00:20In today's video we will list 25 interesting and not widely known facts from World War II.
00:26Hopefully you will all find some that are new and interesting to you.
00:30Many of these facts I have mentioned separately in my earlier videos, so if you want to know
00:35more about one of these topics, you can find a detailed video covering it on the channel.
00:39So without further ado, let's begin!
00:51By 1944, in preparation for the Normandy landings, more than 1 and a half million American military
00:56personnel were stationed in the United Kingdom, and from that more than 425,000 was transported
01:03there by just two ships, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth ocean liners, which travelled
01:08between England and the US many times and were the largest and fastest troop transports of World War II,
01:13carrying up to 15,000 men in a single voyage.
01:26The development of maybe the most famous American World War II fighter plane, the P-51 Mustang,
01:31was actually sparred by a British request.
01:34In 1938, a British purchasing commission was sent to America to buy P-40 fighters, but Curtis didn't have
01:41the capacity for new orders. And during a meeting between the head of the purchasing commission,
01:46Sir Harry Self, and the head of North American Aviation, James Kinderberger, Sir Harry asked if they
01:51could manufacture the P-40 fighters on their license. But Kinderberger stated they can design a better plane in
01:57shorter time than what it would take to set up the production for the P-40 fighters. This design, the
02:03North American NA-73X, was the plane that became the P-51 Mustang.
02:17Most people know the Messerschmitt Bf 109 as one of the most famous German fighters.
02:21But when the first prototype of the plane took to the air in May 1945, the planned German engines for
02:27the new design were not yet ready. This resulted in the strange situation that the aircraft,
02:32which was the main opponent for the Spitfire in World War II, made its maiden flight using a British
02:37Rolls-Royce Castrol engine.
02:48The build-up for D-Day is widely known as maybe the largest operation in World War II,
02:54and during the preparation for the invasion, the total man-hours spent on building all the depots,
02:59hospitals, housing, airfields and other installations to accommodate all the men and materials,
03:04all together took more than 400 million man-hours.
03:19It is widely known the Cseh-designed Panzer 38T was a successful early war light tank,
03:24used by the German forces. But not many people know that the same type was actually tested by the
03:28British as well in early 1939, who considered purchasing the type. In February 1939, one of these tanks were
03:36shipped to England for trials. But the British found the tank's mobility not up to their standards,
03:41and its interior too crammed. So in the end, they opted for their own designs.
03:54The designer of the amphibious Sherman DD model, Nikolas Straussler, was a Hungarian-born engineer,
04:00and he also designed the Alvis Straussler bomb trolley, which was widely used by the RAF in World War II.
04:07His amphibious design, the floating screen, was first tested on British tetrarch models in 1941,
04:12before it was modified for the Sherman tanks and used during the Normandy landings.
04:25Before the M26 Pershing entered service, there were plans to use its turret and 90mm gun on a Sherman chassis.
04:32Both of the tanks used the same 69-inch turret ring, so it was considered to actually use this gun
04:37and turret, and modified the readily available Sherman chassis. But the earliest estimated delivery
04:43dates for these models were January 1945, and by that time the M26 was already in production.
04:58The M3 Stuart light tank became obsolete quite early in the war, and it was originally planned to be
05:03replaced by more advanced types, developed under the T7 project, which started in 1941.
05:09But after two years of experimental designs, this project was cancelled. This was the reason the M3s were
05:15already replaced with the M24 Chaffee models in 1944, and some units used as Stuart until the end of the
05:21war.
05:31In April 1943, a strange agreement took place between the Allies and the Germans,
05:36when the two sides agreed on a partial ceasefire, which allowed the Allied bombers to fly over the
05:41Netherlands safely, and delivered food drops to the starving Dutch population. Later, to supplement the
05:47food drops, Operation Fast was initiated. And on 2nd of May, 200 Allied food trucks were allowed to
05:53cross the front lines and drive to Reenen, where they were taken over by Dutch truck drivers.
06:06During World War II, the RAF and the US Army Air Force together used more than 600 airfields scattered
06:12around the United Kingdom. The RAF used around 450 airfields, while the remaining more than 200 locations
06:20were used by over half a million US Army Air Force personnel, around two and a half thousand men at
06:25each
06:33airfield. Though the M3 light tank became obsolete quickly during World War II, its chassis was used to
06:41test many experimental variants, like the T-27 and T-29 mortar motor carriages, the T-56 and T-57
06:49gun
06:49equipped with a M3, the M3 with a Maxson quad anti-aircraft turret, or the 155mm Howitzer motor carriage T
07:00-64.
07:10During World War II, the Allied forces used more than 20 million jerrycans in Europe. More than 7 million of
07:16them
07:16were made just in 1944, in preparation for the Normandy invasion. Though the Allied crews were instructed
07:23to keep and reuse the cans, so many were lost in France, sometimes the shortage caused problems in the
07:28fuel supply. After the end of the war, the US forces started a campaign, offering prizes to school children
07:35for returning jerrycans, and more than a million cans were actually returned thanks to this program.
07:50During Operation Pluto, which was a pipeline laid down between England and France to supply fuel for the
07:55Normandy invasion, two different types of underwater pipes were developed. The total cost of the operation
08:01was four and a half million pounds, and to supply the hundreds of kilometers of pipes in time,
08:07every big cable-making machine in the United Kingdom was used for this task.
08:20The German equivalent of the American Jeep, the so-called Kubelwagen, was based on the original Volkswagen
08:26Type 1 Beetle. It used the same 1130 cc air-cooled engine and the same basic drivetrain, though the
08:34military version used lower gears and locking wheel hubs for better off-road capabilities. The first
08:40version of the Kubelwagen was actually just a lightened and modified Beetle with a stronger chassis,
08:46but later it received its signature angular body.
08:59Most people know the B-17 Flying Fortress as a very sturdy plane, which could take a great amount of
09:04damage and still fly home. But in February 1943 one of these planes demonstrated a truly outstanding
09:10performance. The B-17 All-American was returning from a mission when German fighters attacked their
09:16formation. One of the German Bf 109s lost control after it was hit, and its wing almost completely cut
09:23through the fuselage of the B-17 just before the tail, severing the control cables. But by some miracle,
09:30the All-American kept flying, and the crew, using the bombsite and the autopilot, managed to stay in
09:35control of the aircraft, and landed safely at their home base.
09:47To help unload the supplies after the Normandy landings, the so-called Mulberry Harbors were designed,
09:53built from floating piers. To protect these artificial harbors in the stormy weather, the Allies built giant
09:59concrete breakwaters, the so-called Phoenixes, which were then floated over the channel and sunk at their
10:05designated places. Each of them was 200 feet long, and they weighted 6 to 8 thousand tons.
10:13More than 150 of these were required, and initially 25 thousand people were working on this project,
10:19and later they were supplemented by another 40 thousand men.
10:34The German army in WW2 used many different types of motorcycles, but maybe the two most prominent ones
10:40were the BMW R75 and the Tsundap KS 750. Together from the two types around 35 thousand units were produced,
10:49and they used many interesting features. For better off-road capabilities, the sidecar's wheel was
10:55driven as well. They had reverse gears, featured hand and foot warmers, and many sidecars were heated too.
11:01They were so successful, that the American forces reverse engineered a BMW motorcycle, creating the Harley-Davidson X-A
11:17model. Everyone knows the WW2 Jeep as the main transport for American troops,
11:23but many people don't know, how many of these vehicles were actually produced.
11:27The original design was developed by American Bentham to an army request in 1940,
11:32when the army only gave the manufacturers 11 days to submit their designs.
11:38Though Bentham won the competition, but being a small company,
11:41they only participated in the production of the first batch of these vehicles,
11:45and later the bigger manufacturing contracts were issued to Willis and Ford.
11:49And by the end of the war, the production of the type reached 363 thousand units from Willis,
11:55and 280 thousand units from Ford.
12:09We already mentioned Operation Pluto earlier, but we have some more interesting facts about the operation.
12:14To lay down the cables through the channel, huge floating drums were used.
12:18Each of them 60 feet long and 40 feet in diameter.
12:22These drums themselves weighted around 250 tons, and when they were fully loaded with pipes,
12:28their displacement increased to some 1,600 tons.
12:32The pipeline, though it was only a smaller part of the fuel supply chain,
12:35delivered 4,500 tons of fuel every day by the end of the war.
12:40And by the time it was shut down in August 1945, the total amount of fuel delivered was some 820
12:46million liters.
12:57The Messerschmitt Me 262 is the most famous German jet fighter.
13:01But actually there was another jet-powered fighter aircraft,
13:04that flew almost a year before the Messerschmitt design.
13:07The development of the Heinkel He-280 started in 1939,
13:12using the company's experience gathered with the earlier He-178 model,
13:16which was the first turbojet-powered aircraft of the world.
13:20The fighter used Henschel's in-house developed HES-8 engines designed by Hans von Ohein,
13:25but the development of these engines was too troublesome.
13:28Eventually the delays on the engine development and the politics in the Air Ministry
13:32resulted in the termination of the He-280 project in 1943, in favor of the Messerschmitt Me 262.
13:48The late war German weapons, like the HS-293 or FIT-X guided bombs are well known to many,
13:54but during the war the US also developed different guided weapons.
13:58In the so-called SWOD program several different guiding systems were tested,
14:03from the basic visual guidance, similarly to the German Henschel HS-293 type,
14:08to passive and eventually active radar guidance.
14:12The final variant, the ASM-N2 was a fully self-guided bomb,
14:16featuring active radar guidance, and it could carry its explosive load to 15 to 20 miles range.
14:33During World War II many countries developed manned torpedoes.
14:37Maybe the Italians were the most prominent users, and they developed several types.
14:41And these weapons proved to be effective.
14:44The Italian SLC was basically just a modified torpedo,
14:48with outside controls and a detachable warhead.
14:51It was first used in 1941 against British ships in Alexandria harbor,
14:55and managed to sink two battleships.
14:58The Italians later developed a bigger purpose-built version, the SSB.
15:02The British and the Germans also developed their own types later.
15:06The British chariot followed the Italian SLC design,
15:09while the Germans used more sophisticated types, with separate cockpits,
15:14and carrying another detachable torpedo under the vehicle.
15:29The Panzerkampfwagen V, or better known as Panther, is one of the best known German tanks of World War II.
15:34But not everyone knows, that for a long time during its development,
15:38it was planned to look completely different.
15:43And for a long time the Daimler proposal seemed to be the best,
15:47which was heavily influenced by the Soviet T-34.
15:50It featured sloped armor, a forward-mounted turret, a diesel engine, and rear-mounted transmission.
15:56But in the end, the events in the war forced the Commission to choose the proposal from MAN,
16:01as it was a more conventional design, using existing engine and drivetrain components,
16:06and an existing turret, which was originally designed for a Tiger tank variant.
16:20Before and at the beginning of World War II, the French opted to build bigger and stronger tanks than other
16:26nations.
16:27The Char D2 and B1 models feature stronger armor than their German arrivals.
16:32But the largest one, the Char D2C model, was actually the biggest operational tank ever built.
16:37Even bigger than the late for German design, the Maus.
16:41It was a true land battleship, more than 4 meters tall, 3 meters wide, and about 10.3 meters long.
16:48It had a crew of 12, featured 2 engines, a 75mm gun, 4 machine guns, and its armor was around
16:5645mm stick.
16:59Only 10 units were built, however, and they were more of a propaganda tool than actual effective weapons.
17:13The Dornier DO-335 was an interesting late war design, using two engines, one in the nose and one in
17:20the tail,
17:21making this type the fastest propeller-driven fighter of World War II.
17:25What most people don't know, is originally this plane was designed as a high-speed bomber,
17:29and it was only modified later as a multirole fighter.
17:32And because of that, almost all variants of the type featured an internal bomb bay.
17:39Hope you guys enjoyed this video.
17:41Please leave a like, subscribe to my channel, and in the comments let me know,
17:45if there's any interesting events or vehicles you'd like to see.
