Free Republic

A teenage cook whose heroics onboard a warship helped shorten the Second World War has been honoured in his home town after a public vote. The regenerated centre of North Shields, North Tyneside, has been named after Thomas Brown, who was awarded the George Medal for helping to retrieve codebooks from a sinking German U-boat in October 1942. The books were later used to crack the Enigma code by experts at Bletchley Park, enabling the British to decipher Nazi messages. Two naval men died while searching the stricken submarine but Thomas, a 15-year-old civilian who lied about his age to...

Folded in his bunk aboard the U-505 submarine, with temperatures topping 100 degrees, a German sailor recorded his misery: "For a few days now we have been 'enjoying' the tropical heat. Everybody is perspiring freely,'' he writes. "Even in the bunks it takes only a few minutes until everything is soaked wet. The heat is so unbearable. ... "Sometimes wish I could shed my skin." On June 5, the Museum of Science and Industry will open a new $35 million indoor exhibit of its famous World War II U-505 sub, captured by the U.S. Navy in 1944. But the museum's...

'It was a little-known Second World War tactic to fool the Germans - and it certainly did the job. These extraordinary photos reveal how Operation Starfish helped to dupe Nazi aircraft by creating a number of decoy towns which were built to lure enemy bombers away from more populated areas. The Starfish Sites - which got their name from the initials ‘SF’, standing for ‘Special Fire’ sites - were designed by Colonel John Turner and were intended to simulate burning UK cities during the Blitz.'

Date: Aug. 19, 1942 Time: 5 a.m. Location: A stone beach on the northern coast of France. Operation: More than 6,000 Allied forces infantrymen attempt to penetrate a German stronghold. Outcome: Unmitigated disaster. Less than six hours later, 60 per cent of the infantrymen were dead, injured and/or captured; 907 Canadians died. Why the Allied forces allowed the poorly planned Dieppe Raid to move forward has been a mystery for decades - until now. Montreal historian David O'Keefe has solved the mystery and, in the process, has rewritten a defining moment in military history. O'Keefe, a military historian by profession,...