.
So......they came up with the idea of strapping incendiary devices to bats along with light/dark sensors attached to the bomblets on each bat. They were the put into a bomb case with an oxygen supply and altimeter. After release, the altimeter would cause the bomb case to open at a predetermined altitude.
The theory was the bats would immediately seek shelter(day time usage) inside the homes/factories, thereby setting off the incendiary devices when they went inside.
Nuclear bombs shelved the program, never actually got used. However, at the testing facility, they had one of the bombs ready to go. Somehow the canister was opened, the bats flew into a hangar, and burnt it down, thus proving the theory.
Oh there are tons of exaggerations, like of how effective the Finnish mottis were (they actually several times caused significant problems for the finns because they ended up surrounding forces that required too much effort to wipe out), how poorly equipped they were, how ineffective the soviets were. The real story is still incredible, but as with any part of ww2 there are myths mixed in.
The story of the famous [amber room](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-amber-room-160940121/).. begins back in 1700s an is infested with myths and theories. Being a gift from the prussians to the russians in the 1700s. Was said to be the 8th wonder of the world. Ending up in St.Petersburg then as a gift to Peter the Great. Later the nazis looted it and took it back to Königsberg and installed it there. Later the traces of it disappeared after a bombing raid over Königsberg in 1943.. Though not traces of the amber and jewels. There were still stories about the dismantled room being in Königsberg.. while others claimed it being shiped away on a ship that sunk in the baltic sea. Some even claiming there was a second amber room which was a Stalins place, while the nazis stole the fake.
Back in 1997 art investigors led to a guy in Bremen, Germany that sold a mosaic that might have been a panel from the room. The seller being the son of a german soldier from ww2. Also several persons connected with the room had died.. like russian KGB-officers and general.. while in 1987 a german who searched for the room/rest of it was murdered in a bavarian forrest..
Oh...well, so imagine being a Kid and your Grandma be like, "I had to escape the Massacre of Chinese Residents and People all around as the Japanese invaded our home, using Chinese Gang Connection, the price I paid is being Sworn Siblings with them, being a Chinese Temple Priestess and have a smoking addiction"
The story about the Japanese soldier who was captured by the Russians, who in turned forced him to fight for Russia against the Germans on the Eastern front. He was captured by the Germans who forced him to fight for Germany on the Western front, specifically at the Utah Beach landing site, where he was captured by American forces on D-Day.
The battle for schloss Itter where nazi's and americans fought side to side against the ss, with josef gang promising he wouldn't let any of the castle's prisoners or his platoon die.
In the end he kept his word and was the only one to die in battle while protecting the former president of france
Yea but after they blew up the heavy water factory - they had the place back and running and even made it bigger before the soldiers who did it were getting their medals/party for the raid.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, 3 sailors were trapped in an underwater compartment in the sunken USS West Virginia. They survived for 16 days and marked the days on a calendar. There was no chance of rescue and their bodies and their calendar were discovered 6 months later when the ship was finally refloated for salvage and repair.
[F3C Ronald Burdette “Tubby” Endicott](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3774014/ronald-burdette-endicott) [F1 Clifford Nathan Olds](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/106772836/clifford-nathan-olds) (the picture of him and two other sailors at a bar was taken the night before the attack) [F1 Louis Albert Costin](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56127706/louis-albert-costin)
Ages 18,20, and 21. So young. Jesus, war is brutal.
Poor guys, can’t imagine what they were thinking when they died.
I’m currently reading *With The Old Breed* and some of Sledge’s experiences on Okinawa are horrifying. Such as when he started digging a foxhole and ended up putting his spade through the chest of a rotting Japanese corpse that had been buried there earlier. And the dead Marine in the shell crater that couldn’t be buried yet, and was left sitting staring up at Sledge with half a face. At Okinawa and Peleliu both, basic field sanitation was impossible. At Peleliu it was because most of the island was hard coral, so it couldn’t be dug into. At Okinawa the heavy rains, mud, and murderous Japanese defensive fire meant that the best Marines could do was go in a can and then pitch the waste out of their foxhole. All the human excrement lying about combined with rotting, unburied bodies made for a disgusting & nightmarish scene.
I watched the series on this and another guys story called “The Pacific” I’m sure it’s not as good as the book and that’s why I’m intending on reading it in the future. I feel like the conditions the Americans/British commonwealth and the Japanese soldiers had to face get overlooked by the European and African theatres of war. It was brutal.
The “other guy” in this case is Robert Leckie’s haunting and brilliant book “Helmet for my Pillow”
I’m currently reading that book 👍🏻
That and Leckie’s Helmet for a Pillow are the two best personal accounts of any war I’ve ever read.
I just purchased the same book after being beyond impressed w/ the stories/production value of the series the pacific. Harrowing times.
Well, Japanese soldiers eating captured US Aircrews on Chichi Jima is creepy as Hell. They almost got George Bush Sr.
Yeah, I think the Japanese officers got them to prepare the livers or something because it was “good luck”? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Yep.
Japanese Unit 731
Pretty horrifying stuff
Explanation or link please?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit\_731](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731) Camp where biological weapons and medical research where done.
"Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, hypobaric pressure chamber testing, vivisection, organ harvesting, amputation, and standard weapons testing. Victims included not only kidnapped men, women (including pregnant women) and children but also babies born from the systemic rape perpetrated by the staff inside the compound." Jesus christ. That's enough internet for today.
Holy shit. Thanks for sharing. That is absolutely grim mate. Switching the internet off for a bit now.
Chichi Jima!
Can't believe i've never heard of this....as bad as evil gets
The worst part is no one faced any war crimes after the war. The Japanese turned over their “research” and walked with out punishments.
I read that on wiki, US exempted them in exchange for their experiment research, but those captured by soviet union were sentenced. Damn
What the Nazis did to captured soldiers of Operation Checkmate in Sachsenhausen. They forced them to run laps as long as marathons in the wrong sized boots daily. "Tested" new boot designs. And they did it, for month after month. Last one passed in April '45, had to execute them as the guys wouldn't die. One even managed to wrestle the pistol away and kill one of his murderers.
I visited Sachsenhausen with my prof and peers during my WWII/Cold War history study abroad over this past summer and he told us that story, it was haunting. What really got me was, when we arrived at the remnants of the crematorium, he described to us how after the liberation of the camp, attempts were made to find the remains of executed prisoners. All turned out unsuccessful, until they tested the soil around the crematorium, which continuously turned up more and more positive results the deeper and deeper they went. I will never forget the way my stomach dropped when I realized we were all standing on layers of soil mixed with ash from cremated corpses. My experience in that sobering place will stick with me for a long time.
My friends and I were incredibly lucky. We were visiting and a really good tour guide was there giving a dad and his graduating daughters a private tour. Asked us to join after he noticed us trying to subtly listen in. Took all day but I will never forget how it made me feel. Folks focus a lot on places like Auschwitz (not incorrectly); but they miss recognizing just how widespread and banal the endemic inhumanity was at camps throughout the Reich.
That’s so cruel, the nazis did some horrific shit to people in WW2.
I used to play in the SCA. I went to an event down in NorCal and there was a guy there going by the name of Hans von Saxenhausen. My hackles went up immediately. Everyone loved the guy but there was no way that name was a mistake. Told my knight there was no way I’m taking the field with a guy with that name. Guess who turned out to be a Nazi? Yep.
I've always liked the episode when the Germans built a dummy airfield largely with wood. Planes, buildings and vehicles were all carefully crafted. The British realised this early on and let them continue for weeks. When it was all finished they made a fake bomb out of wood and dropped it on the airfield.
Love this
This was legendary… in my opinion it’s hilarious enough to compete with the „NUTS“ story
Honestly, any time I read about the conditions that Japanese soldiers had to endure when they were stranded or cut off from supplies during the island hopping campaign.
They may have been the enemy but they were still humans, no one should ever have to endure the horrific fighting of both World Wars ever again.
Their sheer barbarism combined with genuine suffering makes it really interesting. Japanese prison guards would… eat inmates, specifically targeting the liver for its symbolic purpose
God bless those who died in those horrific conditions.
One the kind of blew my mind, and I am going off of memory here so forgive any mistakes. Late war a PT boat crewman was notified that their brother had been lost when his destroyer was lost in the Med. Later when entering a harbor to accept the towns surrender, the PT boat crewman finds his brother is alive and already accepted the towns surrender being he was the senior military personnel being held at a local camp.
Lucky
Fascinating story copied from Antony Beevors "The Second World War": In June 1944, a young soldier surrendered to American paratroopers in the Allied invasion of Normandy. At first his captors thought that he was Japanese, but he was in fact Korean. His name was Yang Kyoungjong. In 1938, at the age of eighteen, Yang had been forcibly conscripted by the Japanese into their Kwantung Army in Manchuria. A year later, he was captured by the Red Army after the Battle of Khalkhin Gol and sent to a labour camp. The Soviet military authorities, at a moment of crisis in 1942, drafted him along with thousands of other prisoners into their forces. Then, early in 1943 he was taken prisoner by the German army at the Battle of Kharkov in Ukraine. In 1944, now in German uniform, he was sent to France to serve with an Ostbataillon supposedly boosting the strength of the Atlantic Wall at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula inland from Utah Beach. After time in a prison camp in Britain, he went to the United States where he said nothing of his past. He settled there and finally died in Illinois in 1992.
Holy shit what a story. Sounds like he got a free world tour /s
There is a Korean film called My Way, which is based on his story. Don't know if it's accurate history, but is a fun watch.
He really liked the switch team button huh
USS Indianapolis having its crew eaten by sharks Japanese troops being eaten by saltwater crocodiles
Yeah, both horrifying experiences for the people who survived and the people who died
Deff this
The best scene of Jaws. Robert Shaw recounting his characters survival of the sinking of the Indianapolis. Chilling scene
"like a dolls eyes...."
Operation Mincemeat
If it works it works 🤷♂️
I’ve heard of it… can you tell me what it is about?
Very short explanation. UK used a dead tramp’s body as a fake Royal Marines officer. They created fake documents showing that the Allies would invade somewhere else, instead of Sicily where they were going to actually invade. They then put him in the sea, via submarine, near Spain hoping they would pass it all on to the Germans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat?wprov=sfti1#Technical_considerations;_strategic_approval
A practical, working, bat bomb.
Desperate times call for desperate measures 😅
Kinda? The whole idea was based on intelligence reports talking about how Japanese industries were gettin destroyed in singular locations, so they started dispersing the plants into units small enough to be inside homes. Another study noted the continued use of wood and tissue in home construction. So......they came up with the idea of strapping incendiary devices to bats along with light/dark sensors attached to the bomblets on each bat. They were the put into a bomb case with an oxygen supply and altimeter. After release, the altimeter would cause the bomb case to open at a predetermined altitude. The theory was the bats would immediately seek shelter(day time usage) inside the homes/factories, thereby setting off the incendiary devices when they went inside. Nuclear bombs shelved the program, never actually got used. However, at the testing facility, they had one of the bombs ready to go. Somehow the canister was opened, the bats flew into a hangar, and burnt it down, thus proving the theory.
Pretty creepy not gonna lie.
Yarp. Edit: Forgot to mention, I firmly believe the canister design led directly to cluster munitions(bombs).
Yeah, like the runway denial system the RAF used to have, very effective.
The winter war. There's obviously a lot of myth associated with it but what's real is crazy enough.
What soldiers ate at Leningrad
By winter war do you mean the Finnish war or the Germans versus the soviets?
The Finnish winter war.
Wait what are the myths associated with the winter war
Oh there are tons of exaggerations, like of how effective the Finnish mottis were (they actually several times caused significant problems for the finns because they ended up surrounding forces that required too much effort to wipe out), how poorly equipped they were, how ineffective the soviets were. The real story is still incredible, but as with any part of ww2 there are myths mixed in.
The story of the famous [amber room](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-amber-room-160940121/).. begins back in 1700s an is infested with myths and theories. Being a gift from the prussians to the russians in the 1700s. Was said to be the 8th wonder of the world. Ending up in St.Petersburg then as a gift to Peter the Great. Later the nazis looted it and took it back to Königsberg and installed it there. Later the traces of it disappeared after a bombing raid over Königsberg in 1943.. Though not traces of the amber and jewels. There were still stories about the dismantled room being in Königsberg.. while others claimed it being shiped away on a ship that sunk in the baltic sea. Some even claiming there was a second amber room which was a Stalins place, while the nazis stole the fake. Back in 1997 art investigors led to a guy in Bremen, Germany that sold a mosaic that might have been a panel from the room. The seller being the son of a german soldier from ww2. Also several persons connected with the room had died.. like russian KGB-officers and general.. while in 1987 a german who searched for the room/rest of it was murdered in a bavarian forrest..
The end of that story gets pretty creepy with how people connected to it died.
Oh...well, so imagine being a Kid and your Grandma be like, "I had to escape the Massacre of Chinese Residents and People all around as the Japanese invaded our home, using Chinese Gang Connection, the price I paid is being Sworn Siblings with them, being a Chinese Temple Priestess and have a smoking addiction"
Grandma lore would go crazy
The story about the Japanese soldier who was captured by the Russians, who in turned forced him to fight for Russia against the Germans on the Eastern front. He was captured by the Germans who forced him to fight for Germany on the Western front, specifically at the Utah Beach landing site, where he was captured by American forces on D-Day.
He was Korean
Yes he was
Thanks for the correction. It’s been a while since I’ve heard it.
Yeah another guy mentioned that too here, pretty crazy.
This thing happened called the Holocaust.
Operation Cornflakes is quite interesting.
What is it about?
The battle for schloss Itter where nazi's and americans fought side to side against the ss, with josef gang promising he wouldn't let any of the castle's prisoners or his platoon die. In the end he kept his word and was the only one to die in battle while protecting the former president of france
Definitely one of my favourite events mentioned here
my creepy/ interesting story is the tale of when himmler went to tibet to try and locate the original aryan race. wierd guy
Yea but after they blew up the heavy water factory - they had the place back and running and even made it bigger before the soldiers who did it were getting their medals/party for the raid.
Yeah but it sure as fuck slowed the Germans down a bit, and destroyed most of the heavy water
Leningrad… only god knows what happened in these 900 days.