Wwii Facts

The first bomb dropped on Berlin in WWII killed an elephant in the Berlin Zoo - but it wasn't the only one. The zoo had nine elephants when the war began.

During WWII, because a lot of players were called to duty, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles combined to become The Steagles.

The universally popular Hershey bar was used overseas during World War II as currency.

At age 18, the Queen of England was a mechanic for the British Military.

The Christmas tree displayed in Trafalgar square in London is an annual gift to the UK from Norway since 1947. The Norwegian spruce given is a token of appreciation of British friendship during World War II from the Norwegian people.

After Germany surrendered in WW2, people in Moscow partied until the entire city actually ran out of vodka.

Nicholas Alkemade, a pilot during World War 2, survived falling 18,000 feet after jumping from a burning Lancaster bomber.

Queen Elizabeth II served as a mechanic and driver in World War 2.

A WW2 observation pilot, bored of not being in combat, decided to strap 6 bazookas to his plane. He destroyed several enemy tanks and vehicles. His name was Lt. Col. Charles Carpenter, aka Bazooka Charlie / The Mad Major.

Unsinkable Sam is a legendary ship's cat said to have survived the sinking of three warships during World War II—the German battleship Bismarck, then two British vessels, HMS Cossack and HMS Ark Royal—each time reportedly found clinging to floating debris.

During WW2, captured German officers were sent to Britain as POWs and lived in luxury in Trent Park. This was done to make them feel relaxed. However, they were being listened to by 100 ‘listeners’. They revealed secrets about the holocaust, events in Berlin, Hitler's madness and V2 rocket bases.

Bamse was a St Bernard in the Royal Norwegian Navy during World War II. He wore a steel helmet at the gun tower in battle and once pushed an attacker into the sea to save an officer. The crew gave him his own bus pass, and he rode Scotland's buses alone to round up sailors from the pubs before curfew. Bamse died in 1944. In 2006, he won the PDSA Gold Medal, the only WWII animal so honored.

Audrey Hepburn was a teenager in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. She secretly danced in ballet recitals to fund the Dutch resistance. The rooms stayed blacked out, but nobody clapped. Applause could bring German soldiers running, so audiences stayed silent. Hepburn also hid resistance notes inside her wooden shoes. That starving teenage courier grew up to become a beloved icon and a lifelong UNICEF ambassador.

During WWII, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defied his government to save 6,000 Jewish refugees. He wrote visas by hand for 29 days straight, even throwing them from his train window as he was forced to leave.

Harold Jellicoe Percival died alone at 99 with no family to attend his funeral. The care home placed a four-line notice in the Lytham St Annes Express asking anyone to come. Someone tweeted a photo of it. On Armistice Day at 11am, over 200 strangers packed the crematorium and scores more stood outside in the rain.

Hedy Lamarr - Hollywood's "most beautiful woman" - co-invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology during WWII to guide Allied torpedoes. The Navy dismissed it. Her patent expired in 1959. She never received a dollar. That technology became the foundation for WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth.