Saturday, September 26, 2009

Ten Things You Might Not Know About World War II-- Part 1

May 24th Chicago Tribune. Mark Jacob has come up with another ten interesting things. How he keeps doing this is amazing.

This was in honor of the upcoming Memorial Day and 65th anniversary of D-Day.


1. BALLOON ATTACK-- On May 25, 1945, Elsie Mitchell took five neighborhood kids out for a trip to Gearhart Mountain in Oregon. One of them touched a strange object they found. It exploded and all six were killed by a Japanese balloon bomb. It was one of 6,000 released by the Japanese to drift in the upper air currents to the US. These were the only known civilian war deaths on the US mainland.


2. PATTON-- General George Patton nearly lost his job when he slapped a soldier hospitalized from shell-shock in Sicily. However, before the Sicily invasion, he also ordered that any enemy troops who did not surrender when Allied troops were within 200yards of their position should be killed even if they surrendered.

This was against international law, but it did happen in a few instances. This was not reported at the time.

I knew about the balloon bombs and Patton slapping the soldier.

File Under Things Most People Don't Know.

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