Hitler's Third Reich and World War II in the News is a daily edited review of WWII news, providing thought- provoking collection of hand-picked WW2 information.

Category: Secret Weapons  -- See latest WWII news here. See also 'Strange Weapons', 'Nazi Daggers', 'Helmets'.

Secret Strobelight Weapons of World War II
It might have been the greatest missed weapon of World War II. Major-General JFC Fuller, the man credited with developing modern armored warfare in the 1920's, called failure to use it "the greatest blunder of the whole war." He said that British and American tank units could have invaded Third Reich before the Russians if it had been deployed. The secret weapon he was talking about: the Canal Defence Light - a powerful searchlight mounted on a tank, with a shutter allowing it to flicker 6 times a second. The 13-million candlepower searchlight was designed to illuminate the battlefield and dazzle the enemy.     [ wired :: 2008-05-18 :: Secret Weapons ]

The Civilian Camouflage Directorate: Team that 'hid' wartime factories
They were landscape painters, set designers and Royal Academy artists. More used to living the London lavishness, these were the people called upon to defend factories, ships, docks and air bases. Posted to Leamington Spa under the name of the Civilian Camouflage Directorate, their secret task was to camouflage key bombing targets. Led by designer Christopher Ironside and Captain Lancelot Glasson, the 250-strong group used a giant turntable at the roller-skating rink to create models that could be viewed in all weather conditions. From this came an array of camouflage techniques to confuse Luftwaffe.     [ bbc :: 2008-05-09 :: Camouflage during World War II ]

World War II 'balloon bomb' part found - Japanese secret weapon
A key part of a "balloon bomb," a secret weapon used by Imperial Japanese Army to attack the U.S. mainland during World War II, was discovered and is to be presented to a national science museum in Ueno Ward. The part, an altitude maintenance device, is owned by Seiko Sakurai. Most parts of the weapon, except for the balloons themselves, have been discovered. The planned donation will give clues into understanding a weapon developed in the closing days of the war. Over 9,000 were launched between fall 1944 and April 1945. The only damage the weapon caused was 6 people killed in Oregon.     [ japantimes :: 2007-12-26 :: Secret Weapons ]

Colossus Declassified - Rewriting computing history with Colossus
A secret project conducted more than 60 years ago held the origins of the modern computing era, and that the country behind project did such a good job erasing its tracks that it did itself a disservice. The world's first digital computer wasn't developed on American soil but during a British top-secret wartime effort "Colossus". A team built the room-sized computer to decrypt German military radio transmissions. There were 10 Colossus models produced during the war by a team led by Thomas Flowers. The Brits have declassified the key documents, and as a result a book is out "Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Code-breaking Computers".     [ wired :: 2007-09-20 :: Nazi scientists and Science ]

World War II Foo Fighters
In the 1938 comic strip Smokey Stover, a firefighter was known for his line "Where there's foo, there's fire." From Smokey, World War II aircraft pilots borrowed the term "foo fire" to describe the phenomenon seen in the skies over Europe and the Pacific theatre. While Allied pilots thought the flying objects were German secret or psychological weapons, after the war it was discovered that sightings were also reported by the enemy. To this day the sightings remain a mystery. Over the course of WWII, fireballs, as big as 300 feet and as small as 1 foot, were reported. While scientists have never been able to explain the phenomenon, 5 most plausible theories are...     [ pr-gb :: 2007-09-13 :: Unsolved Mysteries of WWII ]

Secret plan to bury soldiers alive inside Rock of Gibraltar
Last survivor tells of operation to monitor Germans: It was a top-secret wartime mission, code-named Operation Tracer, in which 6 men volunteered to be buried alive in the cave if the Rock were captured by the Germans, so they could continue to monitor enemy movements. More than 60 years after the end of World War II, Bruce Cooper has been named as the chamber's last survivor, as researchers struggle to unlock its remaining secrets. The team were warned that they may have to be sealed inside the operation post for as long as a year, although they were aware that it could be longer. The operation was so secret that not even Whitehall knew about it.     [ belfasttelegraph.co.uk :: 2007-03-24 :: Secret Weapons ]

UK's most valuable technological secrets given to US
In the summer of 1940, the war with Nazi Germany was at a critical stage. France had surrendered and the Luftwaffe was engaged in a concerted bombing campaign. The UK was being cut off from the Continent, and she would soon be near the limit of her productive capacity in the field of electronics. 29 August: a small team of the top scientists, in conditions of absolute secrecy, was about to board a converted ocean liner. With them they carried possibly the most precious cargo of the war: a black metal deed box containing all of Britain's major technological secrets. They were on their way to America to give them away.     [ bbc :: 2007-02-06 :: Technology of World War II ]

Nazi counterfeiting forged 12% of all pound-sterlings in existence
Adolf Burger held up one of the British 5-pound notes he helped forge for the Germans. He was recruited by an SS officer Bernhard Kruger to the top-secret Operation Bernhard - one of the biggest attempts at financial sabotage in history. The Nazis forced 140 prisoners to forge so much British currency that by 1945, 12% of all pound-sterling bills were fake. In early 1945, SS switched their attention to dollars. Captain Kruger gave Smolianoff, Burger and two others the job of figuring out how to copy $100 bills. A filmmaker has made a new movie (to be released in March) about the operation called "The Forger," based partly on Burger's memoir.     [ post-gazette :: 2007-01-23 :: Fake Militaria ]

Thai firm seeks to search for undersea WWII secret weapons
A Thai marine-supply company based in southern Phuket is seeking permission to salvage what it believes are two British "human torpedoes", or Chariots, that have been lying in the sea near Phuket since World War II. The Chariots sank near Dok Mai Island of Phuket Province during a mission in World War Two. Manned torpedoes were secret naval weapons commissioned during World War II. The British versions were electrically propelled mini-submarines with two crewmen equipped with diving suits riding astride.     [ angolapress :: 2006-05-06 :: Secret Weapons ]

X marks the spot of town's vital war role in miniature submarines
Huddersfield's crucial role in the battle beneath the waves during the Second World War continues to be remembered. The bravery of those who sailed in miniature submarines known as X-Craft, will never be forgotten. And those who secretly helped to build some of them at the Broadbent engineering works in Huddersfield will also be remembered. The tiny vessels took part in a number of daring raids. Famously, some of the `midget subs' were used to attack the German battleship Tirpitz in Norway on September 22, 1943. They sailed up Altenfjord and planted mines on the mighty ship's hull.     [ ichuddersfield :: 2006-04-25 :: Midget submarines ]

Reunion of the "light brigade" - secret project of WWII
During WWII the Butler Valley was the site of a secret government training camp the Army had declared the middle of nowhere. Their mission was to conduct experiments on one of the most secret projects of WWII, second only to the atomic bomb. Soldiers who talked about it were threatened with death. The secret weapon was the Canal Defense Light, a high-intensity light mounted in the turret of an M3 tank. Its purpose was to exploit Germany's vulnerability in night combat. U.S. troops hoped to disorient the enemy. "It was considered to be the decisive weapon of the war," says professor Roger Baty.     [ azcentral :: 2006-02-28 :: Secret Weapons ]

See also

'Strange Weapons'

'Nazi Daggers'

'Helmets'.

Although the articles linked from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich 1933-1945 and World War II in the News are reviewed and specially selected, they do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, who is not responsible for the content of any external sites. This service is © Joni Nuutinen 2005-2008. All rights reserved.