War, huh, what is it good for? A ruddy good
story, that's what. World War Two certainly
wasn't short of a few of those, including
some rather strange fights. Here's our list
of the top five bizarre battles of WWII, each
more bizarre than the last.
Aleutian Islands
Easily the most actually bloody battle in
this list - at number five is the Aleutian
island campaign. We tend to think of the war
in the Pacific as being fought on tropical
island chains far from the American mainland,
but little known to many outside the US, the
Japanese actually invaded and occupied a small
chain of Alaskan islands early in the war.
Almost 10,000 Japanese troops were landed
on the sparsely populated and almost undefended
Aleutian Islands in June 1942.
The battle to recapture the islands was hard
fought but poorly planned by people who basically
didn't have much of a clue what they were
doing. The Americans took months to organise
a ground operation and the Japanese were poorly
equipped for fighting in the winter. Poor
intelligence meant that American bombers spent
weeks pounding positions that had already
been abandoned.
In May 1943, on Attu island, the landing force
found itself largely stranded because it didn't
have enough landing craft, and when it finally
got ashore, the vehicles wouldn't work on
the icy ground.
Meanwhile, in July 1943, faulty radar on board
two battleships led to them firing over 500
huge 14" shells at what's now believed to
be a flock of migrating birds.
Then in August, when a huge ground force of
over 30,000 men eventually staged a landing
to recapture the island of Kiska, there were
no Japanese left, although over 300 friendly
troops were killed by friendly fire, booby
traps and the cold. They'd left weeks before.
And no one had noticed.
Leo Gradwell and PQ-17
Next in the list is the story of one Royal
Navy Luitenant, his converted fishing boat,
and one of the most audatious and British
rescue operations of the war. PQ-17 was a
huge Arctic convoy transporting war materials
from the West to the Russians on the Eastern
Front in July 1942. A wrong belief by the
Admiralty that it was about to be attacked
by the German battleship Tirpitz led to it
being ordered to scatter, where it made easy
pickings for German submarines and bombers.
Two dozen undefendedmerchant ships were sunk.
But among the tragedy is the story of Leo
Gradwell, commanding officer of the HMS Ayrshire,
a tiny trawler converted to fight submarines
and staffed with volunteer fishermen. Fleeing
north, Luitenant Gradwell convinced three
merchant ships to follow him, acting as their
only protection.
The ragtag convoy quickly got stuck in the
arctic ice, a clear target for German ships
and planes. So Gradwell cracked out one of
the ships loads of white paint, and painted
the ships white. He then unloaded another's
cargo of Sherman tanks onto the deck, loaded
the guns, and used them to make the world's
wierdest battleship - an impromptu and probably
useless defence against any German boat that
might have come in for a closer look. They
were never spotted. But that's not as wierd
as it gets.
Because between the four ships, no one had
a map. Once they managed to break free of
the ice, Gradwell was navigating using only
a "Times World Geographic Pocket Book". But
incredibly, three weeks late and with just
a pocket map, a crew of fishermen, and a spot
of wight paint, the lawyer turned commodore
arrived at the Russian port of Archangel.
Unsurprisingly, he got the Distinguished Service
Cross for his little wartime adventure.
The street car breakthrough
May 1940. Rotterdam, the Netherlands. German
planes landed on the New Maas River, carrying
a team of engineers with orders to capture
the nearby bridge, but were quickly pinned
down by nearby Dutch troops.
A team of paratroopers arrived to assist their
trapped friends, but couldn't break through
the Dutch encirclement. So the commander had
an idea. He captured a load of streetcars,
loaded his men into some of them with a couple
more empty in front as bait and a battering
ram, rang the bell and sent them hurtling
through the Dutch lines to relieve the trapped
engineers. Once they'd got the trams through,
they couldn't actually get them out again,
but they managed to survive under fire for
five days until the Netherlands as a whole
surrendered.
British Invasion of Iceland
May 1940 once again, and, with Denmark surrendered
to the Germans, Britain decided it needed
to do something about Iceland, which despite
being neutral, was strategically important
and tied to the Danish Government.
So without warning, they invaded. Not just
without warning the Icelandic government,
but without warning most of the troops involved.
746 marines, most of whom still hadn't finished
basic training and 50 of whom had never even
fired their rifles, were hastily pulled together.
There weren't enough guns to go round. No
one spoke the language. At the last minute
they were given a handful of machine guns
and cannon which no one knew how to use. There
weren't enough ships to transport their equipment
anyway, so most of it was left behind.
The force did have one plane, which was launched
to covertly assess the situation in the capital
Reykjavík. Covertly. Instead, it flew around
very low several times, making a lot of noise,
and waking up among others the Icelandic Prime
Minsiter and German consul, both of whom pretty
quickly worked out what was happening, because
at the time that single British plane was
the only plane in Iceland.
Incredibly though, when it landed the tiny
force was met with no resistance, because
despite being 100,000 square kilometres, Iceland
had no army and the Reykjavík police had
just 70 officers. When the British farce,
sorry force, arrived at the dock, they had
to ask the police to keep interested locals
back so that they could disembark and, essentialy,
invade.
That didn't stop one angry local from grabbing
a gun off a marine, stubbing his cigarette
out on it, and throwing it back at him. Which
was about the most violent event of the whole
stupid invasion.
Battle for Castle Itter
And finally, the battle for Castle Itter.
Which isn't a film. And needs to be a film.
Because it was so bizarre, so utterly ridiculous,
that you probably won't believe it ever happened.
But it did.
Castle Itter in Austria was being used to
imprison several French VIPs, including former
prime minister Édouard Daladier, former prime
minister Paul Reynaud, Charles de Gaulle's
elder sister Marie-Agnès Cailliau, a couple
of generals and, bizarrely, tennis superstar
Jean Borotra.
Two days after Hitler committed suicide the
SS guards abandoned the castle and Zvon-imir
Cuchovic, a Yugoslav resistance fighter also
being held, escaped and fled to try and find
an American patrol to rescue the VIPs.
He eventually found the 103rd Infantry Division,
who organised a small rescue party of 14 US
troops and two tanks. Aaaand ten German soldiers.
The Germans were commanded by Major Josef
Gangl and had been planning to surrender,
but were roped into joining the rescue instead.
The group made their way to the castle - leaving
one tank behind to guard a nearby bridge - and
began freeing the prisoners. Then, the SS
turned up again. In force.
The rescuers and prisoners found themselves
trapped in a medeival castle and surrounded
by rabid Nazi stormtroopers.
A handful of American GI's, ten mutinous Germans
and a group of bickering French VIPs including
retired Prime ministers, former Generals,
a tennis star and their wives, commanded by
one tired, junior American officer, Luitenant
John C Lee.
They picked up what guns they could find and,
five days after Hitler's death, they fought
back.
The tank was destroyed, the German Major killed.
But just as defeat to the numerically superior
and better equipped SS seemed inevitable,
and with a rocket launcher lined up to blow
down the castle doors and end it all, a relief
column arrived, saving the group from utter
annihilation.
It was the only time in the war when Germans
and Americans fought side-by-side. And it
has, quite rightly, been called the strangest
battle of world war two.
