THE STORIES BEHIND THE 60 CAPTURED RARE AUTHENTIC WORLD WAR II PHOTOS YOU MUST SEE | PART 4

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Let us go back in time 75 years to be precise. It was the morning of January 1, 1945, and Gefreiter Alfred Michel's short participation in WW2 had just come to an abrupt end. The 23 year old fighter pilot of 16./JG53 had taken to the skies that morning, in what was his first and last combat mission as part of “Operation Bodenplatte”, the Luftwaffe’s last offensive operation of the war.

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The primary objective was to hit 16 Allied airfields and destroy as many aircraft as possible on the ground. But to reach their targets the German pilots had first to survive Allied air coverage and ground AA batteries.

When his unit (IV./JG53) engaged some US artillery and AA positions near Waldweistroff, in the Franco-German border, Gefreiter Michel’s Me 109G-14 ‘Blue 2’ was hit by .50 caliber rounds which damaged the engine, forcing him to belly-land in a nearby field.

Michel came out unhurt of the ordeal, save for a nasty bump on the head, and immediately tried to run across the field to some nearby woods. A section of “D” Battery, 455th AAA, overlooking the crash scene fired two 40 mm rounds ahead at him. At the sight of the tracers, Michel promptly stopped and sat down to await the men of the US 90th Infantry Division rushing to the scene. Upon inspection, it was found that his aircraft guns had not been fired.

Others were not so lucky as Gefreiter Michel. In the same area, three other IV./JG53 pilots are thought to have been shot down by the 455th AAA. Two of them, Fähnrich Siegfried Leese and Fähnrich Wolfgang Rosenberg, born one month apart, were only 19 years old. All 3 are MIA to this day.

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The History Behind World War II

World War II was the biggest and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, the war dragged on for six bloody years until the Allies defeated Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945.

The war was fought between the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) and the Allied Powers (Britain, United States, Soviet Union, France). Most of the countries in the world were involved in some way. It was the deadliest war in all of human history with around 70 million people killed.

The carnage of World War II was unprecedented and brought the world closest to the term “total warfare.” On average 27,000 people were killed each day between September 1, 1939, until the formal surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945.

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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUFJKspPCM-Vjy-QT07MAaDCZKU4J1vfq

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