OT - WWII quiz

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: michaelbaldur

ORIGINAL: brian brian

ORIGINAL: warspite1


Warspite1

The cargo was from IKEA; flat-pack tanks I believe.

I'm sure that would have been just the ticket for the Allies in the first half of the war, when their tank designers had nothing to write home about....and make for some darn interesting Squad Leader counters too.

Anyhow the details about my two questions are in my new thread about WWII books.

bofors AA guns ???

Warspite1

I'd guess ball bearings and other high tech steel products [:D]

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: michaelbaldur

ORIGINAL: brian brian




I'm sure that would have been just the ticket for the Allies in the first half of the war, when their tank designers had nothing to write home about....and make for some darn interesting Squad Leader counters too.

Anyhow the details about my two questions are in my new thread about WWII books.

bofors AA guns ???

Warspite1

I'd guess ball bearings and other high tech steel products [:D]

Gold from the Norwegian gold reserve?

Edit: If they had moved gold it would have made for a nice movie.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: michaelbaldur




bofors AA guns ???

Warspite1

I'd guess ball bearings and other high tech steel products [:D]

Gold from the Norwegian gold reserve?

Edit: If they had moved gold it would have made for a nice movie.

Warspite1

[X(]

[brian brian]

I think the Norwegian gold evacuated safely and simply along with the King on a Royal Navy cruiser. A lot of other countries' gold probably went through more adventures. Sounds like a good topic for a book...


In August 1944 a German U-Boat sank a US Liberty Ship off the coast of Oman. Aside from a complement of Lend-Lease supplies (tanks, trucks, etc.) destined for the Soviet Union via the Persian railroads, this Liberty ship carried several tons of a cargo several orders of magnitude more valuable than the vehicles in it's hold. What was this extra cargo?

[Centuur]

I've read somewhere about a cargo of industrial diamonds being sunk by a German U Boat. Don't know if this is the ship...

[brian brian]

interesting answer I hope to learn about someday, but not the cargo I had in mind.

[composer99]

A captured Enigma machine?

[brian brian]

Another interesting guess, but those never left an Allied mainland. By valuable, I do mean in terms of $$$.

[Orm]

A huge amount of dollar bills?

[brian brian]

Pretty close there Orm. The cargo was 5 million silver Riyals, the currency of Saudi Arabia, though minted in the USA and destined for Saudi Arabia to use for payroll for the workers building the new oil fields for the US/Saudi joint venture ARAMCO. Almost 2 million of them were salvaged from 1.5 miles deep in the late 90s; a book that came out then theorized conspiratorially that they were somehow destined for Joe Stalin, thought I can't remember the author's exact argument in the book "Stalin's Silver". Given the value of the ARAMCO fields, I'm sure Uncle Sam just minted another batch for one of the true prizes of the world in the 1940s...

[ezzler]

Who said ""Never were so few led by so many"
and why?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: ezz

Who said ""Never were so few led by so many"
and why?

Vague memories, ... In Arnhem when the British had a preponderance of officiers to enlisted men?

[ezzler]

Ohh..close.Definitely on the right track.

But wrong battle and not British.

[micheljq]

ORIGINAL: ezz

Who said ""Never were so few led by so many"
and why?

Churchill about the battle over England in 1940 I think. About the pilots of the fighter aircrafts? Or do i mixup because of my bad english.

[terje439]

Was not that the general of the 101 airborne? General something something...
Think after the initial landing during Overlord he only managed to find his staff and a few soldiers?

Terje

[trooper76]

terje is on the right track.
Maxwell Taylor of the 101st Airborne makes the remark. I saw it quoted in Ambrose's 'D-Day' though I'm not sure if that was the original source.
While Ambrose can tend to be a bit light on in-depth analysis and have a strong American bias his work on D-Day is just about unmatched for the amount of first-hand accounts of the battle. One of my favourite parts of the book are the dark humour displayed by soldiers/airmen/sailors participating in the battle. IIRC one of the Canadian soldiers remarks as they are taking fire approaching a beach 'I'm sorry is this a private beach? Are we intruding?'

Michael you are thinking of the quote 'Never was so much owed by so many to so few' ...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_was_so_much_owed_by_so_many_to_so_few

[ezzler]

Troop is correct. General Maxwell Taylor of the 101st Airborne on June 6th 1944.

An odd assortment of men was culled from thorn-thick hedges and ditches along roads to storm Pouppeville. Division Commander, Chief of Staff, clerks, MPs, artillerymen, signalmen, a sprinkling of infantry parachutists -- all combined to form a task force against this village that blocked the entrance of a causeway leading from Utah Beach. So abundant were staff officers that Gen. Taylor remarked, "Never were so few led by so many."

http://www.lonesentry.com/gi_stories_bo ... tairborne/

And I did just read that in Anthony Beevor's D-Day book , which is excellent.

[Extraneous]

 What was the USS Seraph’s other name ?
 
 
 Why did it have another name?

[Blacksheep]

USS Seraph was better know as HMS Seraph. She was actually a British sub used in special ops (i.e. operation Mincemeat, etc) but briefly served under US colors and a US captain on one of her missions.

[Extraneous]

Why did she serve under US colors?

1st clue: Generals Eisenhower and Clark.