Unrelenting Reality of World War II: 35 More Facts You Didn’t Know – Part 2

In 1942, the Canadian government sold the homes of Japanese-Canadians to pay for their own detention in camps during World War 2. The majority were Canadian citizens by birth. Compensation in 1988 amounted to $21,000 to each surviving internee.

27. Nazis offered Iron Cross to 4 Finnish Jews during World War 2. None accepted. For example, Leo Skurnik was awarded Iron Cross for evacuating a German soldier under enemy fire. Major Skurnik told the Germans that he would “wipe his arse with the medal.”

28. One of the most effective weapons in World War 2 was the proximity fuzed shell. The Allies were so terrified of the enemy getting hold of samples that they were initially only used over water by the Navy. There was an embargo on their use over land until 1944.

29. During World War 2, it was common for desensitized US troops to murder German POWs if they were wearing American boots, as it was a reminder that one of their buddies had been killed.

30. The term ‘Blitzkrieg’ was a term created by the Western Media to describe German tactics during World War 2, and Hitler himself actually ridiculed it as ‘a completely idiotic word’ (ein ganz blödsinniges Wort).

During World War 2, Allied submarines would often lie on beds of pistol shrimp to avoid detection. The snapping sound made by the shrimp was so loud that it stopped the submarines from being picked up on Japanese sonar.

32. Winston Churchill drew up plans for a surprise attack against the then-allied Soviet Union. Dubbed “Operation Unthinkable,” the plan would have rearmed up to 100,000 former Nazi soldiers and kicked off World War 3 almost before World War 2 had ended.

33. The Japanese officer who proposed the use of Kamikaze pilots during World War 2 shot himself post-war out of guilt for sending so many young men to their deaths.

34. Australia had ‘internment camps’ during World War 2 (and World War 1) in which almost 7000 people of Italian, German, and Japanese origin were detained in some of the remotest parts of Australia. They also included 1500 British National of German descent or part of radical nationalist organizations.

35. Northern Ireland’s Parliament building was painted with cow dung and bitumen to hide itself during World War 2. There are still traces of cow dung on the building to this day as it is so difficult to get off.