# Any famous urban legends of WWII? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 13, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640 "2012-09-13T23:09:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/81 "2012-09-16T04:25:22Z")
The Tuskegee Airmen are generally credited with having never lost an escorted bomber to enemy fighters. Evidently this has been known not to be the case since during WWII, but the claim was printed in a newspaper and it made for good (and persistent) press. Their record was quite good, regardless, losing fewer bombers on average than most other units assigned escort. Another one for the Tuskegee Airmen is the claim that they are the only pilots ever to sink an enemy destroyer using only machine gun fire, which is more of an exaggeration than anything else. A pair of P-47s with the 332d Fighter Group engaged a former Italian destroyer (converted by the Germans into a torpedo boat) and managed to set off the torpedoes (stored on the deck of the ship), which resulted in the ship being badly damaged enough that it never saw combat again, and it was eventually scuttled in November 1944. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/82 "2012-09-16T04:27:55Z")
I would question that claim anyway, based on gun-camera footage from the Pacific Theater. IIRC, there were several Japanese destroyers rather heavily mauled by Hellcats in strafing runs, with a couple blowing up real good. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/83 "2012-09-16T06:39:51Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I would question that claim anyway, based on gun-camera footage from the Pacific Theater. IIRC, there were several Japanese destroyers rather heavily mauled by Hellcats in strafing runs, with a couple blowing up real good. And then there were the gunship-modded [B-25J](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_B-25_Mitchell)s in Kenney’s Fifth Air Force. Some of them had up to 14 .50 caliber machine guns firing forward, and another 4 for the waist gunners and tail gunner. They had rockets and [skip bombs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_bombing), so it may not have just been the .50s that did it, but I wouldn’t doubt that a flight of Mitchells could sink a destroyer or DE with just the guns. Especially if the 75mm that some of them carried scored a few hits. Japanese stereotypically cavalier attitudes towards damage control probably didn’t help. **Cicero** hit it on the head for the Lancasters. The wiki for the German [Schrage Musik](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%A4ge_Musik) tactic goes into quite a bit of detail. As do the following [discussion](http://forum.keypublishing.com/archive/index.php?t-67563.html) group threads and [articles](http://www.207squadron.rafinfo.org.uk/wesseling/wesseling_schrage_musik.htm). This one is an [interview with Freeman Dyson,](http://www.technologyreview.com/article/406789/a-failure-of-intelligence/) discussing his Operational Research work with Bomber Command, among his comments are regrets that they never really figured out Schrage Musik until the end of the War. Interesting if you find OR interesting at all. A sad irony for the Lancasters is that the [tail warning radar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_tail_warning_radar) they developed to try and detect night fighters, was used by the Germans to [home in on the bombers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flensburg_(FuG_227)) that were emitting it. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/84 "2012-09-16T06:57:56Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > And then there were the gunship-modded [B-25J](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_B-25_Mitchell)s in Kenney’s Fifth Air Force. Some of them had up to 14 .50 caliber machine guns firing forward, and another 4 for the waist gunners and tail gunner. Ah yes, I remember making an Airfix B-25 years ago - I decided I liked the solid-nosed J variant for sheer badassery. Four .50-cals in fuselage blisters, eight in the nose, and the mid-upper turret was well forward on that version so the gunner could add his two to the fun. That and the Beaufighter (six .303s in the wing, four 20mm cannon in the nose, eight rockets or a torpedo) were some of the worst news around. ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/85 "2012-09-16T07:05:17Z")
Re: Hitler’s uniball. I read that it was bitten off, or at least damaged to the point of unusability in WWI by a dog in Belgium, specifically a Bouvier de Flandres. Supposedly when Germany overran Belgium in 1940 Hitler ordered all the breed destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/86 "2012-09-16T07:22:30Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > **Cicero** hit it on the head for the Lancasters. The wiki for the German [Schrage Musik](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%A4ge_Musik) tactic goes into quite a bit of detail. As do the following [discussion](http://forum.keypublishing.com/archive/index.php?t-67563.html) group threads and [articles](http://www.207squadron.rafinfo.org.uk/wesseling/wesseling_schrage_musik.htm). This one is an [interview with Freeman Dyson,](http://www.technologyreview.com/article/406789/a-failure-of-intelligence/) discussing his Operational Research work with Bomber Command, among his comments are regrets that they never really figured out Schrage Musik until the end of the War. Interesting if you find OR interesting at all. A sad irony for the Lancasters is that the [tail warning radar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_tail_warning_radar) they developed to try and detect night fighters, was used by the Germans to [home in on the bombers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flensburg_(FuG_227)) that were emitting it. I’m glad I got something right in this thread 🙂 The book I have read was “Bomber Boys”- paperback and it only cost a few dollars. It is a very interesting read. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/87 "2012-09-16T23:03:27Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > [Nazis/Lampshades](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2511/did-the-nazis-make-lampshades-out-of-human-skin) etc Ditto for soap made out of reclaimed fat from human corpses. That rumour originaly dates from World War _I_ (but then the fat came from dead German soldiers, not murdered Jews). Hair from female concentration camp victims was used to make wigs though. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > …Hitler chewing on the carpet. Apparently “chewing the carpet” is a German idiom for somebody acting nervously. But somebody said this once about Hitler and when it was translated from German to English people thought it was literally true that Hitler dropped to the floor and began biting the rug. See, now the imagine I got from that involved Eva Braun. > [@robardin](#): > > …Legend has it one of them “snagged” a (genuine) top officer with the question “What state are you from?” (Illinois) “OK, what’s the capital of Illinois?” (Springfield) because the soldier thought the capital was Chicago. As a result the officer was detained for some time, fuming but cooperative (due to the importance of the soldier’s mission), until he was later verified. What about the story of the German spies who blew their cover because they didn’t know what French toast was? ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/88 "2012-09-16T23:20:43Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > I would disagree here. As I mentioned, I have just finished a book (recommend it to anyone by Kevin Wilson) about the bombing of 1943. Very basically, flak was a terrible problem for the Stirling bombers due to a low ceiling. The Halifaxes had a higher ceiling but not as good as the Lancaster. This had the effect of drawing a lot of the fire and nightfighters away from the higher flying Lancasters. When the Stirlings were withdrawn from the bombing of Germany the losses in Lancasters rose. > > Anyway, by 1943 the Germans had adopted a pretty effective tactic called “Nacht Musik”. A night fighter (often a Ju 88 or ME110) was fitted with upward firing cannons. They also had a radar and when a bomber was located they flew underneath the bomber, and just fired upwards. The Lancaster crews did not even know they were there until the aircraft started being torn apart. The bombers - even without radar detection- were able to be seen by being silhouetted against high cloud and with glowing exhausts as the engines struggled with a large bomb load. > > Anyway, end of hijack. You and the subsequent poster are obviously right. A night fighter underneath the bomber would have not been seen. My position was that the rear turret gunner might have observed an attacker on his approach from below and behind. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/89 "2012-09-17T15:59:35Z")
Not quite an urban legend, but it was common knowledge that the ball turret gunner on the B-17s and B-24s was far more likely to die than anyone else in the plane, due to his exposed position (squeezed into a plexiglass ball suspended below the bomber). Fact of the matter was, he was just as likely to die as anyone else. Aircraft aluminum provides just as much protection from machine gun and cannon fire as plexiglass does (none whatsoever), and the German pilots were aiming at the planes, not the ball turrets in particular. Bombers were not typically loaded down with such unnecessary luxuries as armor plating (some variants were loaded up with armor, and those just proved to be too slow to keep up with the rest of the bombers, making them even more vulnerable once they fell behind the mutual protection of the formation) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/90 "2012-09-17T16:19:39Z")
I’ve wondered if the tail gunner thing was true. I could see all the guys in the aft of the plane getting hit more often from attacks from behind, but nothing about those little turrets makes them a great target. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/91 "2012-09-17T16:33:41Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Not quite an urban legend, but it was common knowledge that the ball turret gunner on the B-17s and B-24s was far more likely to die than anyone else in the plane, due to his exposed position (squeezed into a plexiglass ball suspended below the bomber). > > Fact of the matter was, he was just as likely to die as anyone else. Aircraft aluminum provides just as much protection from machine gun and cannon fire as plexiglass does (none whatsoever), and the German pilots were aiming at the planes, not the ball turrets in particular. Bombers were not typically loaded down with such unnecessary luxuries as armor plating (some variants were loaded up with armor, and those just proved to be too slow to keep up with the rest of the bombers, making them even more vulnerable once they fell behind the mutual protection of the formation) While it’s true the ball turret material was no more or less vulnerable to cannon fire, it was my understanding that the fear that accompanied being assigned to the ball turret was that its electrically-controlled mechanism would fail (due to power cables being cut or servos destroyed) and one would be trapped in the turret, unable to bail out if necessary. One notable tale was of a ball-turret gunner jammed in the ball when his B-17 had to belly-land without functioning gear. He couldn’t get out, the plane couldn’t fly forever, and everybody knew he’d be crushed when they belly-flopped onto the runway. I don’t know how many cases of jammed/nonfunctioning ball turrets actually prevented someone from escaping, but I do know that aircrew worried about it. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/92 "2012-09-17T16:42:06Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I’ve wondered if the tail gunner thing was true. I could see all the guys in the aft of the plane getting hit more often from attacks from behind, but nothing about those little turrets makes them a great target. Luftwaffe strategy during WWII was to try and avoid attacking bombers from their 6 o’clock, as that was where the bombers were least vulnerable, due to the relatively lower closing speed (the fighters had to catch up with the bombers when attacking from behind, while the bombers were flying towards them in a head-on attack) and due to the bombers being able to bring more guns to bear (tail gunners, turret gunners, and ball-turret gunners). Preferred strategy was to attack head-on, as the earlier heavy bombers lacked much armament in the nose (nose turrets in the B-24s and chin turrets in the B-17s were introduced as a result of this). ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/93 "2012-09-17T20:40:18Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I’ve wondered if the tail gunner thing was true. I could see all the guys in the aft of the plane getting hit more often from attacks from behind, but nothing about those little turrets makes them a great target. Other than wanting to silence their guns as soon as possible so you can then concentrate on taking the plane apart in comparative safety. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/94 "2012-09-17T20:56:59Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Other than wanting to silence their guns as soon as possible so you can then concentrate on taking the plane apart in comparative safety. Ok, but leaving aside the previous post about the direction of attack, would they be trying to aim at that little turret, or just the tail of the plane. I think they’d try to fire a pattern across or along the aircraft instead of some small specific target. But I wasn’t a WWII fighter pilot, don’t know exactly what techniques they would have used. Certainly the frontal attack to increase the approach speed makes a lot of sense. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/95 "2012-09-18T02:34:19Z")
Dunno how it worked for night bombing, but the doctrine for daylight bombing in WWII was to have the bombers in mutually supporting arrangements (the “Staggered Box” formation was the preferred one), so that any aircraft could be supported by other nearby planes. So unless a fighter pilot just found a particular sweet spot, he would probably never find a spot where he could be totally undistracted by the gunners. Then of course, there were the escorts, who were actively hunting down the attacking fighters. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/96 "2012-09-18T03:45:03Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > [Glenn Miller dying in a Paris brothel](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1905/did-band-leader-glenn-miller-die-in-a-french-brothel) Speaking of which, wasn’t there a poster who came in to say his father’s friend or some such saw Miller in the alleged brothel? A quick Search turned up nothing, and I can’t be arsed to spend more time looking for him. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/97 "2012-09-18T04:06:57Z")
[My Dad was with Glenn Miller in his final moments](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=523980) ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/98 "2012-09-18T04:11:16Z")
That’s it. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/99 "2012-09-18T13:56:14Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Not quite an urban legend, but it was common knowledge that the ball turret gunner on the B-17s and B-24s was far more likely to die than anyone else in the plane, due to his exposed position (squeezed into a plexiglass ball suspended below the bomber). > > Fact of the matter was, he was just as likely to die as anyone else. Aircraft aluminum provides just as much protection from machine gun and cannon fire as plexiglass does (none whatsoever), and the German pilots were aiming at the planes, not the ball turrets in particular. Bombers were not typically loaded down with such unnecessary luxuries as armor plating (some variants were loaded up with armor, and those just proved to be too slow to keep up with the rest of the bombers, making them even more vulnerable once they fell behind the mutual protection of the formation) Wouldn’t the ball turret gunner be especially vulnerable to flak from anti-aircraft guns? IIRC, that’s what almost gets the ball turret gunner in the movie _Memphis Belle_: flak shatters the plexiglass turret, and if we wasn’t wearing his safety straps he would have landed several hours sooner than his crewmates :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640/100 "2012-09-18T14:19:11Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Ditto for soap made out of reclaimed fat from human corpses. That rumour originaly dates from World War _I_ (but then the fat came from dead German soldiers, not murdered Jews). Hair from female concentration camp victims was used to make wigs though. Re soap: the story I heard was that the legend was sufficiently established during WW2 itself that Nazis used it to taunt their victims. However, in an odd case of legend perhaps inspiring reality, there is in fact evidence that the Nazis experimented with making human soap, but never did so on any kind of scale: > **[Soap made from human corpses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_made_from_human_corpses)** > > During the 20th century there were various alleged instances of soap being made from human body fat. During World War I the British press claimed that the Germans operated a corpse factory in which they made glycerine and soap from the bodies of their own soldiers. Both during and after World War II, widely circulated rumors claimed that soap was being mass-produced from the bodies of the victims of Nazi concentration camps which were located in German-occupied Poland. During the Nuremberg trials... The Nazis did use human hair (as stuffing) and extracted gold teeth from victims. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-famous-urban-legends-of-wwii/634640.md?page=6)