Unknown World War 2: The Crosswords Of D-Day

As we remember the bravery of the American, Canadian, Britsh and other allied forces that participated in D-Day and the start of the liberation of Europe, there was an episode that has now been almost forgotten.

You see, the code words for D-Day started showing up in the British newspaper The Telegraph's crossword puzzles right before the invasion of Normandy was to take place.

Just prior to May 1944, the words Juno, Sword and Gold - names of the British and Canadian invasion beaches appeared in the Telegraph's crosswords.

Then on May 2 1944 a question appeared: "One of the U.S." the answer was Utah.

On May 22: "Red Indian on the Missouri" The answer: Omaha.

That's all of the invasion beaches.

On May 27: "... but some bigwig like this has stolen some of it at times." The answer: Overlord, the code-name for the entire invasion operation.

On May 30: "This bush is a centre of nursery revolutions."answer: Mulberry. Mulberry was the code-name for the artificial harbors to be used in the invasion.

On June 1, 1944 the clue: Britannia and he hold to the same thing. The answer: Neptune, which was the code-name for the naval portion of the action for D-Day.

This, as you might imagine, gave the British counter-intelligence service, MI-5, kittens.

There was an urgent investigation to see if the crossword was being used to tip-off the Germans and warn them of the invasion.

It turns out the compiler of the crossword puzzles, Leonard Dawe, headmaster of a school and crossword enthusiast, had come up with the words and after a through investigation MI-5 decided it had just been an interesting and complete coincidence and not espionage and the crossword panic faded into history.

It later turns out it wasn't quite as purely coincidental as all that.

Only later in 1984 was it learned that Dawe had been given the words by schoolchildren when he had asked them for some words to put in the puzzles. These schoolkids gave him the suggested words, the words which they had overheard then being discussed by American and British soldiers. At least two of these schoolchildren identified themselves later in 1984 and then in 1995 that they were the ones who gave Dawe some of the words to use in the puzzles.

The Telegraph: D-Day crosswords are still a few clues short of a solution

Unknown World War Two Tales - The Jews Awarded The Iron Cross

There was a country in World War 2 allied with Germany where:

Three of its Jews were awarded the Iron Cross, and all three declined the honor.
A Field Synagogue was setup near the front lines and actually visited by German officers.
The country's leader told the Nazis to go pound sand when they demanded he turn over the country's Jewish citizens to the Germans.

Yes, if you haven't guessed it by now, we're talking about Finland.

Finland in the Second World War was between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Invaded by the USSR in 1939, the Winter War, she fought the Soviets to a standstill. Then she fought alongside the Axis in the Continuation War 1941-1944 but with its own war aims, and finally fought the Lapland War in 1944-45 pushing the Germans out of Finland. Finnish Jews fought in all three wars.

It was during the Continuation War that three Jewish soldiers were awarded the Iron Cross.

Major Leo Skurnik served as a Doctor and organized the evacuation of a German field hospital under fire, thereby saving the lives of more than 600 German Officers and Soldiers. He refused to accept the award.

Captain Salomon Klass saved an entire German Company that had been surrounded by the Soviets. Two days later, German Officers came to offer him the “Iron Cross”. He refused to stand up at their presence and proclaimed the he was a Jew and did not want their Medal. Embarrassed, the Germans responded with a “Heil Hitler” salute and left.

Dina Poljakoff, who served in the women's voluntary organization, Lotta Svard was the third Jew to be awarded the Iron Cross. Poljakoff went to look at her Iron Cross at headquarters, but she did not accept it.

The field synagogue, complete with a Torah scroll, was setup by the 24th Regiment which had a large number of Jews in its ranks. The Finnish army issued an order that all Jews in the army could have leave to attend services there.

German officers and soldiers did visit the synagogue, as the nearest German unit was only a kilometer away, which must have led to some interesting and awkward exchanges in the rather unique situation of a field synagogue located alongside Nazi lines.

Unknown World War Two Tales - The Tragedy Of The Cap Arcona And The Thielbek

The Cap Acona was a German liner of the Hamburg-South America Line, that interestingly enough stood in for the Titanic in the German movie of 1942 named, creatively enough, Titanic.

From operating as a cruise liner prior to the outbreak of the war, she was then painted grey and entered war service and its last runs were evacuating German soldiers in the Baltic from the advancing Soviet Army.

She then was floating in the Bay of Lubeck along with the SS Thielbek

and the SS Deutschland.

Himmler had ordered that concentration camp inmates were not to be allowed to be rescued by the allies alive.

Himmler and other Nazis, seeking to hide evidence of their crimes sought to wipe away all evidence.

Concentration camp inmates, mainly from the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, and the Stutthof and Mittelbau-Dorastarting camps began on April 20, 1945 and prisoners were ferried to and loaded on the ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland. The Cap Arcona, a liner by this time did not have functioning engines.

When the ships were full and there were still more concentration camp inmates from Stutthof and Mittelbau-Dorastarting could not be loaded, the SS simply machine-gunned or beat to death 500 inmates on the beach.

The full ships with prisoners locked aboard lacked the facilities for caring for them and 20-30 of the prisoners died daily from April 20 up to May 3, 1945. Hitler had already shot himself on April 30, but the killing went on.

The SS planned to sink the ships with all aboard. In a terrible irony of war, It turns out they would not be the ones to sink the ships after all. The ships were to be sunk by the Allies.

On May 3, 1945 just days before the end of the war, Typhoon fighter-bombers of Royal Air Force 83 Group roared overhead and commenced an attack, firing rockets and dropping bombs on the ships, and then strafing survivors in the water.

While Swedish and Swiss Red Cross officials had informed British intelligence on 2 May 1945 of the presence of large numbers of prisoners on ships at anchor in Lübeck Bay, and RAF intelligence was informed of this, this vital information failed to be passed on to the RAF pilots who were instead instructed to attack the ships on the belief that they might be used by the SS to escape and set up resistance elsewhere.

Wracked by rocket fire and bombs, The Cap Arcona was immediately set on fire and capsized soon afterward.

The Thielbeck was set afire and capsized in 20 minutes.

The Deutschland also capsized and sank but apparently all on board survived and were then loaded onto the SS Athen.

5,000 died when the Cap Arcona sank with only 350 concentration camp inmates surviving. By comparison, 490 of the 600 Germans on board survived.

Of the 2,800 prisoners aboard Thielbek, only 50 survived the attack.

The SS then proceeded to shot those survivors who could not move unassisted from the water.

1971 is the last year where known bones from this attack have washed ashore.

British records relating to the incident are apparently sealed until 2045.

Unknown World War Two Tales - Frenchmen Flyers In Russia

World War 2 was by its very definition a World War, engulfing the globe and having a cast of millions. While much of the course of it is well known, there are many aspects, units, episodes, and smaller engagements within it that I certainly have not learned about and I suspect others are similarly unaware.

So I've decided to do an occasional post, and perhaps should interest be sufficient make it a regular thing on this blog on some of those lesser known episodes.

So without further ado: Frenchmen Flyers in Russia!

In 1943, at the suggestion of Charles De Gaulle, a group of French pilots was sent to assist the Russians on the Eastern Front.

Groupe de Chasse 3 of the Free French Air Force was sent to the Soviet Union to fight the Nazis, and soon became the most decorated unit in the French Air Force.

The unit was soon named the Normandie-Niemen Regiment, commemorating its contribution to the Battle of The Niemen River.

Initially flying the Yak-1 fighter that they used to good effect, and then transitioning to the superlative Yak-3 fighter, the Regiment racked up 273 enemy aircraft shot down, 37 probables, for a loss of 87 aircraft and 52 pilots.

The Yak 3 out turn and out run the Germans' Bf-109 and FW 190 fighters. German pilots were warned not to engage a Yak-3 in a dogfight below 14,000 ft, as it could roll with the Focke-Wulf Fw-190, and its turn radius was superior. With an excellent plane the excellent pilots of Normandie-Niemen made their presence felt.

Picture of a Yak 3 in Normandie-Niemen colors

Apparently the unit annoyed the Nazis so much that Field Marshall Keitel had issued an order that any French pilot captured on the eastern front would be executed rather than treated as a Prisoner of War.

4 of the French pilots were awarded the decoration of Hero of The Soviet Union, the Soviet's highest honor.

A surviving Yak 3 fighter from the Normandie-Niemen Regiment is on display at Le Bourget in France. There is a Yak 3 in flying condition at the Planes of Fame Museum in California sporting Normandie-Niemen colors.

To learn more about the story of the Normandie-Niemen Regiment, there's a book by John D. Clarke titled French Eagles, Soviet Heroes: The Normandie-Niemen Squadrons on the Eastern Front that looks rather good.

The Normandie-Niemen Squadron name lives on in active squadrons in both the French and Russian Air Forces today.

In the French Air Force as the Escadron de chasse 2/30 Normandie-Niemen, flying the Rafale, and in Russian air forces today s the "8-й гвардейский Витебский дважды Краснознаменный ордена Суворова второй степени истребительный полк ВВС России "Нормандия – Неман" of the 11th Air Army flying Mig-29s.