5 Little Known Facts About World War II

March 12, 2010 | Featured, Life

The history of World War II is well documented and much more is known about this conflict than any other in history due to the amount of surviving documents and, of course, living testimony. However with such a wealth of information, many of the interesting events and facts about the war are all but forgotten, here are a few examples.

1. Secret Messages from the BBC

The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) was the most listened to radio station in the world during the war. The news in particular had a reputation for its honesty about world events and millions of people throughout Nazi occupied Europe tuned in at great risk to themselves.

At the beginning of certain programs, the BBC would put in what were known as ‘message personnels’, which were coded messages to resistance groups throughout Europe. To most listeners, the messages meant nothing but to the informed few, they could mean anything from ‘blow up a section of railway line’ at a given point, to ‘a new SOE agent will arrive shortly’.

The most awaited secret message by the BBC came with the approach of D-Day and was from the first two lines of a Paul Verlaine couplet. “The long sobs of the violins of Autumn” was the first and told resistance groups to prepare, soon after, the second, “Soothes my heart with a monotonous languor”, told all resistance groups in France that the time to fight had come.

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2. Jewish Lives Saved by Reverse Circumcision

During WW II many Jewish lives were saved by doctors performing operations connected to circumcision. Dr Josef Jaksy would make a small incision on the penis of his patient, then give him a certificate stating that his circumcision was recent and done for medical purposes.
A Polish doctor by the name of Dr Feliks Kanabus went a step further and performed around 140 operations to hide the circumcision of the patient by attaching skin to the penis taken from another part of the body.

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3. Wagner’s Lost Scores

On his 50th birthday, Adolf Hitler was presented with a case containing the original scores of some the music of composer Richard Wagner. A group of industrialists had paid nearly a million marks for the collection which included the scores of ‘Die Feen’, ‘Die Liebesverbot’, ‘Reinzi’, ‘Das Reingold’, and ‘Die Valkure’ and the orchestral sketch of ‘Der Fliegende Hollander’.

Towards the end of the war, Frau Winifred Wagner offered to take them to a safe place for the Fuehrer but he refused saying he had already put them in an extremely secure location; Hitler wasn’t kidding as the manuscripts haven’t been found to this day.

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Kevin Newcombe

Late in 1941, the Allies, hoping to deter hostile action by Japan, reinforced their outpost at the Crown colony of Hong Kong. Canada was asked to provide two battalions, and sent 1,975 members from the Royal Rifles of Canada (from Quebec City) and the Winnipeg Grenadiers. They sailed from Vancouver on October 27, 1941, and arrived in Hong Kong November 16.

Some 14,000 Allied troops from the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Canada, Singapore and India defended the Crown colony, including the island of Hong Kong and the adjacent mainland areas of Kowloon and the New Territories. The Canadian battalions, with Britain's Middlesex Regiment, formed the island brigade.

Neither Canadian battalion had battle experience, having served only on garrison duty — the Grenadiers in Jamaica and the Royal Rifles in Newfoundland. Nor had they received all the training required for front-line troops, but it was believed they would have time to complete their training in Hong Kong. Instead, they became the first Canadian soldiers to fight as a unit in the Second World War when Japan almost simultaneously attacked Pearl Harbor, Northern Malaya, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island and Hong Kong.

The Japanese attacked the mainland positions on December 8 (in North America the date was Dec. 7), and all mainland troops withdrew to Hong Kong on the 11th. On December 18, the Japanese invaded the island. The invasion force was overwhelming in strength, backed with a heavy arsenal of artillery and air support. The Allied troops had no significant air or naval defence, and no hope of being relieved or resupplied. Yet they fought and held out for several days. Governor Young, after being advised that further resistance was futile, surrendered the colony on Christmas Day.

In 17½ days of fighting, 290 Canadians were killed; 493 were wounded. Those who survived were imprisoned in foul conditions in camps in Hong Kong, where another 129 Canadians died. Early in 1943, 1,184 Canadians were taken to Japan for forced labour in industries, including mining. About 135 of them died. In all, more than 550 of the Canadians who embarked for Hong Kong never returned to Canada.
jjpdog

Wasn't Hess held at Spandau Prison?
torres1949

Yes, but he flew to Scotland in 1942, so...
colepley

Interestingly, the global eugenics movement (see: human breeding for desirable traits) of the 1930s found the US government and many big-money American names giving their full-fledged monetary support for such research programs. It's something that gets conveniently swept under the rug as we are more than aware of the Nazi stance on eugenics and 'race purification.'
Someone

The BBC thing was not a surprise. and the fall of HK was not a "little known fact", like mike said. Practically every grandma and grandpa knows that, and so do the parents and the children (because i'm one of those children)

i've read somewhere else as well about the Hitler recieving a birthday present from Richard Wagner as well. Wagner was said to be a racist -- they say he supported the Nazis. Never liked Wagner myself.
kling

"They" and you are ignorant. Though Wagner was an antisemite, he certainly did not support the Nazis, because he died already 1883 – about sixty years before Hitler becoming Reichskanzler.
k850i

Must have been quite painful those reverse circumcision, but I guess it was a case of needs must then.
HN

judester said:

The Germans broke the secret code that the English were using in the war and when notified that the code was broken the arrogant British refused to believe that their code was broken. Imagine if you will how many lives were sacrificed for that.

---

I'm pretty sure you're wrong on that one. In fact, the Allies had broken German codes well before the war started because the Germans had bought most of their coding equipment from the Brits and used variations of British codes. The Allies knew what the Germans were going to do before they even did it. The only time when the Allies didn't know what was about to happen was the Battle of the Bulge as the offensive was planned more locally than the German High Command.
-whatTheHeck

British or Americans captured a German encrypting machine called "Enigma" and because of that they were able to de-cypher German messages.
judester

The Germans broke the secret code that the English were using in the war and when notified that the code was broken the arrogant British refused to believe that their code was broken. Imagine if you will how many lives were sacrificed for that.
Veronica

I saw a documentary about the Tower of London once, and they talked about the last executed prisoner. But it's not forgotten, not according to the guards/storytellers there, they just don't want to talk about to a group of strangers, because that man could be a relative to them, since WWII is recent enough that direct relatives are still alive. If asked, they would answer, if I remember correctly.
ANDTORR

Could have mentioned that a large number of the troops stationed in Hong Kong when it fell were Canadians.
Mike Mooney

I would hardly call the BBC coded messages and the fall of Hong Kong "little known".
aurel

oh wow.. those scores must have been destroyed by now, unless they were extremely well hidden o_O