Independent: Zdenek Skarvada, who has died aged 95, was one of the last surviving Czech or Slovak pilots who flew fighters or bombers in the RAF during the Second World War. They took heavy casualties: 32 Czech fighter pilots were killed in his 310 Squadron alone and 480 overall in RAF fighters or bombers. After the engine of his Spitfire [...]
What seemed like innocent, even mundane, letters home from a World War II prisoner of war to his family contained secret intelligence that is only now being revealed. Sub Lieut. John Pryor’s letters — which touch on topics like gardening and vegetable patches — contained messages for the British military and a secret code that died with him. Now, the [...]
The Bridge from Hell: Prisoners of War lay sleepers on the Death Railway at River Kwai The Daily Mail reports: It was known, for good reason, as the Death Railway. In 1942, after the fall of Singapore, the Japanese army ordered the construction of a jungle railroad from Bangkok to Rangoon to support its assault on India. Almost 260 miles [...]
The Guardian reports: Eichstätt, Bavaria: Peter Conder said the hills behind Oflag VIIB reminded him of the North Downs of his Surrey childhood Millions of years ago, the Danube carved a sinuous course through soft limestone, then shifted its path, leaving a small tributary running through a wide-bottomed valley. I’d come to a point just south of the onion-domed church spires [...]
Sciencenordic reports: More than 13,700 prisoners of war from the Soviet Union died in Norway during the Second World War. Only a few were identified in the post-war years, but now names and graves are being matched. Germany attacked and occupied Norway in 1940, and invaded the Soviet Union the following year. Between 1941 and 1945 at least 98,000 Red [...]
Coded letters sent from a British prisoner of war to his parents in Cornwall have been deciphered thanks to academics at Plymouth University. Sub Lt John Pryor was captured at Dunkirk in 1940 and sent to a German prisoner of war (PoW) camp. He was held for the next five years but as a reward for good behaviour he was [...]
The astonishing claims of a 76-year-old man found living in Vietnam who says he is a U.S. war veteran presumed dead 44-years ago have been exposed as a hoax. The story of Sgt. John Hartley Robertson as told by a new documentary ‘Unclaimed’ gripped the world on Tuesday – raising the astounding possibility that an American POW escaped from his [...]
A postcard sent home by a captured WWI soldier has come to light 95 years after it was sent from a German prisoner of war camp. Charles Jeffries sent the card from Limburg an der Lahn on 30 April, 1918 to let his family in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, know he had been taken prisoner. His granddaughter, Pat Nicholls, 78, of Shepreth, [...]
Stars and Stripes reports: Guy Gruters texted long before cellphones were invented. Tapping on concrete walls of prisoner-of-war camps in Vietnam, using a simple code for each letter, Gruters slowly and patiently spread the heroic story of Milwaukee native Lance Sijan to fellow American prisoners. Gruters and Sijan were classmates in the same squadron at the Air Force Academy — [...]
Allan Chick is 93 years old, and is said to be the last living Australian POW in World War II who survived the 1945 U.S. atomic bomb dropped in Nagasaki. Chick is applying for a special hibakusha (literally “explosion-affected people”) health-care certificate, to be able to receive medical support from the Japanese government. Nobuto Hirano, who leads a support group [...]
Local Jeweler’s WWII Dog Tags Unearthed In Normandy Nearly 70 Years LaterMay 24, 2013
How Hitler’s U-Boats Are Still Attacking UsMay 23, 2013
Colonel Leonard T. Schroeder – 30 Years Service and First Man on Normandy BeachMay 23, 2013
“Useful Enemies”: U.S. admitted not just Nazis after WWII, but their sadistic collaboratorsMay 23, 2013
1900s-1920s: Lucky SwastikasMay 23, 2013
British WWII Spying and Propaganda in U.S. Shown in Secret FilesMay 23, 2013
Intelligence archive: Cross dressing spy who caused a headache for British mastersMay 23, 2013
Built by forced labour, Nazi bunkers being converted into modern homesMay 23, 2013
Intelligence archives: Britain bribed Spain to stay out of WWIIMay 23, 2013
Last two living survivors of WWII sinking of HMS Gloucester return to Plymouth for dedication of memorial stoneMay 23, 2013
Obituaries: Major David Taylor, who has died aged 92, won an MC in 1944 at the Normandy bridgehead.May 23, 2013
Bournemouth WWII air raid 70th anniversary memorial to be unveiledMay 23, 2013
Churchill and Stalin made ‘merry’ until early hoursMay 23, 2013
Reluctant hero’ of Warsaw Ghetto uprising dies at 93: Tributes paid to one of final survivors who took on Nazis in 1943May 23, 2013
Hell’s Angels Veteran flys againMay 23, 2013
Huntington State Office Building Will Be Renamed for Rosie the RivetersMay 22, 2013
‘I never knew people could love an old man so much’: WWII vet, 91, ‘saved from daughter’s eviction’ after $138,000 raised onlineMay 22, 2013
Bomber Command veterans boycotting ‘insulting’ awardMay 22, 2013
Countdown to raising the Dornier commencesMay 22, 2013
When wartime appearances were deceiving by designMay 22, 2013
