Strange Stories in History - Compilation Volume 1

hero Onoda the Japanese soldier who didn't surrender until 1974 hero Onoda was a Japanese intelligence officer in the Imperial Japanese Army who refused to surrender until decades after world war ii had ended in the Pacific Theater there were many Japanese holdouts Holdings enryu Nippon hey or remaining Japanese soldiers they were motivated to continue on after the surrender of Japan in August 1945 because of their dogmatic militaristic indoctrination or simply because they were unaware of the surrender erewan Oda was trained at the Nakano school as an intelligence officer where he was taught guerrilla warfare and intelligence gathering Onoda was sent to Lubang island near Luzon in the Philippines in late 1944 where he would soon meet up with a group of other Japanese soldiers already on the island miji Yoshimi Taniguchi had given him orders to live off the land and forbade him to die by his own hand he would further reassure officer or Noda by saying it may take three years it may take five but whatever happens will come back for you until then so long as you have one soldier you are to continue to lead them higher ranked officers in the group made Onoda unable to carry out his mission to sabotage the enemy airstrip and pier at the harbour this in turn made the u.s. conquest of the island which was achieved in February 1945 easy once US forces were on the island the large group split up into smaller groups of three to four men and escaped into the jungle and were either picked off by the US troops or surrendered until it was just hero Onoda and three others under his command which were left active private yuuichi okatsu corporal Shuichi Shimada and private first class Kim Chi Chih cazuca all of which had set up base in the mountains after Japan had formally surrendered in September 1945 Onoda and his group came across a number of leaflets the first leaflet left behind by locals was discovered quite soon reading the war ended on August 15th come down from the mountain however they concluded there was an Allied prop again trick after this conclusion the group continued to raid local Islanders for food and other resources general Tomoyuki Yamashita of the 14th area army also dropped leaflets from the air with a surrender order but again the group decided that they were a trick with a lack of knowledge of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki it may have seemed more unlikely that Japan was willing to surrender in 1949 yuuichi a katsu escaped from the group and surrendered to Filipino forces in 1950 causing the remaining three to be cautious to disloyalty in 1952 the search mission was expanded with letters and pictures from the group's families dropped from an aircraft but again this was wrote off as a trick by the three soldiers every piece of evidence the group came across increased their paranoia and hostilities while they were dressed in their Imperial Japanese uniforms the people they came across were in civilian clothing which they interpreted as Allied soldiers in disguise with the strategy of luring them out as a result they didn't think twice when firing on the locals corporal Shoei cheats Shimada was shot in the leg but recovered with the help of Onoda in 1953 but on May 7 1954 he was killed by a search party when he fired upon his potential rescuers who returned fire on a beach at Gunton now just two remained Onoda and Kosuke would continue the mission to sabotage gather intelligence on and attack the enemy which no longer existed but on october 19 1972 during a skirmish cazuca was shot and killed by the police when he was burning a farmer's rice collection lieutenant Onoda was now alone On February 20th 1974 a determined Japanese explorer called norio Suzuki found Onoda or Noda still refused to surrender however Suzuki had the idea to locate his original commanding officer major Yoshimi Taniguchi in March 1974 his former commanding officer major Yoshimi Tama Gucci traveled to the Philippines to fulfill his promise to return and end his orders in person Onoda still wearing his tattered army uniform from decades ago saluted the japanese flag and handed over his samurai sword is functioning arasaka type 99 rifle several rounds of ammunition hand grenades and his family-- dagger the Philippine government under President Ferdinand Marcos granted him a pardon taking into consideration that although he had killed 30 innocent people during his campaign on the island he thought the war was still carrying on when he returned to Japan an Oda was very popular but he found it hard to adjust to the new post-war Japan and the decay of its traditional values he published an autobiography and in 1975 left Japan for Brazil where he raised cattle and later opened a series of training schools in his last year's hero Onoda said in an interview every Japanese soldier was prepared for death but as an intelligence officer I was ordered to conduct guerrilla warfare and not to die I became an officer and I received an order if I could not carry it out I would feel shame I am very competitive mad Jack the man who fought with a longbow and a sword in World War 2 John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill was born in Hong Kong and graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in 1926 he would later earn the nickname mad Jack or fighting Jack for fighting with a longbow bagpipes and a sword in world war ii stationed at burma with the manchester Regiment in the British Army during peacetime made Mad Jack Restless it was during the interwar years in the 30s that he would master the bagpipes and ride his motorcycle across the entire Indian subcontinent in 1936 after moving to England mad Jack left the army and became a model at a movie extra he would also practice a new skill archery and became so good that he represented Great Britain at the world archery championships in 1939 when war arrived Mad Jack returned to the British Army and the Manchester regiment as an officer and was shipped off to France during the Battle of France in 1940 mad Jack led small raids on the enemy as the British Expeditionary Force was on the retreat from the Germans relentless advance using a longbow and a Scottish broadsword as his weapon of choice he became the only soldier known to have felled an enemy with a longbow in the war when he landed a shot on the enemy Feldwebel with a barbed arrow when asked why he did this he replied any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed during the retreat to Dunkirk mad Jack was shot in the neck when asked how it happened he replied German machine gun casually he would also win the Military Cross for bravery after rescuing a wounded British officer from a German ambush after Dunkirk mad Jack signed up for the commandos and when his training was complete he was sent to vug sole Norway in 1941 as second-in-command of number 3 commando in operation archery as he left the landing craft mad Jack played march of the Cameron men not his bagpipes and then led his men ashore with his broadsword waving in the air the German garrison in växjö was quickly defeated prisoners were taken and the artillery batteries captured along with shipping destroyed on Malloy island for this action mad Jack received his second military Cross in 1943 in Italy mad Jack led two commando with the objective to destroy German artillery and observation posts in the town of pijl in T even though the town was well defended and outnumbered mad Jack organized his men into six parallel columns who instead of using stealth tactics all shouted commando the German defenders as a result were confused into thinking the shouting which was coming from all directions in the darkness was a much bigger force in this skirmish the 50 men of number 2 commando took 136 prisoners mad Jack who was assisted by a corporal Rafael took 42 German prisoners and captured a mortar crew using his broadsword after marching the prisoners down to British lines he said I maintain that as long as you tell a German loudly and clearly what to do if you were senior to him he will cry Yoho and get on with it enthusiastically in a whatever the situation after losing the broadsword in hand-to-hand combat earlier he later went to the town on his own to retrieve it on the way he met an American patrol going towards the enemy lines when they should have been going the other way so he told them that he wouldn't come back for a bloody third time in 1944 Matt Jack was in Yugoslavia leaving British commandos and now Yugoslavia syns attacking the vital hill called 0.622 on the island of brac in the Adriatic Sea against the Germans heavy casualties were caused and soon Jack was alone and out of ammo with no hope left Jack started playing songs on his bagpipes until he was knocked unconscious by a frag grenade and captured by the German defenders he was first sent to Berlin and interrogated as it was thought that because of his real name he was a relative of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and afterwards sent to sucks in house and concentration camp but in September 1944 Matt Jack and an RAF officer escaped the camp by crawling under barbed wire through an abandoned dream and set out to walk to the baltic coast but were then captured now sent to a new camp in needed or austria Matt Jack escaped again on April 1945 taking the opportunity to get away when the lighting system failed in the darkness of night he walked a hundred and fifty miles through the treacherous terrain of the Alps surviving on vegetables that he had liberated from gardens eight days later and with a sprained ankle he found a u.s. armoured column and was sent back to England Jack was frustrated that the war in Europe was all but over so made his way to the Pacific campaign to join the battle against the Japanese in Burma but by the time he arrived the atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Matt Jack was so unhappy he said if it wasn't for those damn Yanks we could have kept the war going another ten years after the war Matt Jack continued to seek danger qualifying as a parachutist and transferring to the Seaforth Highlanders and later ending up in Palestine in 1948 as second-in-command of 1st battalion the Highland Light Infantry during an ambush on a Jewish medical convoy by Arab forces mad Jack with only 12 men and in full military dress marched under fire to the convoy to offer its evacuation I grinned like mad from side to side he said afterwards as people are less likely to shoot at you if you smile at them he would later coordinate the evacuation of 700 Jewish doctors students and patients from the hospital atop Jerusalem's Mount Scopus mad Jack would retire from the Army in 1959 with two awards of the Distinguished Service Order the battle for castle eater May 5th 1945 the US Army and German ver macht vs. the German SS Austrian Alps on May 5th 1945 a few days after Hitler's suicide American soldiers under command of US Army captain John C Jack Lee Jr teamed up with a number of Vermont soldiers under German major Joseph Sepp dunloe who was opposed to the Nazis and had been collaborating with the Austrian resistance joining them were French prisoners of war and a v' often SS officer who had defected jungle had surrendered with a white flag from his vehicle - Captain John C Jack Lee who was close by presenting the mission to rescue prisoners from Edo Castle an attempt for assistance in a rescue by the castles Czech cook had reached Austrian resistance in a nearby town and as a result reached major Yosef Kangol who was now their leader the first attempt to find help was by Yugoslavia chol prisoner Zuna Mirko Kovac but it had failed while he had reached Major John Kramer's and the American 103rd Infantry Division their heavily armored rescue attempt which would use m10 tank destroyers was recalled by heavy shelling and by superiors for encroaching into the territory of the US 36th division the objective was to rescue VIPs from an Austrian castle called sloshed eta in the Tyrol now converted to a high profile prison that held French VIPs including the ex Prime Minister's Paul Renaud and Edouard Daladier a tennis star and former military figures the German guards at the castle had fled and the prisoners had broke into the weapons room and armed themselves with pistols rifles and submachine guns however a German waffen-ss division was roaming around the nearby forest and had arrived to recapture the castle and execute the prisoners the American and German group closed in on the castle Lee and Ganga greeted the unimpressed French prisoners for expecting a bigger rescue force Lee ordered the Sherman tank to park at the front gate so it could cover the road once the men had been fed Lee jungle and the young SS officer set up defensive positions and talked over strategies to defend the castle from the impending SS force in the evening a reconnaissance force of often SS opened fire on the castle to test the enemy's strength the US and vert Mach troops have moved to their defensive positions and returned fire at dawn the SS used an 88 anti-tank gun which was well concealed to destroy part of a castle and then blew up the Sherman tank which have been providing machine-gun fire however the radio man inside was able to escape in time the vafan SS numbering around 150 men had began their main attack from the treeline towards the castle gate and from the west reaching the castles lower walls the American and German defenders as well as the French prisoners fired at the attackers from their high up positions in the castle and loopholes the SS managed to kill and wound several of the defenders including Joseph Ganga who was killed by a sniper while trying to move French Prime Minister Reynard from harm by the afternoon Lee and the American and German defenders were running low on ammunition and were seeking reinforcements for Major John Kramer's who had telephoned him with the assistance of Austrian partisans a relief force was now on its way as the situation was getting desperate Lee accepted tennis star jean borough trust courageous offer to vault the castle wall and run past the SS strong points and ambushes to find and guide the reinforcements to the castle Lee prepared for an SS breach of the walls and a close quarters fight until finally at 4:00 p.m. the American reinforcements arrived with tanks quickly defeating the waffen-ss force and taking many prisoners it is believed that this was the only battle where Americans and Germans fought together as allies the Korean soldier fighting on d-day after the d-day landings in northern France on June 1944 u.s. paratrooper lieutenant robert brewer of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division reported that four asian men and german uniform had been captured by his regimen one of these men was a Korean name young King Joan who had just had an extraordinary journey to the Western Front now fighting for the third time in a foreign army he had been pressed into in 1938 at the age of 18 young was in Manchuria when he was conscripted into the Kwantung army of the Imperial Japanese Army to fight the Soviet Union he fought under the Japanese for a year until he was captured by the Soviet Red Army during the battles of Calca Gul or the battles of Noman Han and sent to a labor camp the Soviet Union was short of manpower against the German forces and decided to press its prisoners of war into service in 1942 young was pressed into the Red Army like this along with thousands of other prisoners to fight the German army on the European Eastern Front after a year of fighting for the Red Army he was captured again in eastern Ukraine during the third battle of Kharkov this time he was taken prisoner by the German army and pressed into fighting for the ver Mach Jung was sent to the Western Front as part of an ass Battaglia or eastern battalion fighting alongside fellow prisoners he would help defend against the Allied invasion in Normandy France close to Utah Beach after the d-day landings in June 1944 with the German defense overrun Jung was captured by US paratroopers originally mistaking him to be a Japanese soldier in a German uniform Jung was sent to a prison camp in Britain then transferred to a camp in the United States where he stayed until the war's end attack of the dead men 1915 World War one the AUSA [ __ ] fortress was constructed in the 19th century by the Russian Empire and what is now northeastern Poland to defend its borders against Germany in the First World War the fortress would be heavily contested between German attackers and Russian defenders the Germans had made their first assault onto the fortress in September 1914 using large-caliber artillery guns bombarding the fortress for six days after intense shelling the Germans confidently launched an attack on the fortress however Russian artillery and infantry counter-attacks forced them back with a swift withdrawal a second German attack was attempted in February to March 1915 the Germans were again optimistic with their new heavy 420 millimeter caliber big bertha cannons the fortress was bombed with intensity including from the air which was presumed by the German command would cause the quick surrender of its Russian defenders the Russian command also had a similar notion and ordered that the fortress be held for just 48 hours after the evacuation remarkably even with a massive damage to the fortress and high Russian casualties it would be held for months and the Russian artillery bombardment forced the German guns to again pull back in early July 1915 the German troops were now under the command of Field Marshal von Hindenburg who began a new offensive this time they decided to use poison gas to achieve their objective as they knew the Russian defenders didn't have gas masks 30 heavy artillery guns and 30 gas batteries were brought in range and with the wind in their favor the gas was launched at the fortress on August 6th along with the artillery bombardment a dark green smog of chlorine and bromine moved towards the Russian positions the grass turned black and the tree leaves turned yellow the Russian guns and shells made from copper were caked at a layer of green chlorine oxide the Russian 9th 10th 11th and 12th companies were all but annihilated in the gas coverage once the gas had cleared 14 German battalions numbering around 7,000 llanfair troops moved in to capture the burnt trenches but as they approached the positions a insite took them by surprise as the remaining soldiers of the Russian 8th and 13th companies who had come into contact with the poison gas counter-attack with all they had left these troops attacked the Germans with their bayonets showing signs of chemical burns on their faces with their bodies wrapped up in rags spitting out blood and pieces of their lungs the sight was so terrifying to the approaching German troops that they went into a panic retreating back to their own positions and trampling over each other while falling onto their home barbed wire the Russian forces then returned rifle fire and killed many of the retreating Germans with artillery two weeks later the remaining Russian survivors of the awesome H fortress evacuated the newspapers would later call this the attack of the dead men Douglas barter the flying ace with no legs Douglas barter was a pilot in the Royal Air Force who would go on to pilot fighter planes in the Second World War without his legs and claimed 22 aerial victories becoming a flying ace barter joined the RAF in 1928 graduated in 1930 and in late 1931 at age 21 he was assigned to a squadron flying Bristol Bulldogs at Woodley airfield near Reading while flying the Bulldog he went against orders not to do aerial acrobatics or fly below 2,000 feet nevertheless barter performed an aerial stunt to show off his skill resulting in his plane crashing both of his legs were crushed under the twisted wood canvas and metal with no way of saving that they had to be amputated one above the knee and one below after this barter had to learn to walk again using artificial legs doctors were not hopeful that he would be able to walk without a stick but barter was determined and he wanted to fly again after being transferred to RAF Hospital Buck's Bridge barter learned new skills with his new legs he learned to drive a racing car played golf tennis and dance during this time he also met his future wife Thelma from 1937 to 1939 with world war ii on horizon barter requested several times to rejoin the raf but was refused piloting roles on the grounds that there was no incorporating his disability air vice-marshal Hallahan recommended that barter do the central flying school to test his abilities which he passed this would also familiarize himself with the newer modern planes barter noticed how the planes had upgraded significantly gone were the biplanes replaced with new low-wing monoplane such as the hurricane and the Spitfire while in his off-road tutor during the training barter couldn't resist doing a stud turning his biplane upside down at 600 feet by 1940 barter would be posted to the number 19 squadron and put in a cockpit of a Spitfire undertaking convoy patrol missions during this time known as the phoney war he wouldn't see much action but soon he would be posted to number 222 squadron where he would see action over Dunkirk during the Battle of France protecting the Royal Navy and evacuating the British Army below from the Luftwaffe during this combat he took down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 and damaged a Heinkel he 111 bomber Artur noticed that his disability gave him a distinct advantage when piloting his plane during dogfights because he didn't have legs he was less likely to blackout from the effects of g-force usually this would cause blood to flow from the brain to other parts of the body such as the legs causing loss of consciousness this meant that barter could pull off tight turns and outmaneuver his opponents after Dunkirk Arda was transferred to number 242 squadron and promoted to squadron leader this squadron which was made up of Canadians was low on morale due to heavy casualties during the Battle of France at first they were not welcoming to their new leader and were puzzled by his disability but he would soon rebuild the squadrons morale and inspire them with his courage and skill they would fight in the Battle of Britain and see major action on the 30th of August 1940 when the squadron took down 12 enemy planes two of which were shot down by barter by the end of 1940 with the Battle of Britain over number 242 squadron had shot down 67 enemy aircraft with five pilots killed in action barter would leave the squadron at March 1941 he was promoted to Wing Commander and leader escorting bombers during daylight raids at a Spitfire mark 5a as part of the circus operations taking on enemy bf 109s with his squadron sometimes at dangerously low heights his score would rise to 20 confirmed as destroyed plus two shared on August 8th Artur noticed a formation of 12 enemy fighters and dived on them taking out one and possibly colliding with another BF 109 or shot down by it sending his Spitfire diving into the ground in flames while trying to bail out one of barters artificial legs became stuck however he was able to escape from the cockpit just in time when he landed he was captured by the Germans and taken to a hospital in st. Omer as a prisoner of war the Germans had great respect for barter because of his courage to fly without legs flying ace Adolf Galland asked the British to airdrop barter a replacement leg which they did shortly afterwards barter tried to escape the hospital using a rope made from bed sheets so that he could climb down from the window it was eventually caught however after being betrayed barter was now on a Luftwaffe run prisoner of war camp known as Stalag Luft 3 he had made so many escape attempts that the Germans guarding the camp threatened to take away his artificial legs in 1942 while in Stalag Luft 8b barter and several others tried to escape but the alarm was raised when a Luftwaffe officer came to visit barter and he was not there soon he was recaptured he was then transferred to the escape-proof Colditz castle on the 18th of august 1942 where he would spend the rest of the war and on April 15th 1945 the prison was liberated and barter was freed by American troops the soldier bear World War 2 a new Polish army was setting up in the Middle East in 1942 under British command when one of the soldiers noticed a bear cub presented to them by an Iranian boy the bear had been made in orphan after its mother had been shot by hunters the soldiers purchased the cub and it was taken under care by a civilian refugee in the camp in August the bear was donated to the second transport company or what would become known as the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish two Corps and given the name Wojtek by the soldiers and soon he would become a morale-boosting mascot for the troops the soldiers fed him milk from a vodka bottle fruit honey and the odd beer as a reward Wojtek was also fond of cigarettes which he would smoke and eat and liked to wrestle the men and could salute on command when the Polish army were about to leave Egypt to enter Italy in 1943 it was a problem with boy Tex status as an animal and he would not be allowed to accompany the soldiers in the fighting to get around this the bear was officially drafted into the Polish Army as a private and given his own pay book and serial number during the Battle of Monte Cassino Wojtek supported the artilleryman by carrying crates of ammunition to the men one of his carers Henrik secara which and had to leave the bear alone for the day to spot targets Wojtek was chained near the soldiers firing artillery and started copying what the men were doing picking up the crates and carrying them near to the cannons after the battle the 22nd artillery supply company made their badge a depiction of a bear holding a shell when the war ended in May 1945 Wojtek in the 22nd were transported to Berwickshire Scotland and were stationed at Winfield camp many of the soldiers would have to say goodbye to Wojtek as their service would take them to other parts of the world following the mobilization in 1947 Wojtek would live in Edinburgh Zoo where he became popular with the locals visited by journalists and the Polish ex-servicemen who fought with him he would pass away in 1963 at the age of 21 subscribe for more World War 2 videos get your copy of simple history World War 2 today thank you guys for all your support on the simple history YouTube channel if you enjoy please consider visiting our patreon page there you can show us your support for the channel by donating and make a huge difference in what we're able to create for you plus you can get early access on upcoming videos so let's keep it growing and thank you for being part of this amazing community

Channel: Simple History

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Keywords: simple history, animated history, strange stories, history, stories, weird history, mad jack, attack of the dead men, korean soldier d-day, douglas bader, wojtek, animation, cartoons, binge watch, long video, simple history cartoons, d-day, korea, yugoslavia, 1940, movie, heroes, tales, anthology, history show, strange but true, amazing stories

Id: vbxX6PGkLlI

Length: 28min 21sec (1701 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2018