Most people already know WWII was the largest, deadliest war in human history. Some of that history may already be lost forever, but these little-known facts still have some really big stories to tell.
Wiki Commons by US Army
1. The U.S. Army built a highway across Canada, and 30% of the engineers were Black.
It had been on U.S. military minds for decades: a highway across Canada that would be useful for transporting heavy equipment up to Alaska. But it wasn’t until March of 1942, with Japanese submarines suddenly threatening sea routes, that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers broke ground on the Alaska Military Highway, aka the Alaska-Canada/ALCAN Highway, the “oil can highway” (because of the trail of discarded oil cans along its route), and even the Road to Civil Rights. More than 1,500 miles long, it’s still widely considered one of the largest and toughest engineering projects in American military history.
While many have heard about the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, it’s often overlooked that roughly 30% of the 11,000 ALCAN engineers were African-American — estimated to be three times their total representation in the U.S. armed forces during WWII. These engineers comprised four "Negro regiments” still very much subject to segregation and discrimination. Often denied resources and proper tools, working day and night in extreme terrain, weather and other dangerous conditions, they still achieved incredible feats. Especially notable were the massive bridges made from surrounding trees, where construction often required hours of deep wading in raging, freezing rivers. Their performance and success earned the respect of a colonel who ordered the desegregation of all his officers’ meals — a small gesture, but still years before the rest of the U.S. military was officially desegregated in 1948. The highway was technically completed in just six months and underwent continual improvements to smooth out the rough spots. However, U.S. forces mainly stuck with the convenience of their sea routes. And when the war was over, per their agreement with the Americans, Canada got their land back with a bonus highway.
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2. Japan attacked Alaska.
Six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan directly attacked American soil again: On June 3, 1942, a Japanese Imperial Navy air assault targeted the U.S. Navy and Army facilities in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Even though Alaska wouldn’t achieve full statehood for another 17 years in 1959, it was still very much considered U.S. territory. The Battle of Dutch Harbor lasted two days, partly because the Americans had intercepted enemy communications and were already on high alert, immediately responding with anti-aircraft fire. They had also taken measures to relocate or fortify their fleet, airfield, supplies and other strategic targets. The Japanese pilots were caught off guard, but dropped their bombs anyway, even hitting barracks where 25 Americans perished.
Wiki Commons by Capt. Lewis R. Devoe, USNR
3. The Forgotten Battle: Japan actually occupied part of Alaska.
The Battle of Dutch Harbor kicked off a long fight over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands that lasted more than a year. Japan wanted to block the path to the Pacific, while Americans feared the location could mark the first enemy occupation in the Western Hemisphere and even be used to launch raids on major West Coast cities. One of those fears came true.
Some historians maintain the effort was essentially trolling, an attempt to distract and divert forces from other key campaigns in the Pacific Theater. But many Americans died during the struggle, and at one point a considerable Japanese force of thousands did occupy two small Aleutian islands, Kiska and Attu, without meeting much resistance. Thanks to intercepted American communications and a radar trick that made their occupation force seem four times its actual size, all the Japanese managed to escape weeks before U.S. troops arrived in August 1943, presumably scratching their heads. The occupiers had blown up everything they couldn’t take with them, leaving only the booby traps and dangerous conditions that would result in the deaths of 30 U.S. servicemen. Overshadowed by the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Aleutian Islands campaign is also known as “The Forgotten Battle.”
Wiki Commons by Spieth
4. German “buzz bombs” were essentially wind-up missiles.
In the European theater, “buzz bombs” or “doodlebugs” were the early short-range V-1 flying bombs that Germany fired into London, plus other parts of England and eventually other countries. They were mainly used for area bombings because, despite robotics that were advanced for their time, even the most accurate V-1s could still be 7 miles off target. So how did these lethal contraptions navigate and know where to fall? Turns out it was more a matter of “when” — a tiny propeller on the projectile’s nose would rotate exactly 30 times per second. Flight path and wind speeds would be factored into setting an odometer, which monitored the propeller’s rotations, counting down the seconds to zero and then stopping the rudder. That started a nosedive so steep it also killed the engine, resulting in a very deadly drop out of the sky.
Next, four fuses were designed to keep the Allies from recovering any doodlebug duds: one impact fuse in the nose, another in the belly, a third set to go off shortly after a soft landing, and a fourth timed for 2 hours after launch, if all else failed.
Wiki Commons by Sgt Bill Augustine
5. Before the war, Germany developed part of their airforce in Russia.
As part of an agreement between Russia and Germany — and with plans to split all of Europe between them — Russia was said to have allowed Germany to secretly build planes and train pilots in Russian territory. That’s one reason Stalin didn’t quite believe Hitler would really invade Russia with, say, 3 million troops in June of 1941, even when they started amassing at the border. Instead the Russians bought the Germans’ story that they were gathering there merely to distance themselves from other European threats. Hitler, however, apparently always believed the Russians were inferior and never intended to abide by any agreements.
Wiki Commons by Takeo Kanda
6. Colossal battleships and submarines weren’t too big to fail.
Japan built both of the biggest, baddest battleships ever put into service, the heavyweights "Musashi" and "Yamato," which also carried the largest guns ever mounted on any ship. Yet Midway marked the first battle where the opposing fleets never directly engaged each other — it was all about the airplanes — although the "Yamato" was there and Marshal Admiral Yamamoto was in command. After the devastating Midway loss, however, the battleship was literally kept at bay much of the time, often docked between transport missions. This may have been partly for protection after its counterpart, the "Musashi," was sunk on its way to another battle in 1944. The "Yamato" still never saw direct combat until 1945, when it was sunk during a last-ditch effort to reach Okinawa.
A similar fate befell the world’s largest non-nuclear submarines, three more marvels of the Japanese Imperial Navy. At 400 feet long, the I-400s were twice as long and twice as heavy as anything U.S. submariners had ever seen. They couldn’t travel very deep or do much of anything very fast. But they could double as aircraft carriers, complete with runways and hangers, with each behemoth able to ferry up to three Japanese bombers across an ocean undetected, and then surface to launch the planes from almost anywhere. I-400s were developed because Japan had an eye on disrupting supply shipments going through the Panama Canal. But construction took so long, Japan surrendered the month before the first major I-400 mission could be carried out. All three subs were closely studied and then intentionally sunk by the Americans to keep the powerful technology out of the wrong hands.
Wiki Commons by U.S. Navy, photographed from USS Wichita (CA-45).
7. A key U.S. submarine base was hidden in Idaho — and still is.
At 1,150 feet deep and 350 miles from the nearest ocean, Idaho’s vast and serene Lake Pend Oreille started harboring a secret in 1942: Farragut Naval Training Station. It was named after Admiral David Farragut, famous for his Civil War order of “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”
The lake was originally scouted by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was flying over on her way to Seattle and knew her husband was looking for a hidden inland training spot. Hundreds of thousands of trainees passed through this secret base during the war, while some of the most important U.S. submarine technology was — and still is — designed, developed and tested there. At one point it even housed an estimated 900 German prisoners of war. Today it operates as the Navy’s Acoustic Research Detachment (ARD).
