LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT WWII #shorts #history

LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT WWII #shorts #history

1. The last Japanese soldier finally surrendered in 1974
It’s not unusual for soldiers to continue fighting for a cause once their nation has surrendered. This is just the reality of what it’s like to fight a conflict across multiple continents and countries. But when the last fighting soldier surrenders almost thirty years after the conflict ends, there’s something awfully strange about the whole situation.

This is what happened to Teruo Nakamura, an indigenous Taiwanese soldier that joined the Japanese military at the beginning of the war. He assumed the war was still raging on while his unit fled into a jungle in Indonesia. He survived on his own, foraging for whatever food he could until he was finally found in December 1974.

2. An astonishing number of soldiers died during pilot training
WWII was one of the first major conflicts to make use of aviation. There was a massive rush to train new pilots so many of the aviation programs weren’t thought out correctly or had enough safety measures in place.

As a result, over 15,000 deaths occurred during pilot training. These were mostly due to pilot error or mechanical failure. It was such a problem that the B-24 bomber was known as the most dangerous plane in the war, receiving the nickname ‘the flying coffin’.

To put this into perspective, around 52,000 American flight crew members died in WWII, meaning almost 30% of pilot deaths occurred outside of conflict.