Portal:War/Did you know/Archive

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Did you know...

November 2006

• ...that the Liverpool Irish was the popular name for a battalion of the British King's Regiment raised by Liverpool's large Irish community in 1860?
• ...that Walter Stauffer McIlhenny, president of McIlhenny Company (1949-1985), maker of Tabasco sauce, was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroic actions in 1942 during the Battle of Guadalcanal?

• ...that in order to demonstrate the versatility of the Holman Projector (pictured), a British anti-aircraft mortar, a trial was staged in front of Prime Minister Winston Churchill using a number of beer bottles as ammunition?
• ...that the T-43 tank was devised as a replacement to the Soviet T-34 medium tank, but was scrapped in favour of simply improving the armament of the T-34?

October 2006

• ...that during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, an unknown Pakistani B-57 bomber pilot was codenamed 8-Pass Charlie by his impressed Indian adversaries at Adampur airbase for his daring routine of making eight passes during each of his air raids over the alerted airbase?
• ...that inventor Walter Christie was working on plans for a flying tank?
• ...that, as a result of the Russo-Polish War (1654-1667), the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceded the cities of Kiev, Chernigov, and Smolensk to Russia?

• ...that Corporal Ernest Albert Corey (pictured) is the only soldier to have been awarded the Military Medal on four occasions?

September 2006

• ...that the Lone Pine that marked the battlefield for which the Battle of Lone Pine is named, and whose pine cones have been planted at memorials for ANZAC soldiers killed during the whole of the Gallipoli Campaign, did not itself survive the battle?
• ...that the National Protection War led to the death of Yuan Shikai, which led to the beginning of the Warlord Era in China?
• ...that Col. Józef Zeydlitz served in the Polish Army for 65 years and took part in six wars, yet did not receive a single military award?

• ...that Alexander I of Russia acclaimed Peter Wittgenstein as the "Saviour of Saint Petersburg" for his victory at Klyastitsy (pictured)?
• ...that, in his novel War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy described the Battle of Tarutino as little more than a chain of accidents and coincidences?
• ...that in August 2006, Brigadier General Angela Salinas became the first Hispanic female general officer in United States Marine Corps history?

August 2006

• ...that Unterseeboot 25 (also known as U-25) was one of the only two Type IA ocean going submarines produced by the German Kriegsmarine?
• ...that General Valerian Madatov was called the Russian Joachim Murat by Field Marshal Hans Karl von Diebitsch during the Russian occupation of Paris in 1814?

• ...that British Air Marshal Joubert de la Ferté (pictured) served as commander-in-chief of RAF Coastal Command on two separate occasions, before and during the Second World War?
• ...that the Battle of Wuhan was the largest ground battle of the Far East theatre of World War II?
• ...that David B. Barkley, who drowned in the Meuse River, France after completing a scouting mission behind enemy lines during World War I, was the U.S. Army's first Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient?
• ...that Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 2 (VMU-2), a United States Marine Corps unmanned aerial vehicle squadron formed in June 1984, was the first Remotely Piloted Vehicle unit in the U.S. Armed Forces?
• ...that in the Battle of Węgierska Górka, four unfinished and undermanned Polish bunkers held out against an assault of an entire German division for two days and two nights?

• ...that Luís Alves de Lima e Silva (pictured) was a Brazilian military hero praised for his victories in the War of the Triple Alliance, and that his birthday is celebrated annually as Dia do Soldado?

July 2006

• ...that the Pernambucan Revolt was an 1817 conflict to establish independence for the current Brazilian state of Pernambuco from Portugal?
• ...that during the German occupation of Luxembourg in World War I, over 1% of the Luxembourgian population died fighting for France, even though Luxembourg remained officially neutral?
• ...that Henryk Iwański commanded one of the most daring actions of Armia Krajowa Polish resistance in WWII in support of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters?

• ...that the U.S.-built Lynx reconnaissance vehicle (pictured) was rejected in favor of the M114 by the U.S Army, but sold to the Royal Netherlands Army and the Canadian Forces?
• ...that the Battle of Beroia in Bulgaria resulted in the disappearance of the Pecheneg people as an independent force?
• ...that U.S. Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient Jay R. Vargas, one of four brothers who were decorated war veterans, requested that his medal be engraved with his mother's name instead of his own?

• ...that Russian Hussar Alexander Bulatovich (pictured) was a military aide to Ethiopian ruler Menelek II, a hieromonk in Greece, and leader of a banned religious movement?
• ...that of 27 World War II U.S. Marines who saved others by throwing themselves onto exploding grenades, Pvt. Richard K. Sorenson was one of only three to survive?

June 2006

• ...that General Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski was one of the architects of the Miracle at Vistula, the decisive battle of the Polish-Soviet War in 1920?
• ...that Joseph Wallace Oman, a future Governor of the United States Virgin Islands, was awarded a Navy Cross during World War I for commanding the seized German SS Vaterland (renamed the USS Leviathan), and delivering almost 120,000 troops to the war effort in Europe?
• ...that the 2nd Queen Victoria's Own Rajput Light Infantry, a regiment of the British Indian Army, uniquely possessed an Honorary Colour granted for service under General Lake in 1803 and employed an additional jemadar to carry it?

• ...that, during the two-month Second Battle of Smolensk, the Red Army broke through the German defense setup, recaptured Smolensk, and started to liberate occupied Belarus?
• ...that, during the Russo-Swedish War, 1656-1658, the Russians had to lift their siege of Riga after foreign officers of the Russian flotilla had defected to the other side?

May 2006

• ...that the Battle of Domstadtl during the Seven Years' War was the first big military success of Ernst Gideon von Laudon, which made Prussian King Frederick the Great finish the siege of Olmuetz and leave Moravia?
• ...that during the 1936 Siege of the Alcázar, around 1000 Spanish Nationalists in Toledo held a medieval castle for two months despite aerial and artillery bombardments and a sustained assault by 8000 Republican troops?

• ...that the Battle of Budapest was one of the bloodiest sieges of World War II?

April 2006

• ...that the City of London Yeomanry was a regiment of the British Territorial Army which served at various times as a cavalry, infantry, artillery, anti-aircraft, and armoured unit, and now forms a squadron of the Royal Corps of Signals?
• ...that during the course of the Crimean War, the British and French attempted three sieges of the town of Taganrog?
• ...that the Battle of Krasny Bor was a World War II battle in which neutral Spain assisted Germany with an all-volunteer infantry division?

• ...that the Spangenhelm (pictured) was the most popular war helmet in Europe and the Middle East during the early Middle Ages?

March 2006

• ...that the Siege of Compiègne was Joan of Arc's final military action?
• ...that the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service was a non-combat branch of the Royal Australian Navy that recruited women, in order to alleviate manpower shortages resulting from men being assigned to combat roles during World War II?
• ...that Vladimir Sukhomlinov, who was the Russian Minister of War at the outbreak of WWI, was relieved of duty amid accusations of espionage on behalf of Germany?
• ...that a Lombard warlord, Melus of Bari, was routed in 1018 at the site of the famous defeat of the Romans by Hannibal?
• ...that Maj. Henryk Sucharski, one of the commanders of the defence of Westerplatte during the Polish Defensive War of 1939, was allowed to keep his sabre in captvity?

February 2006

• ...that an aerosan (pictured) is a type of air-powered, armoured snowmobile, which was used for transport, reconnaissance, and raiding by the Red Army in the Winter War and the Second World War?
• ...that the Battles of Corbridge were important in deciding the fate of the Viking kingdom of York and the Anglo-Saxon earldom of Northumbria?
• ...that the F-34 tank gun was put into service in the T-34 tank by a conspiracy of its makers, and it was only after enthusiastic tank crews had praised its merits in letters from the front that Stalin gave official permission to start its manufacture?
• ...that Operation Anthropoid was the only successful attempt to assassinate a top Nazi leader during World War II?

• ...that the French Navy Le Napoléon (pictured), built in 1850, was the first steam battleship in history?

January 2006

• ...that John Crocker, a British corps commander in World War II, served as a both a private and a general in the British Army?
• ...that the fighter pilot Aleksandr Kazakov destroyed 32 German and Austro-Hungarian planes during WWI, while his formal tally of 17 is explained by the fact that only planes crashed in the Russian-held territory were officially counted?
• ...that the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galizien was a Ukrainian military formation in the German armed forces during the World War II and that it fought against the Red Army in Graz?
• ...that the defeat of the Welsh army in the Battle of Orewin Bridge effectively ended the independence of medieval Wales?
• ...that the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Persia was launched to secure oil for Britain and provide a route for Lend-Lease supplies desperately needed by the Soviet Union during World War II?
• ...that the Russian general Pyotr Kotlyarevsky routed Abbas Mirza's army, which was 10 times larger than his own, in the Battle of Aslanduz on October 31, 1812?
• ...that the Liverpool Scottish, a unit of the British Territorial Army, was raised in 1900 from Scotsmen living in Liverpool, England?

December 2005

• ...that the Battle of Santa Cruz de Rosales of the Mexican-American War occurred after the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was already signed?
• ...that during World War II, the United States developed Who me?, a top secret stench weapon designed to humiliate German officers unobtrusively sprayed by members of the French Resistance?
• ...that the Battle of Gingindlovu showed for the first time that the British Army could defeat the Zulu tactics that had wiped them out at the famous Battle of Isandlwana?

• ...that Sergeant Charles Ewart of the Scots Greys, in a famous engagement at the Battle of Waterloo, captured the regimental eagle (pictured) of the 45e Régiment de Ligne?
• ...that the Japanese submarine I-8 was a World War II Imperial Japanese Navy submarine, famous for completing in 1943 a technology exchange mission between Japan and German occupation forces in France?

November 2005

• ...that on December 26 and 27, 1969 during the War of Attrition the elite special forces unit Sayeret Matkal kidnapped a whole Egyptian P-12 radar system in a mission called Operation Rooster 53?

• ...that the French Navy ship Redoutable (pictured) was built in 1876 and was the first warship in the world to use steel as the principal building material?
• ...that Saga Castle is one of the few medieval castles in Japan to be surrounded by a wall, instead of being built on one?
• ...that Commodore Josias Rowley's campaign to capture the Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mauritius in 1810 was the source material for the exploits of Jack Aubrey in Patrick O'Brian's novel The Mauritius Command?
• ...that the Imperial Japanese Navy's 1888 warship Kotaka is considered as the first effective design of a destroyer?
• ...that the battleship Satsuma of the Imperial Japanese Navy was the first ship in the world to be designed and laid down as an "all-big-gun" battleship, although the British HMS Dreadnought was eventually the first one to be completed in 1906?

October 2005

• ...that Nobuo Fujita (pictured) of the Imperial Japanese Navy conducted the only wartime bombing of the continental United States in 1942?
• ...that Operation Gibraltar was the name given to the failed plan by Pakistan to infiltrate Jammu and Kashmir, India and start a rebellion and that it eventually sparked the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965?
• ...that the Liverpool Blitz was a sustained bombing campaign on the city of Liverpool, United Kingdom, by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War?
• ...that the defeat of Vijayanagara Empire at the Battle of Talikota in 1565 ended one of the last great Hindu kingdoms in South India?
• ...that the Battle of Asal Uttar fought between India and Pakistan was the largest tank battle in the history of the Indian subcontinent?
• ...that the Islamic Spaniard Judar Pasha led 4,000 Moroccans to victory against more than 40,000 Songhai troops at the Battle of Tondibi, putting an end to West Africa's Songhai Empire?
• ...that the Ever Victorious Army, consisting of Chinese imperial forces led by a European officer corps, was instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion?