Unsolved Mysteries Surrounding World War II

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World War II was a global conflict involving all of the world’s superior forces. During a time of war human rights and societal laws become lost, towns are massacred, art houses are looted, and armed forces people are assassinated. The conflicting countries operations and certain war time events become classified and highly secretive. This is why many historical gaps and mysteries surround wars. Many influential events that occurred during World War II are still shrouded in mystery, including an outbreak of reported unidentified flying objects. Bright lights and unexplained UFO’s became such a regular occurrence during WWII that they were given the name “Foo Fighters” or “Kraut Fireballs.” Here is information surrounding 10 of the most widely documented mysteries of WWII.

Centaur CS IV Tanks Discovered

In 2008, the remains of two rusting tanks were found eight miles off East Wittering, West Sussex. After primary images were taken of the wreckage, World War II and artillery experts determined the machines as Centaur CS IV tanks. Centaur CS IV tanks were best fighting machines that were armed with a 95mm howitzer (51 rounds of ammunition). The CS IV is the only version of the Centaur known to have seen combat, in service with the Royal Marines Armoured Support Group. The vehicles were fitted with wading gear to get them ashore. They had waterproofed engine inlets and their covers were fitted to the guns. Overall there were 114 Centaur CS IV tanks produced. Historians believe the discovered tanks were part of an 80-strong contingent that was bound for France on D-Day, but the pair sank in mysterious circumstances. The discovery of the tanks has puzzled war investigators and increased the number of surviving Centaur CS IV tanks to four.

Malbork Mass Graves

Malbork is a town in northern Poland. During World War II this area of the world was part of Germany West Prussia. In recent decades numerous mass graves have been unearthed in the area. In January of 2009 a discovery of over 1800 bodies and human remains were discovered in Malbork. The first skeletons were found by construction workers.

It was a mystery, but clear that the victims were subject to a massacre. They were buried with no clothes and many had gunshot wounds to the head. The bodies had been completed raided. The majority of the archeologists, scientists, and historians that have studied the site agree that the bodies are probably German citizens of the town of Malbork that were massacred during the Russian advance in 1945. Many of these battles were violent, as the Russian’s murdered and raped any German citizen in their way.

Adolf Hitler’s Art Collections

Many international museum displays claim to have Adolf Hitler’s original globe, including Deutsches Historisches Museum, Märkisches Museum, and the Berlin History Museum, butGerman historians claim it is nowhere to be found. Hitler’s original globe was one of two special editions manufactured in Berlin during the 1930’s. It was the size of a Volkswagen, and more expensive. It had a wood base that was designed to support it, but custom furniture stands were made for Hitler. Another mystery surrounding World War II is Hitler’s art collection.

Hitler intended on creating a National Socialist museum of art in the Austrian city of Linz, but towards the end of the war the Germans destroyed hundreds of sacred pieces of art. They also stashed works, and many of these paintings were sold on the black market. Art was auctioned off to wealthy buyers and many famous works are still missing to this day.

Rommel’s Treasure

Erwin Rommel was perhaps the most famous German Field Marshal of World War II. In 1944, Allied troops were closing in on Rommel’s Corps and he ordered four SS divers to bury a German treasure within six steel ammunition boxes. The treasure is said to consist of precious stones, gold and silver bullion. It is apparently located in an underwater cavern off the eastern coast of the Mediterranean island of Corsica. In 2007, historians and treasure hunters were focusing on a photo of a German soldier that contains a written code to the location of Rommel’s treasure. The investigators are confident that they are very close to discovering the precise location of the treasure. To date there are no records on the recovery of the Rommel treasure.

Velzer Affair

Earlier this year, the province of North Holland agreed to fund another investigation into the Velzer Affair, a murky World War II case involving the betrayal of communist resistance fighters and collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. Many questions are still swirling around this mysterious event when many communist resistance activists and advisors were handed over to the Germans and executed. The most well known individual case was that of Dutch communist resistance fighter Hannie Schaft, who was murdered three weeks before the Netherlands was liberated. Many feel that Velzen’s chief of police and several officers collaborated with the Nazis and some of them were members of the Dutch National Socialist Party (NSB), but nothing has ever been proven. People claim that high ranking officials rounded up several left-wing and Communist resistance fighters and handed them over to the Nazis, in order to ensure that the Dutch society would run the same as it had before the war. The Velzer Affair remains an influential and mysterious war time event.

Battle of Los Angeles

On February 24 and 25, 1942 unknown and unidentified flying object appeared in the skies over Los Angeles, California. It was less than three months after Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II. The United States military could not identify the enemy aircrafts, so they opened up with a massive anti-aircraft artillery barrage. Prior to the event, a Japanese submarine I-17 surfaced and fired on an oil production facility near Santa Barbara. This created the repositioning of many military and naval troops on the western coast of the U.S.

When unidentified objects were reported in the skies above Los Angles a total blackout was ordered and air raid sirens were set off. The 37th Coast Artillery Brigade began firing 12.8-pound anti-aircraft shells at the objects. Three civilians died from friendly fire and many buildings were damaged, a battle was fought in Los Angeles. Initially the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, but it was later suggested to be imaginary and a case of war nerves, a lost weather balloon, a blimp, a Japanese fire balloon or a psychological warfare technique, staged for the benefit of coastal industrial sites, another common claim in an extraterrestrial craft. The incident remains a complete mystery.

The Death of Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose was a leader in the Indian independence movement. Bose believed that tactics of non-violence would never be sufficient to secure India’s independence, and advocated violent resistance. His stance did not change with the outbreak of World War II, which he saw as an opportunity to take advantage of British weakness. With Japanese assistance he formed many military operations against the British in India. His actions during the war have been the cause of many arguments among historians and
politicians. Some feel he was a Nazi supporter and others claim he was an important and influential force in India’s move toward independence. Officially, Bose died in a plane crash over Taiwan, while flying to Tokyo on August 18, 1945.

However, his body was never recovered and numerous theories have surfaced surrounding his survival or execution. One such claim is that Bose actually died in Siberia, while in Soviet captivity. Other people believe that the Hindu sanyasi named Bhagwanji, who lived in Faizabad, near Ayodhya and died in 1985, was Subhas Chandra Bose in exile. However, the mystery surrounding Bose’s death may be solved by 2020 when the British government will release classified documents.

The Amber Room

One of the biggest mysteries of World War II is the missing treasures of The Amber Room. The Amber Room is an 11-foot-square hall consisting of large wall panels inlaid with several tons of superbly designed amber, large gold-leaf-edged mirrors, and four magnificent Florentine mosaics. It was arranged in three tiers, the amber contained precious jewels, and glass display cases housed one of the most valuable collections of Prussian and Russian artwork ever assembled.

Created for Prussia’s King Friedrich I and given to Russian czar Peter the Great in 1716, it was located at Catherine Palace, near St. Petersburg. In 1941, the Nazis stormed Leningrad and stole the artifact. They put it on display in Königsberg Castle during the remainder of the war. However, in April of 1945, after the German’s surrendered, the treasure was nowhere to be found. It has not been seen since. Although, recent evidence has surfaced that suggests the underground site of the treasure might have been discovered.

The Flight of Rudolf Hess

One of the most mysteries incidents of World War II is the flight of Rudolf Hess to Scotland in 1941. The event has given birth too many conspiracy theories in England. Hess was a prominent figure in Nazi Germany, acting as Adolf Hitler’s Deputy to the Nazi Party. On the eve of Germany’s declaration of war with the Soviet Union, he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom, but instead was arrested. He was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to life in prison at Spandau
Prison, Berlin, where he died in 1987.

The question quickly arose, why would Rudolf Hess intentionally fly to Scotland to be arrested? It was clear that Hess was attempting to score a diplomatic victory by sealing a peace between the Third Reich and Britain, but no documental evidence exists that any member of the British Government gave him any impression that an agreement could be reached. There is also no documental evidence that British officials planned on tricking Hess into making the flight. The incident could also have been Rudolf Hess’s last effort to gain the following of England, as he realized that war with Russia would eventually lead to the end of the Third Reich. The event remains one of the most documented and influential mysteries of WWII.

Foo Fighters or Kraut Fireballs

The term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II to describe various mysterious aerial phenomena seen in the skies over both the European and Pacific Theater of Operations. The first sightings occurred in November 1944, when pilots flying over Germany reported seeing fast-moving round glowing objects following their aircraft. The objects were described as fiery and glowing red, white, or orange. Some pilots described them as resembling Christmas tree lights and fireballs, as big as 300 feet and as small as 1 foot. The foo fighters could not be outmaneuvered or shot down.

The military took the sightings seriously, suspecting that the mysterious sightings might be secret German weapons, but further investigation revealed that German and Japanese pilots had reported similar sightings. During war time the term foo fighters became commonly used to mean any UFO sighting. Many people have speculated extraterrestrial involvement. During WWII, these experiences were taken very seriously. Accounts of these cases were presented to heavyweight scientists, such as David Griggs, Luis Alvarez and H.P. Robertson. The phenomenon was never explained. Most of the information about the issue has never been released by military intelligence. Source: thecontroversialfiles.net

Strange Unsolved Mysteries of World War II

World War II was a period of emotional transform across the globe. But including all the political machinations and military strategies, some seriously strange stuff happened. Here are five of the most mysterious incidents from World War II.

A couple of months after Pearl Harbor, America was somewhat on-edge, especially along the west coast. Every person was scanning sky and sea in fear of another Japanese attack. In fact, a Japanese submarine had shelled the Ellwood oilfield near Santa Barbara in February of 1942. Later that month, the rising tension exploded into full-blown hysteria. An AWOL weather balloon triggered the initial panic. After that, flares were fired into the night sky, either to illuminate potential threats or signal danger. People saw the flares as more attackers, and a barrage of anti-aircraft fire soon filled the night.

The activity continued for several nights. In the end, the only casualties from the whole affair were three heart attack victims and three dead due to friendly fire. No Japanese aircraft were found, and the Japanese later denied having anything in the air near L.A. at the time. 

The Mysterious Disappearance of Flight 19

This is one of the most famous mysterious incidents of all time. It technically happened a few months after the war had ended, but it involved the U.S. military and aircraft used during World War II. The basic story is quite simple: Lieutenant Charles Taylor lead a flight of five TBM Avenger planes on a training exercise from a Naval air station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Over the radio, Taylor complained that his compasses weren't working and that he didn't know where he was. After flying around in confusion for several hours, the planes ran out of gas. None of them have been seen since, and all 14 men on board were presumed dead.

The Navy's inquiry was pretty clear-cut as well. Taylor had a history of getting lost while flying, and several radio operators and even junior members of Flight 19 seemed to know where they were, but following Taylor's faulty leadership, they flew far into the Atlantic instead of back to Florida. Much of the mystery surrounding the incident stems from the Navy's efforts to assuage Taylor's mother, who complained when the inquiry blamed her son without hard evidence. They changed it to, "cause unkown."

Later writers would wrap supernatural elements around the story, creating the legend of the Bermuda Triangle and inventing details out of whole cloth, such as pilots having premonitions of tragedy that prevented them from joining the doomed flight, and mysterioso radio transmissions like, "the sky is all wrong here."

It's a creepy enough story on its own – five planes lost over open sea with night falling and bad weather moving in, the encroaching certainty of their own deaths looming over them. The actual final radio transmission was a faint, garbled message. Radio operaters could only make out the flight's call sign, "FT…FT…FT…"

Since the planes have still never been recovered, the true fate of Flight 19 technically remains a mystery.

The Strange Life of Rudolf Hess

Rudolf Hess' life is straight out of a spy novel, filled with bizarre twists and turns before you even to get to the really weird stuff. He was a high-ranking Nazi who carried the title "Deputy to the Fuhrer." On May 10, 1941, Hess ate dinner at his home in Augsburg, Germany, then hopped into a Messerschmitt Bf 110 and flew to Scotland. He was chased by British planes, crashed, survived and was captured by a farmer. He asked to speak to the Duke of Hamilton and other British officials, claiming he sought a peace agreement between Germany and Britain (he feared the bloodbath of a lengthy war between Germany, Britain and Russia).

It's not really clear that Hess had the authority to create a peace agreement on his own (Hitler was certainly not in on the deal), and the British simply kept him as a prisoner of war. He spent some time in the Tower of London and other prisons, then was tried at Nuremberg. Found guilty of conspiracy and crimes against peace, Hess was given a life sentence. He spent most of that time at Spandau Prison in Berlin – for the last 20 years of his life, he was the only prisoner in the entire place. When he died in 1987, they tore Spandau down, partly because it was obsolete and unneeded, but partly to prevent it from becoming a shrine for neo-Nazis.

That's all pretty weird, but there are conspiracy theories galore. The Russians always suspected that Hess was trying to secretly unite Germany and Britain so they could team up against Russia. Churchill and Stalin had some memorable confrontations over the matter. Hess' mental state declined dramatically once he was imprisoned, despite reports that he seemed mentally fit when he first arrived in Scotland. By the time of the Nuremberg trial, he was suffering from severe amnesia and was periodically unable to remember anything from his years as a Nazi. This resulted in claims that the real Hess was in hiding, and the man tried at Nuremberg and left to rot at Spandau was an impostor.

The Haunting Case of WW II Ghost Planes

It's not hard to find reports of World War II ghost planes. Unfortunately, it's quite hard to find documented sources of these ghostly tales. The fact is, they're all pretty much folk tales. They take many forms, but there are two basic types.

First, you have post-war stories about people encountering planes from the past. Typically, you'll have a young couple out for a country stroll in the 1960s, 70s or 80s. They hear an odd sound and turn around to see a prop-driven vintage warplane cruising along at low altitude, or perhaps an entire flight of them. Some of these stories are heavily embellished (the plane disappears into thin air, the sighting was a harbinger of a tragic plane crash that happened shortly thereafter, the ghostly pilots waved sadly to the witnesses as they passed). Stories might incorporate speculation about "time slips."

The second type is more interesting. These are ghost plane sightings that happened during the war. In its most common form, the story revolves around a flight of planes that left for a dangerous mission. Later, all the planes return and are accounted for except one. Everyone watches the sky, hoping they made it out alive, but no plane appears on the horizon. Then, hours later, the drone of radial engines sounds in the distance. A plane is spotted. Could it be their missing comrades? But, no they would have run out of fuel hours ago. Still, there it is, heavily damaged, limping along toward the air field. It makes a ragged landing and fellow airmen rush to the scene. Inside the plane they find…nothing. Not a soul. Not a corpse. And the fuel tanks are bone dry.

There are variations – sometimes the crew is on board, but dead. Sometimes the plane is so badly damaged there's no physical way it could have flown. There's a story that a U.S. plane appeared over the California coast hours after the Pearl Harbor attack, smoking and sputtering. Witnesses could see a pilot on board, but when the plane crashed, the wreckage was empty.

The Creepy Coincidence of the Deadly Double

A few weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack, a pair of strange ads appeared in the New Yorker. They seemed to be advertising a dice game called The Deadly Double. One of the ads showed a pair of dice with the characters 0, 5, 7, xx, 24, and 12 on the visible faces. Above were warnings in a variety of languages: "Achtung! Warning! Alerte!" The other ad showed people in a bunker and explained that the dice game was essential air raid survival gear. The company logo was a suspiciously Germanic looking double eagle.

The ads have a somewhat strange design, but only in retrospect did they appear to contain a coded message. The numbers could allude to the date of the Pearl Harbor attack (12/7), with the other numbers representing codes to be deciphered by sleeper agents in the U.S. The Deadly Double itself was thought to refer to the twin threats of Germany and Japan.

Like many mysteries, retellings of this story emphasize the unknown and leave out crucial facts. The 0 and 5 are sometimes thought to foretell the exact time of the attack, but the first aircraft opened fire on Pearl Harbor at 7:48 a.m. local time. Books on mysterious events like to leave this story unresolved, as though the identity of the ads' creator remains unknown to this day. In truth, it was traced to a game company in Chicago that made a dice game called the Deadly Double. Their war-themed ad might seem like poor taste today, but the numbers on the dice matching the date of Pearl harbor was pure coincidence. Still, it was weird enough that the FBI got involved.

Sources:

io9.com

Breuer, William B. Unexplained Mysteries of World War II. Wiley, 1998.

California State Military Museum. "California and the Second World War: The Battle of Los Angeles."

Fishman, Jack. Long Knives and Short Memories: The Spandau Prison Story.Breakwater Books, 1986.

New York Times. "Hess Dies at 93; Hitler's Last Lieutenant."