Kesselring's Generalfeldmarschall's baton was seized by an anonymous private serving as a scout with the US 2nd Armoured Div., the first US division to enter Berlin, in July 1945. He was ordered to search castles that had been used by high-ranking German officers, and found the baton. It remained in his possession until his death in 1977, when it passed to his widow, and then to his son, who put it up for auction by Alex Cooper auctioneers in 2010. Expected to fetch between US$10,000 and $15,000, it was sold to a private bidder for $731,600. Nazi baton fetches over $700,000 at auction in Towson
All sides tended to try and produce accurate internal reports - stupid not to - you really do need to know what your own losses are even if you don't want your own public to know.
And I agree with you once again, but really how accurate are their internal reports expected to be? Failure or even the perception of such, ever so slight in that period of Japanese history could result in one or more persons involved (or not directly involved) being expected to do the Bushido thing to appease higher ups all the way to the emperor. That could lead to a little "creative reporting" to say the least with some. And really, with that mindset in place with those people, who in his right mind would want to report that one of the Emperor's fighter planes was shot down by an American while dangling in a parachute harness. Again, I do agree with your earlier assessment of the incident so please don't take it differently. And I did point out the discrepancy in the reported story by the US flyer involved and what the Japanese military reported as well. The Japanese report of no losses in that mission was also covered in the wiki story.
I learned something new about WW2 again today. While reading about the order of battle for the 1st Allied Airborne Army in Operation Market Garden (I was researching stuff about the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions) I wondered why the Polish Airborne Brigade was officially named the “1st Independent Polish Airborne Brigade. Why not just the “Polish Airborne Brigade?” Were there two such units? And why was the “Independent” modifier attached? Further reading revealed that the Polish paras were the only unit under direct control of the Polish Government in Exile, while the rest of the Polish Army in the ETO answered to the Allied Command. The airborne brigade was raised and organized with the sole intent of being dropped in Poland to support the Polish underground army while it rose up against the occupying German Army. Kind of a stretch there. No transport aircraft in the Allied inventory could make the drop and return to bases in the UK, or even from forward bases in liberated France at the time. And the Soviets said no way Hosea when permission was asked to land behind their lines. So that left the Polish paras without a definitive mission so to speak, until Operation Market Garden came to be that is. That would be their first and last combat mission. And y’all know the rest of the story.
I had never realised until this astoundingly enlightening piece of journalism that “if they’d done this instead of that...” can apparently play quite a large part in a war. Wow, who knew? Germany could have WON the Battle of Britain if they started earlier, study finds | Daily Mail Online
According to Andrew Roberts biography of Churchill, Sir Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart, of 79 Armd Div fame, pronounced Hobart as 'Hubbard'. I'm more impressed with 'Cleghorn'
I veered between the possible English and French pronunciations of Freddie de Guingand's name until I finally found footage of one of his contemporaries (I think Horrocks, but I forget) pronouncing it: it's de GAN-gond. Which the few documentaries that mention him tend to get wrong. Freddie de Guingand - Wikipedia
I read today that on this day in 1943 that in the US, a ban on the sale of pre-sliced bread went into effect nationwide. The move was for reducing bakerys’ demand for metal parts for the war effort. I guess it all adds up.
Along the same lines, Roy Urquhart, of Arnhem fame, pronounced his name in the (now less common) Scots fashion: ERR-kuht not ERR-kart or ERK-heart. Don't get me started on Mount Everest.
I think I've only ever heard Urquhart pronounced Urr-curt by Scots (including a couple of Scottish Urquhart's themselves) - I'm trying to think how its pronounced in Local Hero
From wiki https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Urquhart.ogg From the page of the castle with that name.
Today I learned several new things about WW2, and I feel obligated to share them with y'all. This is pretty neat stuff, so pay attention! In 1942, the US 98th Field Artillery (Mule Drawn) was enroute from the US to Brisbane, Australia, but was refused entry due to Australian animal import regulations. The convoy carrying the regiment was re-directed to New Guinea where no such rules were in place. Sometime after arrival, the powers to be in the US Army planning, research & development bureaus decided that animal drawn artillery units were then considered to be obsolete in modern warfare. Duh. Anyway, in the wartime spirit to not waste any ASSets, the mules (mules = asses - HA) and the some of the artillerymen were re-redirected to the CBI and were made part of the nucleus of the 5307th Composite Unit, aka "Merrill's Marauders". Not sure what happened to the artillery pieces, since they were probably of a smaller caliber (75mm or 2.95" not in the 1942 TO&E*) due to being mule drawn but I'm sure they made good use of them. The remaining men of the 98th were told that they would undergo a new rigorous training program and then be organized into the new 6th US Ranger Battalion, the only Ranger battalion to serve in the PTO. The artillery officers were transferred to other artillery units as casualty replacements and were replaced with Ranger trained infantry officers. * 75mm guns were still in the TO&E for the parachute and mountain units Not sure about you, but I learned a lot today. My brain hurts. Now wasn't that fun!
I knew I read something about Japanese record keeping, but couldn't find it right away. Came across this on wiki while reading up on PT Boats. After the war, American military interviews with captured veterans of the Imperial Japanese Navy, supplemented by the available partial Japanese war records, were unable to verify that all the PT boat sinking claims were valid. Like many other victory claims by all parties involved (aircraft pilots, surface ships, submarines) this unclear verification was due in part to the Japanese military's policies of destroying military records.
Recently learned that the generic term "Hipper Class cruiser covers only Blucher and Hipper, and not Prinz Eugen which was actually similar but another class of heavy cruiser - this I was totally unaware of.