WW2 Trivia Archive
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What was the Belgian village of Lanzerath and what happened there on December 16, 1944?
Answer: An 18-man American Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon held off an entire German battalion of 500 men for an entire day during the opening hours of the Battle of the Bulge.
Lt. Lyle Bouck and his 18 men from the 99th Infantry Battalion held their positions for 20 hours against repeated assaults by the 277th Volksgrenadier Division. They inflicted an estimated 500 casualties using bazookas, machine guns, and grenades while being continuously called on to surrender. They ran out of ammunition and were finally overrun. German commanders later said the delay at Lanzerath helped lose them the critical first 48 hours of the battle. The platoon received Presidential Unit Citations in 1981 — 37 years late.
What was the only battle in which Americans and Germans fought side by side during WWII?
Answer: The Battle of Castle Itter, fought on May 5, 1945, three days after Hitler's suicide. U.S. Army soldiers and German Wehrmacht troops under Major Josef "Sepp" Gangl joined forces to defend Castle Itter in Austria against an attacking force of Waffen-SS.
The castle held imprisoned French VIPs including former Prime Ministers Édouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud, tennis champion Jean Borotra, and the sister of Charles de Gaulle. Capt. Jack Lee of the U.S. 23rd Tank Battalion and German Major Gangl coordinated the defense. Gangl was killed by an SS sniper while protecting Prime Minister Reynaud. A young Czech prisoner at the castle, Karel Černý, later became president of Czechoslovakia.
Why did German soldiers call Soviet female bomber pilots "Nachthexen" (Night Witches)?
Answer: The 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes — so slow German fighters couldn't engage without stalling. Pilots cut their engines and glided silently to bomb positions. All the Germans heard was the wind, like a witch on a broomstick.
The all-female regiment flew over 23,000 sorties delivering 3,000 tons of bombs. Their plywood-and-canvas planes topped out at 94 mph. Twenty-three women received Hero of the Soviet Union. The Germans were so afraid they awarded an Iron Cross to anyone who shot one down. They used 3-gang formation attacks with deception — two planes drew fire while the third attacked.
What happened at the Slaughterhouse 5 in Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge?
Answer: On December 17, 1944, Waffen-SS troops under Joachim Peiper massacred 84 American prisoners of war at a crossroads near the Malmedy crossroads. The survivors played dead for hours in freezing temperatures.
The Americans were herded into a field and shot. Some survivors lay motionless for hours as German soldiers walked among the bodies shooting anyone still alive. Those who escaped crawled through snow in sub-zero temperatures. Some had frostbite so severe they lost limbs. The massacre was discovered when survivors reached American lines. It became the most documented war crime of the Western Front and was prosecuted at the Dachau trials. Peiper was convicted and sentenced to death but later released.