Operation Market Garden from 17–25 September 1944, was an unsuccessful Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany in the World War II. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time. Delivering over 34.600 men of the 101st  under General Maxwell Davenport Taylor,  82nd under General James “Slim Jim” Gavin  and 1st Airborne Division  Major-General Roy Urqhart  who died on 13 December… Read more »

There are few German formations surrounded by as much legend and notoriety as the Hitler Youth Division. There is very good reason for that. The 12th SS Panzer Division “Hitlerjugend” was one of the premier formations of the entire Nazi military apparatus despite being composed largely of boys below the age of 18. Let’s take… Read more »

Luftwaffe pilots blitzed on crystal meth, Goering injecting morphine with a gold syringe and the Fuhrer with the arms of a junkie. How drugs fueled the Nazis: High Hitler. On the surface, this all sounds like a modern scene, a snapshot from a 21st-century rave party or rock concert, where youngsters blow their minds on… Read more »

Captain Werner G. Goering,   was the nephew of Luftwaffe chief Herman Goering, and an American citizen, flew bombing missions over Germany as a command pilot for the 303rd Bomb Group. He was accompanied by his co-pilot, Jack Rencher   a sharpshooting, straight-talking Arizonan with a top-secret mission. Werner a son of Goering brother Karl Ernst, who immigrated to… Read more »

The purpose of the SS tattoo was to identify a soldier’s blood type in case a blood transfusion was needed while unconscious, or his Erkennungsmarke (dog tag) or Soldbuch (pay book) were missing. The tattoo was generally applied by the unit’s Sanitäter (medic) in basic training, but could have been applied by anyone assigned to… Read more »

Josef “Sepp” Allerberger, was an Austrian sniper assigned to the II Battalion 144 Regiment of the 3rd Gebirgsjäger Mountain Division under command of General der Gebirgstruppe Julius Ringel  unit operated on the Eastern Front. Allerberger was credited with 257 deaths in his military career. Julius Ringel died 11 February 1967, age 77. Born in the vicinity of… Read more »

Tsutomu Yamaguchi (March 16, 1916 – January 4, 2010) was a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb during World War II. Although at least 160 people are known to have been affected by both bombings, he is the only person to have been officially recognized by the government of Japan as surviving both explosions.   A resident of Nagasaki,… Read more »

Herta Bothe was born in Teterow, Mecklenburg-Scwerin on 08-01-1921. In 1938, at age seventeen, Bothe  helped her father in his small Teterow wood shop, then worked temporarily in a factory, then as a hospital nurse. In 1939, Bothe was a member of the Leaque of German Girls . In September 1942, Bothe became the  SS… Read more »

On 20 July 1944, an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, perpetrated by Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg   and other conspirators, inside his Wolf’s Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The name Operation Valkyrie, originally referring to a component part of the conspirators’ overall plot, has become associated with the event. The apparent purpose of the assassination… Read more »

Operation Market Garden  was set for 17 September 1944, and the 101st , along with the 82nd  Airborne Division, the British 1st Airborne Division  and 52d Lowland Division (Airportable), and the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade  were set to jump. Unlike the Normandy jumps, this operation, by order of Lieutenant General Lewis Brereton  commander of the… Read more »