Interesting Facts and Stories

Stefan Westmann, a German officer, endured the long British artillery bombardment that began the Battle of the Somme in one of the most fiercely contested areas of the front line.

Westmann was from Berlin, but in 1914 he was a medical student at Freiburg University. He was called up for National Service in April that year into the local Freiburg Infantry Regiment No.113, which was mobilised for war in August.

His first experience of trench warfare was against the French. He then briefly served on the Eastern Front before returning to France and the trenches at Serre, on the Somme. There, in December 1914, he was wounded by a shell burst. While he was recovering it was discovered that he had been a medical student. He was given a commission and appointed probationer surgeon at a German hospital in St Quentin.

In 1916 he was sent to Verdun. Just before the Battle of the Somme, he became medical officer attached to Infantry Regiment No.119 just south of Beaumont-Hamel. He witnessed the British bombardment and the opening attack, which he graphically described in an interview in 1963: 'For seven days and nights we were under incessant bombardment. Day and night, the shells - heavy and light ones - came upon us. Our dugouts crumbled. They fell upon us and we had to dig ourselves and our comrades out. Sometimes we found them suffocated; sometimes smashed to pulp.'

Westmann continued serving as a medical officer. He was awarded the Iron Cross First Class and survived the rest of the war unscathed. On his return to Berlin he resumed his civilian medical career but left Germany when Hitler came to power. He settled in Britain, changing his name to Stephen Westman, where he ran a successful Harley Street practice. He wrote his memoirs Surgeon with the Kaiser’s Army (London: William Kimber, 1968) shortly before he died.
 
Thank you for these great stories and keep up the good work, mate! :)
 
The Leaning Tower of Suurhusen is a late medieval steeple in Suurhusen, a village in the East Frisian region of northwestern Germany. According to the Guinness World Records it was the most tilted tower in the world, though in 2010 the newly erected Capital Gate tower in Abu Dhabi claimed this record.
The Suurhusen steeple remains the world's most leaning tower that is unintentionally tilted, beating the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa by 1.22 degrees.
 
In June 1942, Oberleutnant Armin Faber was Adjutant to the commander of III/JG2 in Northern France. On 23rd June, he was given special permission to fly a combat mission with 7th Staffel. The unit operated Focke-Wulf 190 fighters.

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The FW-190 had only recently arrived with front line units at this time and its superior performance had caused the Allies so many problems that they were considering mounting a commando raid on a French airfield to capture one for evaluation. Later this day, Faber was to save them the effort by accidentally handing them one intact!

7th Staffel was scrambled to intercept a force of twelve Bostons on their way back from a bombing mission. A fight developed over the English Channel with the escorting Spitfires, during which Faber was attacked by Sergeant Trejtnar of 310 Squadron RAF. In his efforts to shake off the Spitfire, Faber flew north over Exeter. After much high-speed manoeuvring, Faber, with only one cannon working, pulled an Immelmann turn into the sun and shot down his pursuer in a head-on attack.

Trejnar baled out safely, but the disorientated Faber now mistook the Bristol Channel for the English Channel and flew north instead of south. Thinking South Wales was France, he turned towards the nearest airfield - RAF Pembrey. Observers on the ground could not believe their eyes as Faber waggled his wings in a victory celebration, lowered the Focke-Wulf's undercarriage and landed. He was immediately captured, along with his aircraft.

The FW-190 was repainted in RAF colours and evaluated by the Air Fighting Development Unit at Farnborough, providing the Allies with extremely valuable intelligence. Faber spent the rest of the war as a PoW.

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Between 1840 and 1860, more than 30,000 American slaves came secretly to Canada to find freedom.

The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century Black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause.

The term is also applied to the abolitionists who aided the fugitives. Other various routes led to Mexico or overseas. Created in the early nineteenth century, the Underground Railroad was at its height between 1850 and 1860.

Dr. Martin Luther King said that in the history of black America, “Canada was the north star.” The old spiritual, “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” gave slaves the hidden advice to keep their eyes on the Gourd [the Big Dipper], which pointed the way north to “heaven,” in this case Canada.
 
Ensign George Henry Gay Jr. (March 8, 1917–October 21, 1994) was a TBD Devastator pilot in United States Navy Torpedo Squadron 8 operating from the USS Hornet (CV-8) in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II. Of the 30 VT-8 aircrew from Hornet that participated in the pivotal Battle of Midway, Ensign Gay was the sole survivor

During the Battle of Midway Gay was the first of his squadron to take off from Hornet on June 4, 1942. Gay's unit found the Japanese carrier fleet and launched an attack without any fighter plane support. Although he was wounded and his radioman/gunner was dying, Gay completed his torpedo attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga, but the Kaga evaded his torpedo. Rather than banking away from the ship and presenting a larger target to its anti-aircraft gunners, Gay continued in toward the carrier at low altitude. He then brought his Devastator into a tight turn as he approached the carrier's island, and flew aft along the flight deck's length, thus evading anti-aircraft fire. He later stated he had a "split second" thought of crashing into the Japanese aircraft he saw being serviced on the flight deck.-

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His plane still in relatively good condition, he decided to make for the Hornet after clearing the Japanese carrier. However, five A6M Zeros brought his aircraft down in a hail of machine gun and cannon fire, killing his rear gunner. Exiting his aircraft, and floating in the ocean, he hid under his seat cushion to avoid Japanese strafing attacks and witnessed the subsequent dive bombing attacks and sinking of three of the four Japanese aircraft carriers present.

After dark, Gay felt it was safe to inflate his life raft. He was rescued by a Navy PBY after spending over 30 hours in the water. Gay was later flown to the USS Vincennes (arriving June 28, 1942), before being transferred home. Of the squadron's thirty pilots and radiomen, Gay was the only survivor. Gay met with Admiral Nimitz and confirmed the destruction of three Japanese carriers that he had witnessed - the Akagi, Kaga and Soryu.

Following Midway, Gay took part in the Guadalcanal Campaign with another squadron, and he later became a navy flight instructor. He was awarded the Navy Cross, Purple Heart and Presidential Unit Citation for his actions in combat at Midway. He was also later awarded the Air Medal.
 
Kanichi Kashimura was a japanese flying ace with a total of 12 kills in the wars in China and the Pacific.
But if a pilot was made famous in his country was not by his victories over enemy aircraft, but by a singular action that starred when it was still a rookie with little combat experience.

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Kashimura born in Kagawa Japanese province in July 1913. He enlisted in the Navy and earned his pilot wings in July 1934.
When the war started with China was as a fighter pilot for the 13th Air Group in Nanking, where he arrived in October 1937. In his first bout, on November 22, shot down two enemy aircraft.

On December 9, during a match against Curtiss P-40 Air Force China, Nanchang, after shooting down an enemy aircraft collided in flight with another device, which tore off part of the left wing of his plane.
Kashimura managed to keep calm, and driving his Mitsubishi A5M skillfully managed to return to base with the brim cut off.
After four failed attempts, managed to land his plane, although it was not exactly a soft landing. Kashimura emerged unscathed from his wrecked plane in the eyes of everyone present.

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He had become the man who had landed with one wing, a real celebrity and a role model for new pilots.

Kashimura was promoted to second lieutenant in October 1942 and two months later was assigned to 582 th Air Group in New Guinea, where he came again in combat.
On March 6, 1943 participated in a bomber escort mission they will engage in a raid in the Russell Islands.
Two of the zeros of the escort did not return from the mission, one of which is the ensign Kashimura. They were intercepted by P-39 of the 67 th Fighter Squadron, but they focused their attacks in Aichi D3A dive bombers and claimed the downing of any Zero.
That day there was only a claim to a Zero killed in the area, presented by Sergeant Robert H. Banner, a gunner of the SBD Dauntless VMSB-132 (Marine Scout Bombing Squadron 132), who claimed to have shot a A6M 25 km southeast of the Russell Islands. -
Zero could be the Kashimura.
 
Victor Lustig (Hostinne, Austria-Hungary, January 4, 1890 – March 11, 1947) was a con artist who undertook scams in various countries and became best known as "The man who sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice." He was a glib and charming conman, fluent in multiple languages.

In 1925, France had recovered from World War I, and Paris was booming, an excellent environment for a con artist. Lustig's master con came to him one spring day when he was reading a newspaper. An article discussed the problems the city was having maintaining the Eiffel Tower. Even keeping it painted was an expensive chore, and the tower was becoming somewhat run down. Lustig saw the possibilities behind this article and developed a remarkable scheme.

Lustig had a forger produce fake government stationery for him and invited six scrap metal dealers to a confidential meeting at the Hotel de Crillon, one of the most prestigious of the old Paris hotels, to discuss a possible business deal. All six attended the meeting. There, Lustig introduced himself as the deputy director-general of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. He explained that they had been selected on the basis of their good reputations as honest businessmen, and then dropped his bombshell.

Lustig told the group that the upkeep on the Eiffel Tower was so outrageous that the city could not maintain it any longer, and wanted to sell it for scrap. Due to the certain public outcry, he went on, the matter was to be kept secret until all the details were thought out. Lustig said that he had been given the responsibility to select the dealer to carry out the task. The idea was not as implausible in 1925 as it would be today. The Eiffel Tower had been built for the 1889 Paris Exposition, and was not intended to be permanent. It was to have been taken down in 1909 and moved somewhere else. It did not fit with the city's other great monuments like the Gothic cathedrals or the Arc de Triomphe, and at the time, it really was in poor condition.

Lustig took the men to the tower in a rented limousine for an inspection tour. It gave Lustig the opportunity to gauge which of them was the most enthusiastic and gullible. Lustig asked for bids to be submitted the next day, and reminded them that the matter was a state secret. In reality, Lustig already knew he would accept the bid from one dealer, Andre Poisson. Poisson was insecure, feeling he was not in the inner circles of the Parisian business community, and thought that obtaining the Eiffel Tower deal would put him in the big league.

However, Poisson's wife was suspicious, wondering who this official was, why everything was so secret, and why everything was being done so quickly. To deal with her suspicion, Lustig arranged another meeting, and then "confessed". As a government minister, Lustig said, he did not make enough money to pursue the lifestyle he enjoyed, and needed to find ways to supplement his income. This meant that his dealings needed a certain discretion. Poisson understood immediately. He was dealing with another corrupt government official who wanted a bribe. That put Poisson's mind at rest immediately, since he was familiar with the type and had no problems dealing with such people.

So Lustig not only received the funds for the Eiffel Tower, he also collected a large bribe. Lustig and his personal secretary, a Franco American con man Robert Arthur Tourbillon also known as Dan Collins, hastily took a train for Vienna with a suitcase full of cash.

Nothing happened. Poisson was too humiliated to complain to the police. A month later, Lustig returned to Paris, selected six more scrap dealers, and tried to sell the Tower once more. This time, the chosen victim went to the police before Lustig could close the deal, but Lustig and Collins managed to evade arrest.
 
Philip M. Rasmussen (May 11, 1918 - April 30, 2005) was an Army Air Corps second lieutenant assigned to the 46th Pursuit Squadron at Wheeler Field on the island of Oahu during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. He was one of the few American pilots to get into the air that day.

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Rasmussen was awarded a Silver Star for his actions. He flew many later combat missions, including a bombing mission over Japan that earned him an oak leaf cluster. He stayed in the military after the war and eventually retired from the United States Air Force as a colonel in 1965.

On the morning of December 7, Lt. Rasmussen had awakened in his barracks, when, looking out a window, he saw a group of Japanese airplanes dropping bombs on the field. He strapped his .45 caliber pistol to the outside of his pajamas and ran to get an airplane.

Most of the planes were destroyed, but Lt. Rasmussen found an unscathed P-36 Hawk and taxied it to a revetment where he had it loaded with ammunition. During a lull in the bombing, he took off with three other pilots. They received orders by radio to fly to Kaneohe Bay on the north-east side of the island.

The American pilots subsequently engaged 11 Japanese aircraft. Despite having a jammed .30 caliber gun and only limited capability with his .50 caliber gun, Lt. Rasmussen managed to shoot down a Mitsubishi A6M Zero. Several other Japanese pilots attacked, including one who apparently tried to ram him. (The Japanese pilot, Iyozo Fujita, returned to the aircraft carrier, Soryu, and survived the war).

Rasmussen's plane was badly damaged and fell into an uncontrolled plunge into the clouds over the mountainous terrain. After passing through the clouds at about 5,000 feet he regained control of the aircraft and returned to Wheeler Field, where he landed with no brakes, rudder, or tailwheel. Oral accounts of the number of bullet holes in the plane vary, but most give a figure of about 500.

The opening exhibit of the World War II exhibit in the National Museum of the United States Air Force features a mannequin of a pajama-clad pilot climbing into a P-36 Hawk. The exhibit details Lt. Rasmussen's exploits that day and is informally titled "The Pajama Pilot."

He died in 2005 of complications from cancer and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
 
The experiment of Gustav III of Sweden.

Gustav III of Sweden's coffee experiment was a twin study ordered by the king to study the health effects of coffee.

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Coffee first arrived in Sweden around 1674, but was little used until the turn of 18th century when it became fashionable among the wealthy. In 1746, a royal edict was issued against coffee and tea due to "the misuse and excesses of tea and coffee drinking". Heavy taxes were levied on consumption, and failure to pay the tax on the substance resulted in fines and confiscation of cups and dishes. Later, coffee was banned completely; despite the ban, consumption continued.

Gustav III, who viewed coffee consumption as a threat to the public health and was determined to prove its negative health effects, ordered a scientific experiment to be carried out.

The king ordered the experiment to be conducted using two identical twins. Both of the twins had been tried for the crimes they had committed and condemned to death. Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment on the condition that one of the twins drank 3 pots of coffee, and the other drank the same amount of tea, every day for the rest of their lives.

Two physicians were appointed to supervise the experiment and report its finding to the king. Unfortunately, both doctors died, presumably of natural causes, before the experiment was completed. Gustav III, who was assassinated in 1792, also died before seeing the final results. Of the twins, the tea drinker was the first to die, at age 83; the date of death of the surviving coffee drinker is unknown.

In 1794, the government once again tried to impose a ban on coffee. The ban, which was renewed multiple times until the 1820s, was never successful in stamping out coffee-drinking. Once the ban was lifted, coffee became a dominant beverage in Sweden, which has been one of the countries with the highest coffee consumption per capita in the world since.
 
In April 1953 the U.S. military offered a reward of $ 100,000 who would provide an intact MiG-15. -

On the morning of September 21, 1953 Lt. No Kum-Sok, North Korea, flying a patrol mission.- When No Kum-Sok calculated flying just over 100 kilometers from Seoul, broke formation and headed south at full speed, over 1,000 kilometers per hour. –

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Upon arrival at Kimpo airfield ignored air traffic and landed on the track in the opposite direction of takeoff. – Once the plane had left the door quietly approached him a member of ground crew had mistaken the MiG with an F-86 Sabre, this was stunned when he saw the pilot stood up in his cabin and raised the hands in surrender.- Shortly after the MiG-15 was surrounded by base personnel arriving in jeeps or trucks.

He quickly ordered the tower to take off all the F-86 and Meteors of the RAAF, his goal was to prevent anyone could destroy the MIG on the ground.- Meanwhile the MiG hid in one of the nearby hangars.

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The MiG was transported to the port from where he was sent by sea to Okinawa for a comprehensive test program which commissioned two of the best specialists in the field: Captain H.E. "Tom" Collins and Major C. E. "Chuck" Yeager.- The tests lasted until December and the results were submitted to the U.S. aircraft industry.-

Once this period the United States offered to return the aircraft to its rightful owner but no one claimed it, nor North Korea nor of course the USSR was officially a neutral country. Finally, the USAF transferred the MiG-15 air museum in Dayton, Ohio, in 1957.-

No Kum-Sok he later emigrated to the United States, graduated from the University of Delaware, married, and became a U.S. citizen. He worked as an aeronautical engineer for Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, General Motors, General Electric, Lockheed, DuPont, and Westinghouse. He was joined in the U.S by his mother, who had been evacuated from North Korea. After emigrating, he anglicized his name to "Kenneth Rowe".

He also wrote a book.- Rowe retired in 2000 after working 17 years as an aeronautical engineering professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
 
Interesting reading... Especially about Sacagawea... Thanks, Facman!
 
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