Holocaust Hero Chiune Sugihara
Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara was stationed in Lithuania when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Thousands of Jewish refugees came to the consulate seeking travel documents in order to escape the Nazis. Sugihara’s superiors in Tokyo ordered him not to issue any travel visas.
Sugihara discussed the plan with his wife Yukiko and decided to risk his career and his entire future by defying his superiors. The couple then spent 29 days issuing travel visas, up to 300 a day, as thousands of refugees stood in line at his office. Yukiko would prepare and register the visas while Chiune Sugihara would sign and stamp them, hour after hour, without breaking for meals. They would work late into the night until Yukiko would massage her husband’s weary hands in preparation for the next day. Sugihara was under orders to leave, which he could no longer delay. The family departed on September 1st, but he kept signing visas even as he boarded the train. Sugihara then tossed his official stamp out to the crowd, as he hadn’t time to stamp them all.
Sugihara’s actions enabled around 6,000 Jewish refugees to escape the Holocaust. For his efforts, Sugihara was imprisoned by the Soviets and fired from his job by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Read the entire story at mental_floss. Link
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Normandy Photos: World War II and Today
CAEN (L) 10 July 1944 – Residents looking after a Canadian bulldozer clearing rubble in the streets. Photo: Archives Canada (R) Photo: Patrick Elie
Historian Patrick Elie took old pictures of the rubble-strewn French city of Normandy in 1944, during the height of World War II, and painstakingly took photos of the same spot from the same general perspective:
Elie, who has devoted his life to chronicling D-Day and the effects of the war on his home country of France, worked tirelessly to find the exact locations of dramatic photographs from 1944 and then took his own photos of the modern-day sites.
WebUrbanist has more photos: Link | Check out Patrick Elie’s website for more.
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Is Wearing a Hitler Moustache a Good Idea?
Is the Hitler moustache history? Since World War II it has not been popular, but long before Hitler rose to power, the toothbrush was the signature look of Charlie Chaplin. In fact, the tiny moustache was quite fashionable at one time.
Now comedian Richard Herring is sporting a toothbrush moustache for his Edinburgh show, ‘Hitler Moustache’, in which he rails against voter apathy and fascism. Herring said of his new moustache, "As people passed they would start laughing about five yards behind me. A group of lads called me ‘Adolf’. I haven’t had any sense of anger but I think some people were intimidated or scared."
With such a hairy past, it shouldn’t be suprising that his moustache would get a lot of lip. But Herring is convinced that a Hitler moustache might grow on us — provided we don’t turn up our noses.
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Flak Towers: The Continuing Legacy of the Luftwaffe
In 1940, Hitler, incensed by the successful bombing of Berlin by the RAF. ordered the construction of three enormous flak towers to protect the city. Soon afterwards, this idea quickly spread around Germany.
Considered invulnerable at the time – and they pretty much were – many of these colossal structures still stand today, albeit serving much more "civilian" purposes:
The L Tower in Vienna is now, well, you take a guess. If your German is any good then its current name – Haus des Meeres is a complete giveaway. If not, then you may be surprised to discover that it is an aquarium. Instead of weapons of war and people huddling from falling bombs it now houses over three and a half thousand animals, with huge fish tanks containing sharks, turtles and piranhas (in different tanks one assumes). There is even a new tropical house with free flying birds and free-running monkeys.
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Hiroshima, 64 Years Ago
Today (August 6th) is the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States. The blast killed an estimated 70,000 people immediately, with possibly that many again dying of radiation in the years afterward. The Big Picture has a collection of photographs from the time to commemorate the anniversary. Link
(image credit: US National Archives)
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Pearl Harbor Hero Turns 100
John William Finn {wiki} of Pine Valley, California reached the age of 100 on Thursday. He was honored on the occasion by a biography in the Ramona Sentinel newspaper.
John William Finn is our nation’s oldest living recipient of its highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor (MoH). He is also the last surviving MoH recipient who earned his medal on Dec. 7, 1941, the last living recipient of the Navy’s MoH from World War II, and the only MoH recipient having his Navy rating, that of an Aviation Ordinanceman, to ever be awarded the MoH in the history of the United States Navy.
…when the attack came on that first Sunday morning in December, Chief Finn single-handedly mounted a 50-caliber machine gun on a stand on the base’s aircraft parking ramp and began firing on any attacking enemy aircraft that he could bear on.
John’s position was totally exposed to enemy strafing and bombing attacks, but he kept it up for more than two hours while under attack, despite being wounded five times and in severe pain. Fellow sailors implored him to seek medical care for his wounds, but John steadfastly refused to vacate his firing position until he received a direct order to do so from a superior officer.
Twenty pieces of shrapnel were removed from John’s body by the base’s medical staff
Finn was honored by local civic organizations last month. He is spending his birthday as a guest of George W. Bush and his wife in Crawford, Texas. Link -via Fark
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Russian Terminator
A Russian hobbyist put together a diorama of World War II action figures assembling a terminator to fight the Germans. Oh, this isn’t just one scene, but a series of photographs that tell the story. I particularly liked the part where the commanding officer selected a face for their creation. The title of the post is “Laughter is Stalin’s Secret Weapon”. Link -via Metafilter
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Hitler's Stealth Plane Re-Created
The Nazi Horten 2-29 fighter plane looked like something from a Star Wars prequel: an all-wing jet capable of speeds up to 600 mph, made mostly of wood.
Designer Walter Horten had lost hundreds of Luftwaffe colleagues during the Battle of Britain in 1940, and he was keen to avenge their deaths by developing a plane that would be pretty much invisible to Britain’s radar system.
He and his brother built and flew the prototype Ho 2-29 just before Christmas 1944, but the war ended before the plane could enter mass production.
The only remaining Horten 2-29 is kept hidden from public view at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum’s Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility outside Washington, DC.
Did the plane truly have stealth capability against WWII radar? A team from Northrup Grumman built and tested a full-scale replica to find out.
Photo by Linda Reynolds/Flying Wing Films
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Military Uniforms of World War II
Captain’s uniforms of every military branch of the various countries that served in World War II, modeled by the same guy!
“My hobby deals strictly with World War II militaria & insignia.
However, rather than collecting the actual items, I collect and use high resolution photos of them to create Photoshop images that show myself in the uniform of a Captain (or equivalent rank) in whichever armed force and branch of service those insignia were worn by.
Link -via Metafilter
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WWII US Army HQ Camouflaged as a Pile of Rubbish
Just a pile of rubbish? Would you believe that it’s actually a US Army HQ during World War II, disguised by architect Sir Basil Spence?
StrangeHarvest has a couple of interesting photos of such military deceptions from Masquerade: The amazing camouflage deceptions of World War II
(If you’re into this sort of things, definitely check out Jasper Maskelyne, a magician turned military camouflage genius who built fake tanks and even a fake city to trick German bombers during WWII)
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