OT - WWII quiz

[brian brian]

ahh, no guesses on where the US Coast Guard took a war-prize, 19th Century style?

I will give you a pretty weak clue, but an even better quiz question:

In this same area, a Ju-290 (yes, they really flew), landed in what in WiF would be an Allied controlled hex, and took off again. Where was this?

No, the Ju-290 was not a post-war captured model. The Luftwaffe flew this mission.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

ahh, no guesses on where the US Coast Guard took a war-prize, 19th Century style?

I will give you a pretty weak clue, but an even better quiz question:

In this same area, a Ju-290 (yes, they really flew), landed in what in WiF would be an Allied controlled hex, and took off again. Where was this?

No, the Ju-290 was not a post-war captured model. The Luftwaffe flew this mission.

Greenland?

[Extraneous]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

Here is a quiz question. During WWII where in the world did the US Coast Guard capture a war prize (ship) and sail it away for continued use with their own forces?

[:D] Was the USA at war at the time? [:D]

[8|] If the USA was not at war it would be in Greenland involving Norwegians working for the Germans. [8|]

[paulderynck]

And the Danes would have been mystified as to just what the heck the Norwegians were doing there. [X(]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: paulderynck

And the Danes would have been mystified as to just what the heck the Norwegians were doing there. [X(]

Warspite1
[:D]

[brian brian]

Paul got it correct, the US Coast Guard captured a German ship busy landing a weather team on the east shore of Greenland. This was during the war, about 43 I think. In 44, the Germans landed a heavily armed but not heavily motivated weather team on Greenland, with certain figures in the German high command hoping their site could be used as a refueling point for a Ju-290 bombing raid on New York City.

A separate weather team and ship in 1944 got stuck in ice off Greenland, and a Ju-290 landed on the ice and rescued the entire team and flew back to German territory, I've read both France or Norway but I would think Norway was more likely.

The Danes would not have been mystified about Norwegians in Greenland; citizens of both countries staffed hunting companies that harvested wild game in Greenland. Using this as a cover, the Germans sent such a team of Quislings to the east coast of Greenland in early 1941 to set up a weather station. This was before the USA was in the war, but after Greenland had sought US protection, and thus their east coast was already patrolled by the US Coast Guard. The USCG arrested this team as criminals with a charge of ..... what?

OK, an esoteric question to be sure, so I'll give you another more straightforward one. Interestingly, I have read that Greenland is part of the Americas and the western hemisphere, but is not part of the North American continent.

Where on the North American continent did the Germans land armed, active duty military personnel? Hint 1: Not the saboteurs landed in the USA. Hint 2: also in an Allied-controlled hex, not a neutral country.

[Extraneous]

And the Danes would have been mystified as to just what the heck the Norwegians were doing there.

_____________________________

Paul

September 12, 1941 ~ Coast Guard makes the first capture of WWII


The Greenland Patrol

In June and July 1941, the American naval forces congregating around Greenland were organized officially into the Greenland Patrol. The Northeast Greenland Patrol, with Iceberg Smith in command, consisted of the Cutter USCGC Northland (WPG-49), the wooden-hulled former survey ship Cutter USCGC North Star (WPG-59) and an old friend of the Coast Guard now flying a Navy pennant, the USS Bear (AG-29).

The Bear, a former seal catcher built in 1875 and used by the Revenue Cutter Service for years on the Bering Sea Patrol, now sported a modernized superstructure and an aircraft. The South Greenland Patrol, under LCDR Belcher of the Modoc, included the cutter Comanche, the Coast Guard icebreaking tug Raritan, and the Navy auxiliary schooner Bowdoin. In October, the two commands were consolidated under CDR Smith as the Greenland Patrol, designated Task Force 24.8 under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet.

A memorandum from ADM Harold Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, outlined the mission of the Greenland Patrol:

"1. Naval operations will be required in Greenland ... for two purposes. The first purpose is to support the Army in ... establishing in Greenland airdrome facilities for use in ferrying aircraft to the British Isles.

2. The second purpose is to defend Greenland and specifically to prevent German operations in Northeast Greenland."


Iceberg Smith was, as Samuel Eliot Morison, the Navy's operational historian, put it after the war, being ordered "to do a little of everything - the Coast Guard is used to that."
The Army, on the basis of the information obtained by the South Greenland Survey, identified 13 sites, codenamed "BLUIE bases," that it thought could be turned into military installations. The most promising of these was located on a glacial moraine a few miles from the village of Narsarssuak.

In June 1941, a steady traffic of Army freighters and troop transports began steaming from Argentia, Newfoundland, to Narsarssuak, accompanied by Coast Guard cutters to protect them from U-boats and break up the storis (large drifts of ice) in their paths. By September, the Army engineers had constructed 85 buildings and three miles of access roads; the jeeps that were flown in were Greenland's first automobiles. Shortly a civilian contractor's force arrived to begin work on the airfield itself. BLUIE West 1 was to become the major U.S. Army, Navy and Coast Guard base in Greenland. Thousands of aircraft would stop there for refueling on their way to Britain.

[Orm]

I am looking for a place.

1) The first bombing here came as a suprise to the defenders although they had recived warnings but not acted upon them.
2) A majority of the aircraft in the first bombing came from four carriers.

[paulderynck]

Taranto.

[Orm]

No, not Taranto. The Taranto raid was launched from one carrier.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: Orm

I am looking for a place.

1) The first bombing here came as a suprise to the defenders although they had recived warnings but not acted upon them.
2) A majority of the aircraft in the first bombing came from four carriers.

3) This was the largest air raid, during WWII, against the country where this place is located.

[paulderynck]

Ceylon

[Orm]

No, not Ceylon either. The place I am looking for became a city later on. In fact it became a city on Australia day.

[warspite1]

Darwin

[Orm]

I am indeed looking for Darwin. [:)]

Here is a link to a wiki page if someone want to read about the first bomb raid on Darwin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Darwin

[JeffroK]

More bombs were dropped in the raid on Darwin than on Pearl Harbor!

Just as at PH they thought the raid was B17's flying in from the West Coast, it was thought the attackers at Darwin could be aircraft flying in from Java/Timor.

[warspite1]

Which US Navy destroyer was sunk during the Darwin raid?

[Orm]

USS Peary. I had planned to use USS Peary as the next clue for my Darwin question. If you asked this a week ago I would have had no clue at all.[:)]

[ezzler]

Two part question:

Easy 1st part : What was the unfortunate oversight on the Elefant TD.

2nd harder part: What was the partial solution to this problem.

[micheljq]

ORIGINAL: ezz

Two part question:

Easy 1st part : What was the unfortunate oversight on the Elefant TD.

2nd harder part: What was the partial solution to this problem.

Let's try, for 1st part I would say no anti-infantry weaponry.