The Bismarck, probably Germany’s most famous battleship in World War Two, was sunk on May 27th 1941. The Bismarck had already sunk HMS Hood before being sunk herself. For many, the end of the Hood and Bismarck symbolised the end of the time when battleships were the dominant force in naval warfare, to be replaced by submarines and aircraft carriers and the advantages these ships gave to naval commanders.

The Bismarck displaced over 50,000 tons and 40% of this displacement was armour. Such armour gave the Bismarck many advantages in protection but it did not inhibit her speed – she was capable of 29 knots. Launched in 1939, the Bismarck carried a formidable array of weaponry – 8 x 15 inch guns, 12 x 5.9 inch guns, 16 x 4.1 inch AA guns, 16 x 20mm AA guns and 2 x Arado 96 aircraft. The Bismarck had a crew of 2,200.

In comparison, HMS Hood (built 20 years before Bismarck) was 44,600 tons, had a crew of 1,419 and was faster than the Bismarck with a maximum speed of 32 knots. The Hood had been launched in 1918 and was armed with 8 x 15 inch guns, 12 x 5.5 inch guns, 8 x 4 inch AA guns, 24 x 2 pounder guns and 4 x 21 inch torpedoes. However, the Hood suffered from one major flaw – she did not have the same amount of armour as the Bismarck. The fact that the Hood was faster than the Bismarck by 3 knots was as a result of her lack of sufficient armour. Within two minutes of being hit by the Bismarck, the Hood had broken her back and sunk.



On May 18th, 1941, the Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen slipped out of the Baltic port of Gdynia to attack Allied convoys in the Atlantic. Grand Admiral Raeder had already had experience of large warships attacking convoys at sea. Ships such as the Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer (both pocket battleships), Hipper (a cruiser) and Scharnhorst (a battle cruiser) had already been at sea but had found that their power was limited by the fact that they were so far from a dock/port that could carry out repairs if they were needed. Such a difficulty meant that mighty ships such as the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were loathed to take on a convoy if that convoy was protected by any naval ship. In 1940, both the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau came across a convoy returning from the UK to Halifax, Canada. However, the convoy was protected by HMS Ramillies and neither German ship could risk being hit by a ship that in other circumstances would easily be outgunned by both German ships.

To overcome the fear of damage at sea, Raeder’s plan was for the German Navy to concentrate a powerful naval force in the Atlantic so that there would not be a concern about convoys and their protection. He intended for the Bismarck, the Prinz Eugen, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau to operate in the Atlantic fully supported with supply and reconnaissance ships – with such a force, no convoy would be safe regardless of how many naval protection ships they had. However, Raeder’s plan, code-named “Exercise Rhine”, was severely hampered from the start when the Gneisenau was hit by bombs while in Brest and the repairs needed for the Scharnhorst would take much longer than Raeder had anticipated. Regardless of this, Raeder ordered the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen to sail as planned. The ships sailed on May 18th – but on May 20th, they were spotted by the Swedish cruiser ‘Gotland’ off the Swedish coast and the admiral in command of both ships – Lütjens – knew that such information would be received in London before the 20th was out. He was right.

On May 21st, both ships docked at Kors Fjord, near Bergen. The Prinz Eugen needed to refuel. At night both ships left, and not long after this the area around Kors Fjord was bombed by the British.
To get into the Atlantic, both ships had to pass north of Scapa Flow – one of Britain’s largest naval bases. At this base was the battleship ‘King George V’, the newly commissioned (but not battle ready) battleship ‘Prince of Wales’, the battle-cruiser ‘HMS Hood’ and the aircraft carrier ‘HMS Victorious’. With these ships were nine destroyers and four cruisers of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron. At sea in the vicinity were the cruisers ‘Norfolk’, ‘Suffolk’ ‘Manchester’ and ‘Birmingham’. The battleship ‘Rodney’ was also on convoy duty in the Atlantic.



When the new reached the Admiralty that the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen had left Bergen, Admiral Sir John Tovey, Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet, ordered the ‘Hood’ and the ‘Prince of Wales’ to sail accompanied by six destroyers. The fleet left Scapa Flow on May 22nd. All other ships in Scapa Flow and some on the Clyde were put on short notice. On the same day, German reconnaissance for Lütjens, informed him that all the ships that should have been in Scapa Flow were still there.
This was incorrect as the Hood and Prince of Wales had already sailed – though Lütjens thought otherwise. He was also convinced that the weather was on his side as fog obscured many areas to the west of the Norwegian coast and Lütjens became satisfied that he could get into the Atlantic unseen. Such was his confidence that he failed to keep an appointment with a tanker, preferring to steam ahead to the Atlantic. To boost his fleet, Tovey ordered the ‘Victorious’ to sail on the 22nd May and on the following day the battle cruiser HMS Repulse sailed.

At noon on May 23rd, the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen entered the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland. Here, Lütjens met problems. The fog he had expected to cover his fleet did not materialise and his ships were squeezed between the Greenland ice field that extended 80 miles out from south-east Greenland to the north-west tip of Iceland itself. Lütjens was well aware that this whole area had been mined by the British and he had to select his course well. The Royal Navy also knew that the Germans would be forced to sail through a small area of sea and at 19.22 on May 23rd, the cruiser ‘Suffolk’ spotted both the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen. The ‘Suffolk’ reported her sighting and HMS Norfolk picked this report up. At 20.22, the Norfolk spotted both German ships.

The ‘Suffolk’s report had reached the ‘Hood’ and Admiral Holland, on the ‘Hood’ concluded that there were 300 miles between his ship and the Bismarck. Holland ordered that the ‘Hood’ should steer a course to the exit of the Denmark Strait and the battle cruiser steamed off at 27 knots. At this speed, the ‘Hood’ should have come into contact with the ‘Bismarck’ at 06.00 on May 24th. The ‘King George V’ and ‘Victorious’ also picked up the message but were both 600 miles away and would have been unable to support the ‘Hood’ on the following day at 06.00. The Admiralty remained concerned for the safety of the convoys in the Atlantic as there was always the danger the ‘Bismarck’ might slip away. Therefore the ‘Renown’, ‘Ark Royal’ and ‘Sheffield’ were ordered to sea from Gibraltar to give further protection to the convoys.

The ‘Bismarck’ had darkness on her side and for a couple of hours, the ‘Suffolk’ and ‘Norfolk’ lost touch with the Bismarck. Without their positioning information, the ‘Hood’ could easily have lost contact with the Bismarck. However, by 02.47 on May 24th, the Suffolk had regained contact with the Bismarck. The information sent back by the ‘Suffolk’ led the Hood to believe that she would be just 20 miles from the Bismarck at 05.30 on May 24th. At 05.35, the lookout from the Hood made out the Prinz Eugen and the Bismarck at a distance of 17 miles.



Holland ordered the Hood to turn to the German ships and at 05.45 they were only 22,000 metres apart. At 05.52, the ‘Hood’ opened fire and shortly afterwards was joined by the ‘Prince of Wales’. At 05.54, both the Prinz Eugen and the Bismarck fired their guns primarily against the ‘Hood’.
The Prinz Eugen hit the Hood and set alight some anti-aircraft shells kept on deck. The fire this caused was not particularly dangerous for the ‘Hood’ even though it produced a great deal of smoke. At 06.00 a salvo from the Bismarck hit the Hood. The Bismarck had fired from 17,000 metres and the elevation of her guns meant that the shells that hit the ‘Hood’ had a high trajectory and a steep angle of descent. The Hood had minimal horizontal armour and one of the shells from the Bismarck penetrated the Hood’s deck and exploded in one of her magazines. A massive explosion tore the ‘Hood’ in half. Those who saw the explosion said that the bows of the ‘Hood’ were raised out of the sea before they sank. The ship sank extremely quickly and only three men out of a total crew of 1,419 survived.

After the destruction of the ‘Hood, the Germans turned their fire onto the ‘Prince of Wales’. Her captain, Leach, decided that the best course of action was to turn away under the cover of smoke and, along with the ‘Suffolk’ and ‘Norfolk’ continue to tail the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen.
However, the Bismarck had not escaped untouched by the battle. One shell had pierced two oil tanks. The damage it did to the ship was minimal but it did mean that 1000 tons of fuel was no longer available to the Bismarck as the shell had cut off this supply. Other senior officers on the Bismarck advised Lütjens to return to Germany buoyed by the success against the ‘Hood’. This advice was not listened to.



Lütjens decided to split up the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. He had hoped to split up the Royal Navy that was doggedly pursuing him alone. In this he failed. As the Prinz Eugen steamed away, the pursuers targeted only the Bismarck. At this point the battleship King George V was only 200 miles away and closing fast. Accompanying the ‘King George V’ was the carrier ‘Victorious’. At 22.10 on May 24th, nine Swordfishtorpedo-bombers left the ‘Victorious’ to attack the Bismarck. Using directions from the ‘Norfolk’, the planes attacked through the cloud and found themselves attacking an American coast guard ship. By midnight the planes had found the Bismarck and attacked. Eight torpedoes were fired at the Bismarck and one hit home amidships. It did no damage to the ship but it may well have undermined Lütjens’ self-confidence as he announced to the ship’ crew that 27 aircraft had been shot down. He also informed Berlin that it was impossible for him to shake off the Royal Navy and that he was abandoning the task in hand to sail to St Nazaire as his ship was short of fuel.

As the Bismarck sailed, she was tailed by the Suffolk, Norfolk and Prince of Wales. Just after 03.06 on May 25th, the Suffolk lost contact with the Bismarck and it was assumed that she was steaming west into the Atlantic. In fact, the Bismarck was doing the opposite – sailing east for a port in Biscay. At 08.00, Swordfish from the Victorious were sent up to look for the Bismarck but found nothing. The Norfolk and Suffolk also drew a blank. What gave away the Bismarck was the Bismarck itself.

For reasons not known, Lütjens sent Hitler a message about his contact with the Hood which took 30 minutes to send by radio. This message was picked up by the Royal Navy. However, the information sent to Tovey was misleading as he was not in a position to interpret the bearing given to him by the Admiralty. The Admiralty also made another error. It failed to use gnomonic charts for its bearings and the King George V was given the position of the Bismarck but it was 200 miles out. This led Tovey to believe that the Bismarck was trying to return to Germany through the Iceland-Faeroes Gap. Through no fault of his own, Tovey was wrong.
The Admiralty did realise its mistake and informed Tovey that the Bismarck was, in fact, making for the Biscay ports. At 18.10 the King George V and other ships turned to the Biscay ports. Finally, the Royal Navy was given the correct course to follow but the Bismarck had a lead on them of 110 miles. The weather also favoured the Bismarck as it was deteriorating and visibility was reduced as the cloud as low. The Admiralty used Catalina flying boats to search for the Bismarck. On May 27th, the Catalina’s finally spotted the Bismarck. This information was given to the Swordfish crews from the Ark Royal which was steaming up from Gibraltar. They took off at 14.30 in rapidly deteriorating weather.

The lead Swordfish spotted a large ship on its radar and fourteen planes dived through cloud for an attack. Unfortunately, they attacked the ‘Sheffield’ as no-one had told them that the ‘Sheffield’ was in the same area as the Bismarck shadowing the giant German battleship. Luckily no damage was done to the ‘Sheffield’.
The Swordfish returned to the ‘Victorious’ to be re-fuelled and re-armed. By 19.10, they were airborne once again. At 19.40 they spotted the ‘Sheffield’, which gave the crews the direction of the ‘Bismarck’ -12 miles to the south-east. Fifteen planes attacked the ‘Bismarck’ and there were two definite torpedo hits and one probable. One of the torpedoes did considerable damage to the battleship by damaging her starboard propeller, wrecking her steering gear and jamming her rudders. Two observation planes saw the ‘Bismarck’ literally sailing in circles in the immediate aftermath of the attack and at less than 8 knots. The attack had crippled the ‘Bismarck’. The only saving grace for Lütjens was that the night had come and the darkness gave him some hint of cover. However, throughout the night the stricken battleship was harassed by destroyers under the command of Captain Vian.

The destroyers shadowed the ‘Bismarck’ and fed her position back to the ‘Norfolk’. The ‘Norfolk’ was joined by the battleships ‘Rodney’ and the ‘King George V’. On May 27th at 08.47, the ‘Rodney’ opened fire on the ‘Bismarck’. At 08.48, the ‘King George V’ did the same. The ‘Bismarck’ fired back but a salvo from the ‘Rodney’ took out the two forward gun turrets of the ‘Bismarck’. By 10.00 all her main guns had been silenced and her mast had been blown away. By 10.10, all her secondary armaments had been destroyed and the giant ship simply wallowed in the water. At 10.15, Tovey called off his battleships and ordered the ‘Dorsetshire’ to sink the ‘Bismarck’ with torpedoes. Three torpedoes were fired at the ‘Bismarck’ and she sank at 10.40. Out of her crew of 2,200, there were only 115 survivors. Only 2 officers out of 100 survived.

The ‘Prinz Eugen’ returned to Brest on June 1st and all but one of the supply ships sent out with the ‘Bismarck’ and ‘Prinz Eugen’ were sunk. ‘Exercise Rhine’ had been a dismal failure for the Germans as no convoy was attacked and her most feared battleship had been lost. For the British, there was much propaganda to make out of the episode even though the ‘Hood’ had been lost.

Field Marshal Erwin led the vaunted German Afrika Korps in the desert during World War II and committed suicide after being implicated in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.

Born on November 15, 1891, in Heidenheim, Germany, Erwin Rommel was a hero of World War I, receiving the Pour le Mérite, or Blue Max, for his actions on the Italian Front. In World War II, Rommel led the German 7th Panzer Division during the lightning conquest of France and the Low Countries in May and June 1940. When Italian forces foundered in North Africa, Adolf Hitler ordered Rommel and the nucleus of what would become the vaunted Afrika Korps to the continent in February 1941.

In North Africa Rommel proved to be a superb tactician, repeatedly outflanking his British and Commonwealth opponents and pushing them across hundreds of miles of desert to the Egyptian frontier. Rommel seemed to anticipate his enemy’s actions, and his reputation soared to near-mythical status. In the process, Rommel earned the nickname of the Desert Fox.

As Rommel’s Axis forces advanced, his overextended supply lines, continually harassed by Allied air and naval assets, proved to be his Achilles heel. At the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942, his depleted forces faced a replenished and well equipped British Eighth Army under General Bernard Montgomery. The Axis defeat at El Alamein was a turning point of World War II.

A fighting retreat to Tunisia ensued, and by the time the remaining Axis forces surrendered in the spring of 1943, Rommel had been recalled to Germany and assigned command of the Atlantic Wall defenses in France and along the coast of Western Europe. The defenses were under construction, and an Allied invasion of France was expected in 1944. Rommel energetically supervised the construction and quickened the pace. However, when D-Day came on June 6, 1944, he was away from his headquarters, visiting his wife in Ulm, Germany, for her birthday.



During the Normandy Campaign, Rommel was seriously injured when his staff car was strafed by an Allied fighter. While he recuperated, he was implicated in the July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Rommel was give the choice of a show trial, conviction, and certain death as a traitor or suicide, a state funeral, and the assurance that his family would be safe. He chose suicide and died at Herrlingen, Germany, on October 14, 1944.

To date, Erwin Rommel’s legacy is that of an audacious battlefield commander who gained the grudging respect of his adversaries.

I did most of the vehicles, planes, artillery and naval units, as well as menu backgrounds.
Klotzen is trying to maintain the historical accuracy regarding the details of WW2 units and events, and I like how much effort the whole team is putting into this.

There are fewer strategy games on the market and even fewer are the ones that have the accurate look and feel of the WW2.

I believe that Klotzen! will be a refreshing addition to the video games market.

“And I wanted to do my best, I didn’t want to stay home and do nothing. My brother was in the navy and I was a flying nut and so the Royal Canadian Air Force was just natural for me to join. And we were being trained by what they called women’s air force (WAAF – Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) personnel from England. She was a sergeant major in the true variety of sergeant major, complete with a strident English accent and buckteeth. And she, for some reason or other, I don’t know why, she took an instant dislike to me and I instantly disliked her. And she was, I think she knew that I was too young (she was 17 at the time) and I think she was trying to break me. And of course, the more she tried, the more stubborn I got and any horrible duties – the day we all had our inoculations, a lot of the girls passed out and a lot of them were very sick to their stomachs and she had me on latrine duty on purpose, to clean up. And it just went on and on and on like that for, I never got over it until 1988, they had a reunion in Calgary. And I was walking out of, we were staying at the University of Alberta, and I walked down the corridor and I spotted her. I couldn’t have missed her if a cow flew by. And she spotted me too. And we ended up, we told each other how we had disliked each other and we became quite good friends after that.

Went into the motor division and I had my training in Toronto. Old Havergal school. And I ended up in a room my mother told me that her sister had been in at boarding school in Old Havergal. And it was on Jarvis Street; Jarvis Street was renowned for the ladies of the evening and we weren’t very welcome on Jarvis Street, I can tell you. And we learnt to drive everything from oil tenders to ambulances to trucks to ordinary cars.



My very first posting was at No. 3 SFTS [Service Flying Training School] in Currie, Alberta. And my first words of greeting on that station is what the F— are you doing here?! So I learnt that in a big hurry. And I discovered that I was only the fourth lady transport driver in the whole station. And we weren’t particularly welcome because they realized that, A, I was a mechanic, B, I was a darned good driver, if I do say so myself. And my sergeant realized that and he became very friendly and he gave me all the heavy stuff to do because he knew I could do it. Most of all, the activity or all the action and drama and stuff was at No. 3, usually. I was on crash ambulance duty for about four months and that was not a very pleasant experience because we did lose three or four planes during that tenure of time. And I witnessed a lot of horror, I must say.

Well, I think I was chosen to do it because I didn’t seem to be ruffled by too much and I was so busy trying to keep quiet and keep my age, sort of not get caught, let’s put it that way, that I never showed any reaction or anything. So they thought I would be pretty steady on the crash scene and not panic or do anything, which I didn’t do. So actually, it was very, it was a fascinating job if you didn’t mind the kind of horror that went with it.”

http://www.thememoryproject.com/stories/1720:joan-m.-barc-barclay-drummond/

My name is Damir al-Kattan and I`ve been part of the Klotzen development team for almost a year now. It has been a tremendous experience for me, coming from a more traditional programming environment into the gaming industry.

Right from the start, I was inspired by the amount of the creativity our team puts daily into resolving all the challenges, to provide the best possible experience to the gamers.

I have very solid gaming experience since ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, and naturally, I was always interested in making a game people would be passionate about, challenge and make them come back and back again. Every gamer has a selected few of those games, games they go back and replay repeatedly, games they can talk about until deep to the night, games which made them inspired. The idea of being a part of the team which is delivering a gaming experience of that sort to the players is what drives me to provide the best and most creative solutions in my daily work.

Klotzen game is pretty much modern age-old school game, influenced by classics such as Panzer General but with its own personality. We allow the player to relive WW II but also to have a real impact on the history and storyline, as the events and mission outcomes are directly impacting the campaign, allowing the player to finish the WW II in several different directions.

The game is very realistic, and it will have a steep learning curve. Our team made sure that only the seasoned war generals, who know every trick in the book, are able to finish the campaign. There are so many strategic aspects and details to keep in mind, from supply chains, rails & roads, weather impact to the experience your general and commanders, minefields, objectives, etc. The game might look simple on the first glance, but don`t get fooled!



Good luck on the battlefield!

Biggest tank battle in the history



In the morning, 5. July 1943, explosions lit up the Russian sky and the earth shook to a huge bombardment. As the sun rose, waves of hundreds German panzers began rolling across fields of sunflowers and wheat. The greatest tank battle in history was underway.

The Battle of Kursk pitted almost 3,000 German tanks against more than double that quantity of Soviet heavy armour. Hitler delayed the offensive - codenamed Operation Citadel - to wait for the arrival of the new Panther tank. It gave the Russians plenty of time to dig formidable defenses and concentrate their own armoured units.

The German tanks were fewer in number but far superior in armour and firepower. Tigers and the "monster" Ferdinand tank destroyer went in first, attempting to blast their way through. One SS tank commander destroyed 22 Soviet tanks in under an hour. But the Russians defended with "suicidal bravery", getting in close to throw mines under the caterpillar tracks.



After eight days the German attack had run out of steam. Stalin launched counteroffensives that over the following six weeks inflicted a crushing defeat on the Wehrmacht. Kursk was a tipping point for the panzers. For the first time the Russian air force had "got its act together". Air power was emerging as a dominant factor, as became clear in Normandy the following year.

Allied air superiority meant that the German panzers had to hide in the forests during daylight hours. The tank, like the battleship, was suddenly a sitting duck without control of the skies. But unlike the battleship, the tank remains a key part of most militaries.

Germany committed over 1,720,000 men, 5000 tanks and assault guns and the USSR threw over 4 million men and 12,000 tanks into what is probably the greatest offensive battle in history.



Kursk from the air

The stalwart Stuka dive bomber was another tool in Germany’s arsenal that participated at the Battle of Kursk. This variant, the JU-87G, was armed with a pair of 37mm Bordkanone mounted under the wings.
Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the impetus for this idea. He piloted the only “official” JU-87G variant at Kursk, knocking out many Soviet tanks. Several D variant Stukas were converted to the G model and participated at the battle as well.
Many decades later, the JU-87G and its powerful tank busting weaponry influenced the design of the A-10 Warthog.

We are getting quite a few questions on the status of Klotzen and to be honest we were a bit quiet on the game progress in the last few months.

So, I figured I could lay down where we are at.

First, the thing asked the most – release date. The reason we haven't set the date is I can only tell you when it WON'T be released – in the next two months. We need at least a month till beta and at least a month of testing. As we've seen it can easily be more than that. Sorry for the wait. It's not easy on this side either, but – game dev. Bugs appear. People leave and replacements need to catch up. Actually? It's mostly feature creep 😊. But at least it will – hopefully - be a complex game, with lots or realism and interesting approaches to winning.

So, what has been happening behind scenes? We've killed A LOT of bugs. Few months ago, you couldn't play the game for 10 minutes without having 10 bugs. All that is fixed, with some minor issues and enhancements we are working on which will be done soon. We are finally working on inserting leftover graphics, so there should be some new visuals in a week or two. Campaign is also set and in the process of being tested.

What is currently holding back the entire game is the AI. It is already working nicely, but it's missing some parts so we can't move on with the testing of maps since difficulty depends on how good the AI is in handling the units. AI development is proceeding in parallel to the rest of the game but it could prolong the release date if testing show improvements are necessary.

We’ve made a list of enhancements needed before we can start beta testing. The list is… long. So today we had a discussion on the chances of us hitting beta in May. I think it’s possible, so everybody else agreed this best describes me…



… fun times. I will be the only one laughing in May 😊.

*Klotzen! Panzer Battles graphic of B-17F Flying Fortres

On December 20, 1943, American B-17 bomber pilot Charlie Brown and crew attempted to bomb an aircraft production facility in Bremen, Germany. The factory was surrounded by 250 anti-aircraft guns, which damaged Brown’s B-17, Ye Olde Pub, disabling two engines and forcing the plane out of formation. The damaged aircraft was set upon by German fighter planes, which seriously wounded several crew members and knocked out all but one of the plane’s engines.




While the fighters turned their attention to other prey, Ye Olde Pub was spotted by German fighter pilot Franz Stigler, who was refueling. Stigler caught up with the plane and was about to blast them when he saw the crew was seriously wounded. A combat veteran with 22 confirmed kills, Stigler was reluctant to attack a defenseless aircraft, so instead pulled alongside the B-17 cockpit and signaled the crew to land. They refused. He then motioned in the direction of Sweden, but the Allied crew didn’t understand (who would really? “Oh, right, you mean Sweden, of course.”)



Stigler flew side-by-side with the bomber, afraid his own military might identify him (his behavior might get him executed). As the bomber approached the safety of the English Channel, Stigler saluted and peeled off. Miraculously, Brown kept the plane in the air and made it to England. He often wondered why his German counterpart hadn’t shot him down so, after the war, placed an ad in a WW II newsletter for pilot veterans. Stigler, who relocated to Canada, spotted the ad. The two reunited, and Stigler explained that to shoot at them would have been dishonorable. The pair became close friends until their deaths in 2008.

A small group of WWII Norwegian commandos are skiing away from an Arctic Nazi base with 3,000 German soldiers on them. Norwegians just set off explosive charges inside the aforementioned base, ruining Germany’s chances of producing nuclear weapons. So, Adolf Hitler could produce nuclear bomb if it wasn’t this situation.

During Operation Gunnerside in 1943, when the Germans rudely came to crash on Norway’s couch in the early ’40s, they took over a factory up in Telemark that produced heavy water (is a form of water that contains a larger than normal amount of the hydrogen isotope deuterium (2H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen), rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope (1H or H, also called protium) that makes up most of the hydrogen in normal water. The presence of deuterium gives the water different nuclear properties, and the increase of mass gives it slightly different physical and chemical properties when compared to normal water.)– aka, exactly the thing they needed to make plutonium. The Allies, realizing that “Nazis with ingredients for an atom bomb” was a somewhat undesirable situation, sent 30 British Army officers to sabotage the plant, but a combination of awful weather conditions and the Gestapo killed the entire group. So, the Allies tried the other way and sent even more deadly than 11 Norwegians commandos.

Germans then decided to beef up the plant’s defenses, sprinkling mines, floodlights, and guards all over the plant. The only way to get into nuke factory was a Nazi-held bridge over a 660-foot ice gorge.

…or at least the Germans thought that was the only way in — the Norwegians simply climbed down the supposedly un-scalable ice gorge and snuck into the factory. They laid the explosives and were about to light the fuse and escape, but the base’s Norwegian caretaker, whom they were holding at gunpoint, announced he’d lost his glasses and refused to leave until they were found. Naturally, the commandos put the “stop Hitler from getting the bomb” plan on hold until they’d located glasses of their commandos’ colleague.



Not only did the commandos complete their mission without casualties, they released the caretaker and another civilian as soon as the fuses were lit, and get medals.

One of them (and three other Norwegians) actually came back later to sink the ferry the Germans were trying to use to evacuate the heavy water they already had.

Movie title, that was inspired by this story, is “The Heroes of Telemark”. The film stars Kirk Douglas as Dr. Rolf Pedersen and Richard Harris as Knut Straud, along with Ulla Jacobsson as Anna Pedersen. It was filmed on location in Norway.

from: http://www.cracked.com/article_22714_5-true-wwii-stories-too-insane-history-books.html

The heroic WWII mission to capture a deadly Tiger Tank from the Germans was revealed for the first time in 2012.

“Major!” barked Winston Churchill to young military engineer. “I want you to go and catch me a Tiger”. I want you to bring me a Tiger tank. Park the bloody thing outside my front door. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly sir,” replied Major Douglas ­Lidderdale.
That was the start of one of the most dangerous and heroic missions of the Second World War. The mission to capture a Tiger was shrouded in such secrecy that it was only after Douglas’s death in 1999 that his son David learned the truth about his father’s mission.


The deadly German Tigers had started rolling off the production line in August of 1942 and were wiping out Allied soldiers, decimating their morale. Allied tank crew`s terror of Tigers was so widespread it got its own nickname-Tigerphobia. But if the Tiger could be captured, then the Allies could learn how to destroy them in battle.

So on January 22, 1943, Douglas kissed his wife Kathleen goodbye, and left for Tunisia. He took a hand-picked team: tank driver Corporal Bill Rider, Sergeant Sam Shaw and ­Lieutenant Reg Whatley. They arrived in Tunisia in the first week of February 1943 to a 20-mile wide front from El Aroussa in the south to Beja in the north.



But two months passed and Douglas became frustrated, as he had only near misses. One Tiger was blown up by the Royal Engineers. Another was towed to safety by the German army. A third was destroyed by its crew to stop it being captured.

Then on April 21, Doug’s chance finally came. He woke early, his tent rocked by the sound of heavy gunfire. With 250,000 enemy troops bottled up in north-east Tunisia, the Allies had been just a day away from forcing the enemy to surrender or sweep them into the sea. But the Germans had learned of their plans and launched a surprise attack.

Douglas knew it was his big chance. He said to Reg: “You can bet your life that among them are Tigers on the prowl. This could be our lucky day, the chance to nab one at last.” They climbed into their Churchill tank and went Tiger-hunting, heading to the battlefield.



Almost straight away Douglas saw his opportunity. Less than half a mile away he spotted the turret of a Mark VI Tiger – Tiger 131. The hatch was open and a soldier was examining the gun. The turret was jammed. “We’ll cut around the edge of the ridge and then down the slope,” Douglas explained. “At top speed, we can be right up his backside in just a few minutes.”
He peppered the German with bullets, then shouted to Bill to get alongside the Tiger and climbed on to the roof. As he tried to keep his balance, one of the Germans emerged with an MP 40 machine gun. Douglas was staring in the death`s face but then Sam shot the German.

When this mini-battle was over, Douglas turned to his men, ordered them to unscrew their water canteens and said: ­“Gentlemen I propose a toast. To the capture of the Tiger – Herr Hitler’s favourite toy.”

A few weeks later, Churchill came to Tunisia to see the tank for himself and said: “One day Mr Lidderdale, the nation will know all about the courage of you and your men. But you must not talk about this mission until I give you the word.” King George VI was the next VIP to visit the Tiger, after making the longest air journey of a monarch.

The next task for Major Lidderdale and his men was transporting the Tiger back to Britain. But, the Germans knew a British officer had a Tiger tank. Pursued by them, he only reached Algeria in August. Finally, on the morning of September 20, 1943, he headed for Britain with the tank on foredeck of the Ocean Strength. The ship was pursued by U-Boats and strafed by Luftwaffe planes but in October 1943 she arrived at Glasgow.



Upon his arrival Douglas headed to Whitehall, where Churchill greeted him: “Mr. Schicklgruber (Hitler) and his Huns will be crying themselves to sleep tonight. Thank you, Colonel.”

“Thank you sir but if I may say so, with respect, I’m only a major,” Douglas said.
“With respect, I think you can call yourself Colonel after this,” replied the Prime Minister.

In November 1943 the tank was paraded on Horse Guards Parade. And Tiger 131 now has its place at Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset.

Story and Images: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/heroic-wwii-mission-capture-deadly-820143