Art hoarder's whereabouts unknown after German officials make estimated $1B discovery

The mysterious painting hoarder who was revealed to have stashed more than 1,400 works in his apartment – estimated to be worth around $1 billion -- has disappeared after authorities made the discovery.

Prosecutor Reinhard Nemetz told reporters in the Bavarian city of Augsburg that investigators have turned up "concrete evidence" that at least some of the works were seized by the Nazis from their owners or classed by them as "degenerate art" and seized from German museums in 1937 or shortly after.

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Remembering legendary Enigma code breaker Mavis Batey

If you don't know of Mavis Batey, you should. Her work cracking the Enigma machine's coded messages was crucial to the success of D-Day landings during WWII. Batey, aged 92, died this week on 12 November 2013. Read the full story below about her accomplishments:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57612488-1/remembering-legendary-enigma-code-breaker-mavis-batey/

Last Doolittle Raiders make final toast

With a final toast, the Doolittle Raiders symbolically said goodbye Saturday to a decades-old tradition and to a history that changed the course of the Pacific war in World War II.
Gathering from across the country together one last time, three surviving Raiders sipped from silver goblets engraved with their names and filled with 1896 Hennessy cognac in a once-private ceremony webcast to the world at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/local/last-doolittle-raiders-make-final-toast/nbnpF/

Oldest Medal of Honor recipient dies

A World War II veteran and the nation's oldest living Medal of Honor recipient has died in New Jersey.

Nicholas Oresko, an Army master sergeant who was badly wounded when he single-handedly took out two enemy bunkers during the Battle of the Bulge in 1945, died Friday night at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, hospital officials announced Saturday. He was 96.

Read the rest of the store here.

WWII-era Amphibious Truck Found in Italian Lake

On April 29, 1945, members of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division crossed the lake—Italy's largest—in a duck to overtake the villa of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who was operating the Italian Social Republic from Lake Garda's western shore.
But a violent storm sank the vehicle and took all but one of its servicemen down with it—leaving 24 missing.
The discovery of the rusted duck—which rests 600 feet (180 meters) below the surface of the lake—could lead to the recovery of these missing servicemen's remains and their possible return to the United States.

Read the full story here.

HITLER'S BODYGUARD DEAD AT 96

Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard, who was the last surviving witness of the Nazi dictator's final days in the bunker towards the end of World War II, has died, his agent said Friday.

Rochus Misch died aged 96 in Berlin on Thursday after failing to recover from a heart attack, Michael Stehle, who owns the rights to a book written by Misch, told AFP.

Misch was among those who joined the Nazi leader in his bunker where Hitler eventually committed suicide days before Germany's surrender.

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American POW's prized gold ring comes home after he gave it away for food during World War II

After a year and a half behind barbed wire as a prisoner in World War II, 2nd Lt. David C. Cox had just about reached his breaking point.

Deliveries of Red Cross parcels to Stalag VII-A had all but ceased, and the U.S. Army bomber co-pilot and his fellow POWs were subsisting on scanty rations of bug-infested soup and bread. Outside the wire, Adolf Hitler's forces showed no signs of giving up

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/19/american-world-war-ii-pow-prized-gold-ring-comes-home-after-70-year-journey/#ixzz2cQkeU8fJ

Remains of WWII airman from NY identified in South Pacific

The remains of a World War II airman have been identified and will be flown back to his hometown in New York nearly 70 years after his plane and two others failed to return to their base in the South Pacific.

Sgt. Dominick Licari was 31 when his A-20 Havoc bomber crashed into a mountain in Papua-New Guinea on March 13, 1944. After two years of searches, the military presumed Licari to be dead, the Utica Observer Dispatch reported.

DNA samples provided by relatives matched those of Licari, whose remains were discovered in 2012 amid overgrown jungles, according to the report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/26/remains-wwii-airman-from-ny-identified-in-south-pacific/#ixzz2a9dYkwmN

Restoration of famed WWII bomber Memphis Belle flies high

It defied the Nazis and became the first World War II bomber to complete 25 combat missions and return home. CNET Road Trip 2013 checked out how it's being restored to its original glory. Read the complete story here.

'Flying Pencil' WWII German bomber raised from depths of English Channel

A British museum on Monday successfully recovered a German bomber that had been shot down over the English Channel during World War II.
The aircraft, nicknamed the Luftwaffe's "Flying Pencil" because of its narrow fuselage, came down off the coast of Kent more than 70 years ago during the Battle of Britain.
The rusty and damaged plane is believed to be the

most intact example of the German Dornier Do 17 bomber that has ever been found. Divers discovered the aircraft submerged in 50 feet of water in 2008.

Read the full story: http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/11/18901787-flying-pencil-wwii-german-bomber-raised-from-depths-of-english-channel?lite

Frank Lautenberg dies; was U.S. Senate's last WW II vet

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (1924 – 2013)

Frank Lautenberg was the last serving veteran of World War II in the United States Senate. After graduating from Nutley High School in 1941, Lautenberg served overseas in the United States Army Signal Corps during World War II from 1942 to 1946. Then, financed by the GI Bill, he attended and graduated from Columbia Business School in 1949 with a degree in economics.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/03/politics/obit-lautenberg/index.html

Nazi SS-led unit commander accused of atrocities reportedly living in Minnesota

Over 68 years after the end of World War II I find it amazing that there are still war criminals out there. Fox news is reporting today that an SS commander has escaped capture and was living all along in the U.S.

"A top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States and has been living in Minnesota since shortly after World War II, according to evidence uncovered by The Associated Press."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/06/14/nazi-commander-accused-atrocities-reportedly-living-in-minnesota/?test=latestnews#ixzz2WCjgbLnW

America's oldest veteran to spend quiet Memorial Day at Texas home

For his 107th Memorial Day, Richard Arvine Overton, who saw many of his fellow soldiers fall in the line of duty in World War II and even more die over the following decades, is planning a quiet day at the Texas home he built after returning home from World War II.

He wouldn’t want it any other way.

Overton, who is believed to be the nation's oldest veteran, told FoxNews.com he’ll likely spend the day on the porch of his East Austin home with a cigar nestled in his right hand, perhaps with a cup of whiskey-stiffened coffee nearby.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/24/america-oldest-veteran-to-spend-quiet-memorial-day-at-texas-home/#ixzz2UFB4SdZw

New Jersey veteran gets back dog tag he lost in World War II

Carol Wilkins leaned over the side of her father's wheelchair and handed him the small red box, a heart-shaped cutout revealing its contents: a weathered, bent silver dog tag.

"Oh, Daddy, look," Wilkins exclaimed as her 90-year-old father opened it, his eyes beaming and smile wide. "They're back."

Sixty-nine years after losing his dog tag on the battlefields of southern France, Willie Wilkins reclaimed it Wednesday after a trans-Atlantic effort to return it to him. It started more than a decade ago in a French backyard and ended with a surprise ceremony in Newark City Hall.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/09/new-jersey-veteran-gets-back-dog-tag-lost-in-world-war-ii/#ixzz2SvugwhNf

RAF Museum to raise Nazi bomber from 1940 Blitz out of English Channel

A British museum has begun the process of lifting the only Nazi bomber to survive the World War II Blitz on London out of its shallow grave -- under 60 feet of water and shifting sands under the English Channel.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/07/raf-museum-to-raise-nazi-bomber-from-blitz-out-english-channel/#ixzz2SdfdYCVO

Oldest surviving Nazi concentration camp survivor dead at 107

An Austrian organization that tracks the fate of Nazi concentration camp inmates says the oldest known survivor of such a camp has died aged 107.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/05/02/oldest-surviving-nazi-concentration-camp-survivor-dead-at-107/?test=latestnews#ixzz2SBaD4wYF

WWII bomber jacket rescued from Goodwill, returned to 90-year-old vet

Really neat story. Worth the read: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/30/wwii-bomber-jacket-rescued-from-goodwill-returned-to-0-year-old-vet/

World War II vet who provided flag at Iwo Jima dead at 90

This Feb. 23, 1945 file photo shows U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raising the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi in Iwo Jima, Japan. Alan Wood, a World War II veteran who provided the flag in the famous flag-raising on Iwo Jima has died. Alan Wood was 90. Wood was in charge of communications on a landing ship on Iwo Jima's shores when a Marine asked him for the biggest flag that he could find. Wood handed him a flag he had found in Pearl Harbor. You can read the full story from the associated press here.

Remains of American WWII soldier reportedly found on Pacific’s Northern Mariana Islands

The remains of an American World War II soldier missing in action for nearly 70 years have reportedly been identified after they were found on the Pacific’s Northern Mariana Islands.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command confirmed to FoxNews.com that its team currently working in Saipan has received “possible human remains” and material evidence consistent with an unresolved case from World War II.

Read the full story here: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/26/remains-wwii-soldier-reportedly-found-on-pacifics-northern-mariana-islands/?intcmp=features

WWII POW from New York gets medals decades later

An upstate New York man who spent 10 months as a prisoner of war during World War II has finally received medals he earned for his service nearly 70 years ago.

The Press and Sun-Bulletin of Binghamton reports that 89-year-old James Wood of Binghamton was presented with six medals Wednesday during a ceremony with Broome County officials, who say he's one of the last surviving POWs in the county.

Wood aboard a B-24 Liberator bomber that was shot down over Hungary in July 1944. After being taken prisoner by the Germans, he spent most of the remaining months of the war on forced marches with other POWs as his captors tried to evade Allied forces.

Among the six decorations he received are the World War II Victory Medal, Air Medal and POW Medal.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/21/wwii-pow-from-new-york-gets-medals-decades-later/?test=latestnews#ixzz2OCarKX8E