Gregory "Pappy" Boyington was a troubled, but excellent American combat pilot. He was a USMC fighter ace during the Second World War, and according to his own account, he was the top ace of the entire USMC. Crashed and captured by the Japanese during his record-breaking flying mission, he was presumed dead for over a year, until the war ended and he turned up in a POW camp.

On April 23rd 1918, the French newspaper Le Matin published an article. Its headline read “Manfred von Richthofen has been shot down in the vicinity of Amiens. There is no certainty yet as to what exactly happened, though it is certain this will be a huge blow for the German morale. We see this as righteous vengeance.” This French newspaper wasn’t too wrong: von Richthofen’s death indeed was a massive blow to German morale. Because over 100 years after his death, many still know him by his alias: the Red Baron. He was the ace of aces, with eighty aerial victories during the First World War credited to his name. During his life, the Red Baron was already a living legend. Yet he didn’t see the end of the First World War, but after his death, the legend around him only expanded.

Although Australia and the United States formally were Allied during the Second World War, there were some fundamental differences between their servicemen stationed on the island.

This led to the infamous Battle of Brisbane between American and Australian service troops. But aside from this battle, an even weirder event led to… well I’d say horrible PR for the Americans. Among their troops stationed in Australia was a serial killer. In contrast to his fellow soldiers preparing an attack on the Japanese Empire, this soldier waged attacks on Australian women. Dubbed the ‘Singing Strangler’, Eddie Leonski was an American serial killer, stationed in Australia during the Second World War.

Japanese snipers during the Second World War have, surprisingly enough, not been subject to a lot of research and writing. The Japanese army began deploying snipers much later than any other major participant of the Second World War. Japanese snipers used tactics that generally were dissuaded by other armies because of their high lethality ratio.

As the end of the Second World War was coming closer, the Allied powers made preparations for the inevitable stream of German prisoners of war that had to be housed. In total, 1026 prisoner of war camps were established in Britain. They accommodated a bit over 400.000 German PoWs that were shipped there. Among these camps was Camp 198, also known as Island Farm. The camp was situated on the outskirts of Bridgend, South Wales. The majority of the camp was demolished in 1993, but there is one cabin, Hut 9, that has been preserved. And it has been preserved for a pretty good reason: it is the last remaining building that stood central in the plot of one of the largest escape attempts by German PoWs during the Second World War.

The Edelweiß Pirates were youth gangs that opposed the ever-increasing totalitarian grip of the Nazi regime. Their actions ranged from passive resistance to robbing munitions depots and even murder. Curiously enough, after the Second World War came to an end, a group of post-war Nazi resistance cells coopted their name and carried out a series of bombings and attacks against the occupying Allied powers.

The German Hanna Reitsch was one of the best test-pilots ever. She attended the 1936 Berlin Olympics and participated in the Air Sports discipline; she broke multiple endurance and altitude records and has flown nearly every German aircraft during her career. She flew bombers, fighters, and even the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet-rocket plane. She was one of the first test pilots to fly the Focke-Achgelis Fa 61, world’s first operable helicopter. There was a dark side to Hanna, though. She was a fanatical Nazi, loyal to Hitler and very involved in Luftwaffe operations. In fact, she stood at the forefront of the notorious German V-1 human-glider bomb project. This was a last-ditch attempt by the Germans to turn the tide of the war, by utilising suicide pilots against Allied troops. She survived the war and wrote several books about her life, giving us a very candid look at the life of the woman Hitler referred to as his favourite pilot.

On December 7, 1941, the 'battle' of Ni'ihau commenced. For obvious reasons this incident is usually overshadowed by the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Ni'ihau incident was a deadly incident on an island that was assumed to be deserted, but was inhabited by a few Hawaiians. What followed was part of the population siding with the Japanese pilot, and part of the population siding with the United States once they realised an attack on Pearl Harbor had taken place.

The May 1943 secret operation by Britain's Bomber Command to destroy several German dams located in its industrial heartland, the Ruhr Area, was a groundbreaking mission. Not just because of the risk involved, but because a new weapon would be used for the first time: the so-called 'Bouncing Bomb'.