# Not really well known stories of war **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 30, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-really-well-known-stories-of-war/773486 "2016-11-30T20:32:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Doyle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doyle/32/439_2.png) [@Doyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doyle)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-really-well-known-stories-of-war/773486/1 "2016-11-30T20:32:12Z")
Sad but interesting. [Hitler’s former food taster reveals the horrors of the Wolf’s Lair](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/hitler-s-food-taster-reveals-the-horrors-of-the-wolf-s-lair-9738880.html) Please share some you have read about. ---
**Author:** ![Brodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cc9497/32.png) [@Brodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brodi)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-really-well-known-stories-of-war/773486/2 "2016-11-30T21:30:02Z")
This one is about Civil War Colonel John Singleton Mosby is kinda funny. > [@](#): > > Mosby’s most famous raid occurred in March of 1863, inside Union lines at Fairfax County Courthouse, when he captured Brigadier General Edwin H. Stoughton. Mosby found Stoughton asleep in bed. Awakening the General with a slap to the rear, Mosby asked “Do you know Mosby, General?” The General replied “Yes! Have you got the rascal?” “No,” said Mosby. “He’s got you!” [http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/john-singleton-mosby.html](http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/john-singleton-mosby.html) During WW2 Witold Pilecki was all kinds of awesome. [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Witold\_Pilecki.html](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Witold_Pilecki.html) ---
**Author:** ![Whiskey\_Dickens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc348/32.png) [@Whiskey\_Dickens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiskey_Dickens)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-really-well-known-stories-of-war/773486/3 "2016-11-30T21:43:53Z")
> [@Doyle](#): > > Sad but interesting. > > [Hitler’s former food taster reveals the horrors of the Wolf’s Lair](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/hitler-s-food-taster-reveals-the-horrors-of-the-wolf-s-lair-9738880.html) > > Please share some you have read about. Never understood food tasters. Is the meal made hours in advance so that the tasters can be evaluated before the meal is eaten by the VIP? What happens if only one small part of the meal is poisoned? Say for example one chickpea is hiding the lethal dose. Anyways! What an incredibly horrible story. The 20th century has so many of them. My entry is from Leech’s [Thirty Years From Home](https://archive.org/stream/thirtyyearsfrom00leecuoft/thirtyyearsfrom00leecuoft_djvu.txt), page 131 on this link. The section describes the fate of a powder monkey (probably 12 to 14) aboad HMS Macedonia during a battle with the USS United States: > [@](#): > > his powder caught fire and burnt the flesh almost off his face. In this pitiable situation, the agonized boy lifted up both hands, as if imploring relief, when a passing shot instantly cut him in two As a dad of a young boy I shudder to think about children in battle. So much to lose. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-really-well-known-stories-of-war/773486/4 "2016-12-01T04:01:12Z")
It might be more well known than I figure (Hell, they made a movie about it\* Heroes of Telemark, \*and a NOVA special), but the story of the raid to sink the German Heavy Water production in a Norway lake has always intrigued me. The NOVA follow-up was fantastic. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-really-well-known-stories-of-war/773486/5 "2016-12-01T16:02:10Z")
The book _The Road to En-Dor_ by E.H. Jones. A true story (despite wording of link below); but what it tells of, must be one of the most bizarre P .O.W.-escape episodes ever. The escape plan by the author and an associate, British / Australian P .O.W.s in Turkey in World War 1: involved their convincing their venal captors, that the pair – claiming to be in league with supernatural forces – knew of potential means for self-enrichment for said captors – which they would facilitate; in the process, they hoped to make their break for freedom. > **[‘The Road to En-Dor’](https://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/the-road-to-en-dor/)** > > Lieutenant H. E. Jones was part of the army that surrendered to the Turks at Kut, and was sent as prisoner to Yozgad , a bleak spot way out in the Anatolian desert. What he did there is the basis o… ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-really-well-known-stories-of-war/773486/6 "2016-12-01T16:37:50Z")
As a former member of the 8th Infantry Division I was made aware of MG Charles Canham. At best he [looked like an accountant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MG_Charles_D.W._Canham.jpg). Sometime after D-Day he was promoted to Brigadier General and made the Assistant Division Commander. He was tasked to receive the surrender of the German garrison at the Port of Brest. The German commander was a Lieutenant General of paratroopers and was annoyed at surrendering to a lower ranking officer. He demanded to see the credentials of Canham. BG Canham pointed to his dirty, tired soldiers and said, “[These are my credentials.](http://image.slidesharecdn.com/these-are-my-credentials-1196882914687974-2/95/these-are-my-credentials-2-728.jpg?cb=1196854115)” That became the motto of the 8th ID. Earlier as a Colonel that nerdy unassuming looking officer commanded the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division. That was the unit that hit Omaha Beach first and took devastating casualties. He was credited as almost single handedly moving his troops off the beach and inland. From wikipedia (and confirmed by other things I’ve read over the years): > [@](#): > > The opening scene of the movie Saving Private Ryan depicts the conditions under which Canham’s regiment landed on the Dog Green sector of Omaha Beach along with one company of Army Rangers. Shortly after hitting the beach, Canham was shot through the wrist, refusing evacuation, he moved his men off Omaha and inland. Sergeant Bob Slaughter (D Company, 116th) remembers Canham screaming at soldiers to move off the beach and go kill Germans. Slaughter remembers him yelling at one lieutenant hiding in a pillbox from a German mortar barrage, “Get your ass out of there and show some leadership!”. Don McCarthy (Headquarters Company, 116th) remembers seeing Canham walking upright along the beach in the face of enemy fire, “I got the hell out of there and moved forward. I was more afraid of Colonel Canham than I was of the Germans.” > > For his actions on Omaha Beach, and the fighting to take Saint Lô, he received the United States’ second highest award for valor in combat, the Distinguished Service Cross . ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-really-well-known-stories-of-war/773486/7 "2016-12-01T17:02:04Z")
> [@Whiskey\_Dickens](#): > > Never understood food tasters. Is the meal made hours in advance so that the tasters can be evaluated before the meal is eaten by the VIP? What happens if only one small part of the meal is poisoned? Say for example one chickpea is hiding the lethal dose. Funny you should mention chickpeas and a couple threads having me harking back to high school history classes. > **[Plotting the ‘Sacricide’ of George Washington - Journal of the American...](https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/07/plotting-the-sacricide-of-george-washington/)** > > There are two versions of how the plot to murder George Washington first came to light in June 1776, precisely at the moment a large British invasion fleet was descending on New York harbor. In one, as fellow soldiers restrained him, private Thomas...