Unexplained Mysteries of World War II , livre ebook

Unexplained Mysteries of World War II
Also by William B. Breuer
An American Saga
Bloody Clash at Sadzot
Captain Cool
They Jumped at Midnight
Drop Zone Sicily
Agony at Anzio
Hitler s Fortress Cherbourg
Death of a Nazi Army
Operation Torch
Storming Hitler s Rhine
Retaking the Philippines
Devil Boats
Operation Dragoon
The Secret War with Germany
Hitler s Undercover War
Sea Wolf
Geronimo!
Hoodwinking Hitler
Race to the Moon
J. Edgar Hoover and His G-Men
The Great Raid on Cabanatuan
MacArthur s Undercover War
Feuding Allies
Shadow Warriors
War and American Women
Unexplained Mysteries of World War II
William B. Breuer

JOHN WILEY SONS, INC.
New York Chichester Weinheim Brisbane Singapore Toronto
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 1997 by William B. Breuer. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4744. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, (212) 850-6011, fax (212) 850-6008, E-Mail: PERMREQ@WILEY.COM.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Breuer, William B.
Unexplained mysteries of World War II / William B. Breuer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-29107-2 (paper)
1. World War, 1939-1945-Miscellanea. I. Title.
D744.B694 1997
940.53-dc20
96-29479
Printed in the United States of America
Dedicated to RICHARD J. SEITZ Lieutenant General, U.S. Army (Ret.), a young paratroop battalion leader in World War II who earned the respect and admiration of his fighting men and later rose to the top in his profession
Contents
Acknowledgments
Part One-Puzzling Events
Dress Rehearsal for Pearl Harbor?
Shadowy German Scientist
Spy in the War Cabinet?
Phantom of Scapa Flow
Bewildered Allied Generals
Hitler Scuttles Operation Felix
Japanese Spies in Washington
Stalin: An Outwitted Bungler
Switzerland: Hitler s Next Conquest?
Suspicious Advertisement
Operation North Pole
Who Set Fire to the Normandie ?
Convoy SL125: A Sacrificial Ploy?
Ultimatum: Slipup or Plot?
Political Tangle in the Balkans
Ambush in the Sky
Was the Normandy D-Day Necessary?
Evidence of a High-Level Cover-Up
Part Two-Odd Coincidences
Reunited in an Operating Room
Blue-Blood Nazi Spy
Suspicious Arrow of Wheat
A Couple of Mixed-up Britons
A Postcard with a Unique View
Fifty Surgeons at the Right Place
A Timely Japanese Air-Raid Drill
New York Uranium Merchant
The Spy Who Chose the Wrong House
Two Deadly Foes Meet Again
Look Out Below!
Two GIs on Salerno Beachhead
Long Shot in the Dark
The Second Bill Purdy Wins Out
Pigeon Scores a News Scoop
Parachute in a Million
A Map Found in Normandy
The MacArthurs Have a Houseguest
Sad Discovery in a Cemetery
Rommel and Montgomery
Lost Dog Tag
A Dead Soldier Reappears
Kamikaze Hits the Calloway
A Sister s Startling Discovery
Inseparable Twins
A Nazi Bigwig Slept Here
A German General s Homecoming
Nabbing a Nazi Nabob
Part Three-Curious Happenings
United States Tunes In to Hitler
An Anti-Nazi Paces Hitler s War
Dame Fate Foils a Kidnapping
Dead Spy Put to Work
A Cooperative German Commandant
A Pilot s On-the-Job Training
Ghost Pilot of Kienow
Make-Do Bombardier Scores Big
A Journalist Beats the Odds
Nazis Aid U.S. A-Bomb Creation
Piggyback Ride on a U-Boat
A Spy for Both Sides
A Lifesaving Candy Bar
A Bolt Out of the Blue
Lady Luck Saves a Sailor
A German Pilot Joins His Victims
Bombing Patriots Out of Prison
Sleeping His Way into Battle
Freakish Farewell to Arms
Belated Surrender on Guam
Fluke Wound in an Aid Station
A German Courier Gets Lost
An Old German in a Garden
Snoozing on Iwo Jima
A Sub Sinks Itself
An Urgent Signal Saves a Ship
Was There a Plot to Kidnap Hitler s Corpse?
Living Unknown Serviceman
Part Four-Uncanny Riddles
Did Britain Try to Bribe Hitler?
Did the Allies Aid the Pearl Harbor Plan?
Was Frau Goebbels Defecting?
Could $212 Have Prevented a U.S. Disaster?
Reinhard Heydrich s Secret
A Crucial Page Disappears
A Nazi Report Vanishes
The Luftwaffe Spares Doolittle
The Weasel Goes on the Lam
Who Tried to Murder de Gaulle?
The Strange Death of Joe Kennedy
A Shining Beacon in Normandy
Ghost Voice in the Ardennes
Who Concealed Soviet Butchery?
Part Five-People Who Vanished
The Polish Genius
The Mysterious Countess
A Propagandist s Blunder
The Lady Be Good
A General s Final Mission
Churchill s Kin Freddy
Into the Devil s Triangle
Search for a German General
Bormann: The F hrer s Watchdog
A Bell Tolls for a Sailor
Doomsday for Flight 19
Part Six-Peculiar Premonitions
Churchill s Sudden Impulse
Mamie Eisenhower s Prediction
General Patton s Previous Life
Captain Eddie Senses Big Trouble
I ll See You Someday!
I ve Got a Gut Feeling!
An Old Colonel s Luck Runs Out
Friendly Fire off Anzio
No Need for a Lighter
Ernest Hemingway Changes Chairs
A Bride s Haunting Nightmare
Old Blood and Guts Awakens
Ernie Pyle s Last Battle
Patton Tells His Family Good-bye
Part Seven-Strange Encounters
Roosevelt Meets a Nazi Agent
A Pipeline to the F hrer
Unlikely Reunion on the Rhine
A Publisher Visits the Front
A Chance Homecoming in Italy
Truce in an Irish Pub
Two Soldiers in a Foxhole
Getting an Old Friend Hanged
An Oil Baron Calls on Himmler
Notes and Sources
Selected Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Many books have been written about the great campaigns, strategic designs, high-level decisions, incidents of battles, and scenes of heroism and daring that occurred during World War II. Absent has been a comprehensive focus on the vast and intriguing arena of the mysterious, baffling, oddly coincidental, and inexplicable. This volume helps fill that reportorial void.
There has never been, nor is there ever likely to be, a shortage of scholarly experts without personal experience in war who scoff at episodes that defy the accepted terms of logic. However, as nearly all combat veterans and high commanders know, logic is often a stranger in wartime.
The accounts in this book have been painstakingly collected over a period of years from newspapers, magazines, and other publications of the World War II era; military reports stored in various archives; books by authors of integrity who participated in or had intimate knowledge of the events they described; and interviews or correspondence with participants. In the last category, I have scrupulously guarded against inadvertent bias or exaggeration by requiring corroboration by two or more persons directly involved in an incident.
With regard to premonitions, I have used only episodes in which a person had either voiced an omen to at least two other individuals prior to the incident, had entered the foreboding in a diary, or if the person survived the event, had promptly told at least two others about the presentiment.
Many persons played roles in the creation of this book. My wife, Vivien, a skilled writer, was of enormous help in researching, coordinating interviews, and providing pertinent observations and suggestions on the manuscript. Others who have assisted significantly include:
Pierre Gosset, Battle of the Bulge Foundation, Liege, Belgium; Hilary Roberts, Imperial War Museum, London; Dr. Richard J. Sommers, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Alyce Mary Guthrie, executive director, PT Boats, Inc., Memphis, Tennessee; Henry J. Shaw, Jr., chief historian, Marine Corps Headquarters, Washington, D.C.; Colonel Lyman F. Hammond (Ret.), director, Douglas MacArthur Memorial, Norfolk, Virginia.
Professor Reginald V. Jones, Prime Minister Winston Churchill s World War II scientific adviser, Aberdeen, Scotland; Dr. William F. Atwater, Don F. Pratt Museum, Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Major Keith O Kelly (Ret.), Queen s Messenger, Hampshire, England; Dr. John Duvall, 82nd Airborne War Memorial Museum, Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Dr. Dean C. Allard, senior historian, and B. F. Cavalcante, archivist, Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C.; Dr. Dan Holt, director, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas; Charles Steinhice, reference librarian, Chattanooga Public Library, Chattanooga, Tennessee; and the staff at the Modern Military Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
W ILLIAM B. B REUER
Chilhowee Mountain
Tennessee
July 1996
It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
-Winston S. Churchill
Part One
Puzzling Events
Dress Rehearsal for Pearl Harbor?
Lieutenant Mastake Okuyama was leading a squadron of Japanese Imperial Navy bombers on a sweep up China s broad Yangtze River, known to the Chinese as Ch ang Chiang (Long River), for it flows for thirty-one hundred miles from deep within the country and empties into the Yellow Sea. Among the great cities on the Yangtze s banks are Shanghai and Nanking. It was the morning of December 12, 1937.