Unexplained Mysteries of World War II

by Robert Jackson

A study of World War II's great mysteries features tales of Churchill, Hitler, Bormann, Amelia Earhart, Leslie Howard, and Rudolph Hess

Genres: History, World War II, Nonfiction

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Joe Krakovsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1944 one US submarine, the USS TANG, had a very successful wartime patrol sinking enemy ships with gunfire as well as torpedoes. They had one left and somebody jokingly suggested saving the last torpedo as a souvenir. They should have, for when they later fired it, for some reason it circled back and sank their own sub!

This was just one of fourteen entries. Each was rather small and some of the info can now be found on Wikipedia. My copy was a reprint in 1991 so yea, it may be dated, but was still fun to read about Amelia Earhart, Leslie Howard, and the fiasco of the German A-bomb project.

Of special interest to me was the hidden treasures of WWII. It is pretty much common knowledge that the Nazis looted treasures and works of art from conquered countries. Much, but not all has been recovered. "The Monuments Men" was a movie about US troops recovering some. This book mentions a lieutenant in the US army by the name of Joe T. Meador. He and his unit were supposed to guard some but instead he started mailing pieces home! He got away with it as the area came under Communist control. It wasn't until he died in 1980 that rumors started circulating among dealers of items soon to appear on the market. The authorities eventually recovered about two-thirds of the missing treasure. During the investigation other treasures were found. It seems that some of the liberators were as bad as the Nazis when it came to looting. The reason this article appealed to me personally was because of a story I remember as a child. It seems that a certain American diplomat had Air Force personnel ship crates labelled aircraft parts to his home address in the US. When the padlocks (padlocks?) were removed from the crates carpets, paintings, and who knows what else was removed. Unfortunately nobody had cell phones back then to record this. I have wondered how much of this missing loot can be found in places like Martha's Vineyard or Dubai?

One other article was about a mysterious red head who took wartime Stockholm by storm. Nobody knew who she really was or where she came from, let alone her wartime sympathies, for she dated both Axis and Allied diplomats. In a town full of spies she lived a glamorous whirlwind social life and probably put organizations like the OSS, MI5, and Abwehr on edge. She seemed to have special privileges granted by both sides. Eventually, in 1944, she was murdered and her body never found. Was she a superspy or just some pretty girl out to have fun?

"The Unexplained Mysteries of WWII" was an easy yet interesting read.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall not a bad book for younger history readers. nothing to involved or deep but nice quick entries to get the interest going. Recommended

[Michael Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is not only rather dull, it’s also mis-named. The disappearance of Amelia Earhart, the fate of Martin Bormann and the Lady Be Good, and the German motivation in shooting down Leslie Howard’s plane are almost the only “mysteries” investigated. “How close was Hitler to perfecting the atomic bomb?” is an interesting sidelight on the war, but it’s not a mystery, nor is the self-sinking of the submarine Tang in 1944. Many of the illustrations included are pure padding and have little or nothing to do with the subject under discussion, and because the author is a Brit, he stretches to include details of British involvement in events in which they were very peripheral.

[Christina York · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved it :) very interesting.