Thursday, February 27, 2014

Family gets belongings found with remains of American WWII soldier

The remains of a Kentucky soldier who disappeared during World War II on the Pacific’s Northern Mariana Islands have finally been returned to his family after 70 years.
The belongings, which include Private First Class William T. Carneal's dog tags, belt buckle, poncho and a 1939 class ring were recovered on the Japanese island of Saipan, where Carneal was killed in July 1944, The Paducah Sun reported. 
Full story here.

Friday, November 15, 2013

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.

Read full story here

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/

Monday, November 11, 2013

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/

Monday, October 7, 2013

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.

Monday, September 9, 2013

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.

Friday, September 6, 2013

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.

Read full story here