There were quite a few that I know of. There was Nicholas Alkemade (already mentioned) who probably deserves some special credit because he fell about 20,000 feet and basically shook it off and walked away (had a sprained knee or ankle and a few minor cuts and bruises, and that’s about it). There was also Alan Magee, who also fell about 20,000 feet and came crashing down through the skylight of the St. Nazaire train station. Alan is the one that TriPolar’s myth referred to. The fact that he fell and survived isn’t a myth. It happened (and he didn’t quite walk away without a scratch like Nicholas did - Alan shattered his arm and had many other injuries). The myth though was that a bomb went off just before he hit and slowed him down. That was just silly, and the Mythbusters proved it, but it has been a myth that has been around since the event happened. Incidentally, Alan himself couldn’t tell you how he survived. He lost consciousness during the descent.
There was also a Russian named Ivan Chisov who fell roughly the same height and came crashing down the side of a ravine and was badly injured. ETA: Ivan probably also deserves special mention because he jumped with a perfectly functional parachute. He intentionally didn’t pull the cord, intending to drop down below the battle so he wouldn’t get shot by an enemy fighter. Instead he passed out and never pulled the cord.
There were a few more as well, but those are the most well known stories.
There is the hoary old chestnut about the Soviets strapping bombs to dogs and training them to run under tanks and detonate them. (Blowing up tanks and dogs). The story went that unfortunately the Soviets trained them using their own tanks and once on the battlefield the bomb dogs headed for Soviet rather than German tanks.
There’s also the legend about Russian troops jumping out of planes without parachutes. Supposedly the troop planes just flew as low and slow as they could and the troops hoped for the best. The legend plays on the common belief that the Soviets considered their troops to be expendable and that they would be so heartless to consider having many of their troops injured or killed was an acceptable solution to an equipment shortage as long as enough troops would survive the fall to be able to fight.
I think so, if they’re transmitted nowadays or in recent times as urban legends. I’m enjoying reading all these stories so I’d hate to limit this thread too much. I suspect many of the legends of WWI had their genesis in propaganda as well.
Supposedly the first contact the allies had with a Volkswagen took place after the invasion of Southern France when a drunken German officer drove one into the open doors of a beached US Navy LST landing ship.
According to folklore, the Germans had a commando unit that dressed in American uniforms and spoke English with flawless American accents. They infiltrated behind American lines to commit espionage and sabotage.
One sentry caught them by asking them to sing the third verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner”. The Nazis, with Teutonic diligence, had committed the entire song to memory. Real Americans had probably never heard the third verse more than once in their lives, and were unlikely to be able to remember it.
If we are talking of the same thing there were about 2000 English speaking Germans under the command of Skorzeny during the battle of the Bulge. They were given allied uniforms and captured vehicles. Most of them ended up being rounded up and shot after rather hasty kangaroo courts but it did sow mistrust behinsd the Allied lines.
I hadn’t heard of the bit about the Star Spangled Banner though
There are pics of Anti Tank dogs, stuffed in a musuem, in training, and many references made to their existence by both Russian and German sources. Even Guderian mentions them in his account of the war.
They were ineffectual and their use was discontinued almost immediately but I have never come across any doubt about the existence of AT dogs.
I have come across quite a number of sources which state that it was a myth but I don’t have the books with me now (it is getting on on a Friday night). I’ll see if I can dig at least one up tomorrow and post the citation here.
I think the myth is not so much that the dogs existed but that they blew up Soviet tanks rather than German ones. Anyway, I’ll see what I can find.
I have no idea whether it’s a myth or not, but I have seen a story about it on the History Channel (which may as well be called the Mythology Channel), complete with the part about the dogs blowing up the Soviet tanks.
Yes, that was the famous Operation Greif. This would be the first “negative test” I’ve heard about exposing native-level English-speaking foreign inflitrators of that sort. Instead, the usual story I’ve read (but is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article) is that when the Army realized what was afoot, squads of vetted soldiers were let loose and given latitude to stop and question anyone they did not recognize, regardless of rank insignia (due to the fake uniforms being used), to verify their American identity with questions that any American soldier would likely know but that a foreigner might not: “who plays first base for the Yankees?”, “What’s the address of the White House?”, “The cat’s named Tom, the mouse is named what?”.
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.
German troops on Operation Barbarossa saw the spires of the Kremlin…as they fought their way towards Moscow. Absolute rubbish-the German troops got (maybe) within 70 miles of the outskirts of Moscow… and most of them were starving and freezing, so I doubt they had any time to take in the sights.
Oh, and how could we forget the rumor that Hitler “has only got one ball”! (Which may in fact have been true, but was definitely propogated an “urban legend” as we understand it today).
There’s one about the Luftwaffe repairing shot-down B-17’s and crewing them with English-speaking Germans who would pretend to be stragglers, fit into an American formation, then start firing.
And another about Luftwaffe fighter pilots particularly targeting planes of the “Bloody 100th” for an alleged act of treachery.
