There is almost something small we never hear about because it's never seen as too important or a key point in the war. What are key points in the war that are actually of huge importance and significance?
Your question is difficult to answer. And it is difficult for several reasons. You ask about the seemingly insignificant event of THE war but fail to specify what war you have in mind. I have in my small library a reference work which is an encyclopedia of military history. It list many, many wars over the millenium, and rather than guess which war you mean as THE war, I ask for clarification. And though I have studied centuries worth of military history I must confess I read the writing of earlier writers. I find myself reliant upon their analysis of past events, in many cases. This means, in most cases, someone else besides me knows the information and thought the factoid of such significance to write about it. There are very few items of significance which are not significant. Care to start us off with an example?
The British decision in 1941 to go to the aid of Greece. Had the formations sent to Greece been kept in North Africa it is unlikely that the Afrika Corps would have been as successful in it's opening offensive. The entire desert war would have been changed. Indeed some historians have said that if the UK had kept on advancing against the Italians then Hitler and the German High Command may well have decided it was too late in the desert and reverse the decision to send troops to North Africa.
I figured out from one of your other post that your question is probably about the Second World War, 1939-1945. Some fourty-five years ago I took a course about the war. It was taught by a very knowledgeable professor. During the war he worked for the OSS. Immediately after the war he was the Chief Interrogater at Nurmburg, where he "chatted" with many top Nazi/German military leaders. Among these was The Fuhrer.... No, not Adolf but the Second Fuhrer: Gross-Admiral Carl Doenitz. One of the points which emerged from these conversation was that in 1939 the U-boat fleet was not ready. In fact the entire German Naval building plan foresaw the war not starting until 1943. If this was to come to pass Doenitz would have started the war with a U-boat fleet of some 300 boats, not 57. Imagine if you will a fleet of 100 boats a-hunting, rather than 19. (1/3 hunting, 1/3 traveling, 1/3 refitting was the standard formula). Churchill is supposed to have said that the only thing which caused him to lose sleep was the U-boats, weak as they were.
This thread is in Forums > The Wars > World War 2. So yes you're right about it being World War 2 but it's also a given seeing a I posted it in this section of the forum. No biggie though, I assume you just missed where you were looking at thought it was a general question. Thanks for your replies though, very interesting. Keep them coming! Hold on. I may be completely wrong here but I thought that Rudolf Hess was now the Fuhrer seeing as he was Deputy-Fuhrer when Hitler was alive?
Rudolf Hess was killed in 1940 as he attempted to flyy to UK to negotiate a cease-fire. Someone did appear in UK who appeared to be Hess but in his long captivity "Hess" was examined ONCE by a competent British physician. The doctor noticed that "Hess" did not have wound scars from a Great War trauma (he was an officer pilot (fighters)). The doctor did some probing and discovered the serial number of the plane the real Hess took for his fateful flight did not match that crashed in Scotland (north England?). When it was discovered the doctor was asking question he was removed from "Hess"'s treatment. At the Nuremberg trial "Hess" was seated next to Goering. Herman asked him who he was, as Hermans knew Rudolf quite well. On several occasions he told the jailers that "Hess" was bogus.
How have I completely overlooked something like this after all the time I spend looking up stuff to do with exactly this? I've completely missed this story. I am aware that Hess was not in the Nuremberg Trials and Goering called himself the "fuhrer" or whatever at this point. Is there any chance that Goering was behind crashing Hess' plane because of the depute as to who was deputy fuhrer or not? And yes, Scotland is on the North Side of Great Britain. Directly above England.
Thank you for confirming that Scotland is to the north of England. I alway get confused, thinking that Scotland is someplace like Central Africa or in the Artic. (Smirk -- that is a joke). "Hess" was at Nuremburg. As I said, "Hess" sat in chair #2, next to Herman Goering. The world was led to believe this was Hess; the British carried on the charade for years, but persons with inquiring minds have come to realize that the Hess/"Hess" is one of the few remaining secrets of that war. As I said before, my old professor 'interviewed' the top German military leaders. He spoke of the personalities of Jodl, Kiddel, Donetz, Gudarian, et cetera, which brought his classes alive. He even befriended Frau Rommel after the war, along with Frau Jodl. He was generally very illustrative on WWII history, but he stated several times over the years he would NOT discuss Hess/'Hess". To my mind his silence speaks volumes -- that there are secrets to be plumbed. Who was behind Hess's disappearance? This is another mystery. Something makes me think it was Bohrmann, not Goering. By 1940 Herman already had a heavy drug problem. When he was captured in 45 he was carrying a suitcase of PILLS to feed his habit. According to published sources he was slowly weened off of the Heroin/Methadon pills he too twice a day (something like 50 pills a time). Have you another question
That is some fascinating info! I'm definitely going to look this up and maybe find a documentary or so on Hess and where he went to or other conspiracy. I thought I was running out of topics of the Second World War to look up but I guess I've just found another bunch of them. Thanks so much for all this! No other questions, I'm off to find myself some documentaries or stories on Hess !
Well I never.!!! So Rudolph Hess never flew to Scotland, and was never interned by the British and never spent the remainder of his life in Spandau Prison. Seems all the secret documents that have been declassified that I have read are garbage.!!!!!
Indeed, I was even based at Spandau Barracks once for a six week period, the Russians were guarding him at that time. The truth is that the British did reconstructive surgery on a volunteer to fool the world. Hess then spent the next few months telling the British that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbour which we did not tell the USA because we wanted their fleet to be destroyed. In return Hess was granted Asylum on the Klingon home world where he lives today as a spiritual ambassador!
Well holy sh**. Thank you so much for sharing your information. I'm going to spend the day looking up these stories. I'm really excited!
Dern, dern and double dern! Aghart, here I thought all this time that the U.S. Pre-war involvement in the pacific theater siding with China against Japan was what ticked the good Japanese emperor off a little, since we shot down a few of his zeros and sunk a couple of his subs. Now you tell me that you guys had something to do with Pearl. Tsk tsk. And Hess on Klingon? I actually believed that it was Romula and he was teaching ballet. Just shows to go ya. Even old airborne guys like me get their lines tangled up sometimes. Thanks for the update.
