WWII Quiz

papasha408 said:
Could it be the M34
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Ok a clue, it became the Me 108 but prior to it being an Me 108 it was known as the ?? 108.

The aircraft like the Me 109 was originally made by Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG which should tell you what the first 2 initials are.
 
BritinAfrica said:
Oh crikey, could it be BF108 that you are looking for?
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I was running out of clues.
:)

Indeed it was the BF-108 although he was close with the M-34 but the 108 was in fact the M-37.

Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW) (Bavarian Aircraft Works) was reformed in 1926, in Augsburg, Bavaria, when Udet-Flugzeugbau GmbH was changed into a joint-stock company. In the early stages, BMW AG held a stake in this company and was represented by Josef Popp, who held a place on the Supervisory Board.
Willy Messerschmitt joined the company in 1927 as chief designer and engineer, and formed a design team.
One of the first designs, the Messerschmitt M20, was a near-catastrophe for the designer and the company. Many of the prototypes crashed, one of them killing Hans Hackmack, a close friend of Erhard Milch, the head of Deutsche Luft Hansa and the German civil aviation authorities. Milch was upset by the lack of response from Messerschmitt and this led to a lifelong hatred towards him. Milch eventually cancelled all contracts with Messerschmitt and forced BFW into bankruptcy in 1931. However, the German re-armament programs and Messerschmitt's friendship with Hugo Junkers prevented a stagnation of the careers of him and BFW, which was started again in 1933. Milch still prevented Messerschmitt's takeover of the BFW until 1938, hence the designation "Bf" of early Messerschmitt designs.


Messerschmitt promoted a concept he called "light weight construction" in which many typically separate load-bearing parts were merged into a single reinforced firewall, thereby saving weight and improving performance. The first true test of the concept was in the Bf 108 Taifun sports-plane, which would soon be setting all sorts of records. Based on this performance the company was invited to submit a design for the Luftwaffe's 1935 fighter contest, winning it with the Bf 109, based on the same construction methods.


From this point on Messerschmitt became a favorite of the Nazi party, as much for his designs as his political abilities and the factory location in southern Germany away from the "clumping" of aviation firms on the northern coast. BFW was reconstituted as Messerschmitt AG on July 11, 1938, with Willy Messerschmitt as chairman and managing director.


The renaming of BFW resulted in the company's RLM designation prefix changing from Bf to Me for all newer designs that were accepted by the RLM after the acquisition date. Existing types, such as the Bf 109 and 110, retained their earlier designation in official documents, although sometimes the newer designations were used as well, most often by subcontractors, such as Erla Flugzeugwerke of Leipzig.


In practise, all BFW/Messerschmitt aircraft from the Bf 108 four-seat touring monoplane, to the Bf 163 light observation aircraft (not the same plane as the later Me 163 rocket fighter) were prefixed Bf, all later types with Me.
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Which interestingly enough is why there are no Me 109s, they were all Bf 109s yet the 209 would have been designated Me 209.
 
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MontyB said:
Which interestingly enough is why there are no Me 109s, they were all Bf 109s yet the 209 would have been designated Me 209.
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Yet many/most/lot of people still refer to it as the ME 109.

OK here's a simple one,

What important discovery was in a roundabout way leaked to the Axis while WW2 was at its height.
 
As no one seems able to get this one, the answer is penicillin. For humanitarian reasons the censors did not restrict the information regarding the drug hoping perhaps that the Germans scientists could produce their own.
 
I hope I'm not out of place here, but I have a maybe puzzler. Then again, maybe not. Submachine guns in the second world war saw some obscure ones. The one I'm referring to was an excellent design and was created by the allies. It had a wooden stock and was machined commercially. It was well machined and very well put together and strong. Even though intricate machining went into this weapon, it could be immersed in mud and water and take all types of ill treatment and still work. Some were issued to the far east and some to the Mediterranean area. They were used in the kidnapping of a German general in Greece. What is the name of the weapon.
 
This is an obscure weapon. It is called the UD M'42. It was produced by the Marlin firearms company. The weapons were ordered by an obscure organization called United Defense Supply Corporation. Has anyone heard of this Org. and if so who were they.
 
papasha408 said:
This is an obscure weapon. It is called the UD M'42. It was produced by the Marlin firearms company. The weapons were ordered by an obscure organization called United Defense Supply Corporation. Has anyone heard of this Org. and if so who were they.
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The United Defense Supply Corporation was set up in 1940 by the then-neutral American government as a front to supply Allied nations with weapons. United Defense contracted the Marlin gun manufacturing firm to produce the Model 42 submachine gun that had been designed in 1938 by Carl G. Swebilius. These limited quantities were to be sent to the Dutch East Indies, but the Japanese invaded before delivery could be made, and the stocks were given over to the Office of Strategic Services.

Defense Supplies Corporation

811 Vermont Avenue NW.; EXecutive 3111
D[SIZE=-1]IRECTORS[/SIZE] Fred M. Vinson
Charles B. Henderson
M.J. McGrath
Charles T. Fisher, Jr. Howard J. Klossner
Sam H. Husbands
Henry A. Mulligan
O[SIZE=-1]FFICIALS[/SIZE] Chairman of the Board Fred M. Vinson President Henry A. Mulligan Executive Vice President Samuel H. Sabin Vice President M.J. McGrath Vice President and General Counsel George B. Stoner Vice President Stuart K. Barnes Secretary George H. Hubert Assistant Secretary A.T. Hobson Assistant Secretary Ferris B. Thomas Treasurer Willard E. Unzicker Assistant Treasurer Henry N. Bassett Assistant Treasurer Stanley B. Hanes Assistant Treasurer John H. Carroll Assistant General Counsel John C. Erickson Assistant General Counsel Chester S. Shade Assistant General Counsel in Charge of Litigation James L. Dougherty Chief Auditor Nathaniel Royall Information: W.C. Costello, Special Assistant to Board of Directors, RFC;
A.B. Merritt, Administrative Assistant

Creation and Authority.--Defense Supplies Corporation was created by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation on August 20, 1940, pursuant to authority of section 5d of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation Act, as amended, with a capital of $5,000,000.

Purpose.--The purpose of the Corporation is to produce, acquire, carry, sell, or otherwise deal in strategic and critical materials and supplies; to purchase and lease land; to engage in the manufacture of arms, ammunition, and implements of war; to produce, lease, purchase, or otherwise acquire railroad equipment and commercial aircraft, and to lease, sell, or otherwise dispose of same; to acquire facilities for the training of aviators, and take such further action, within a specified dollar limitation, as the President and the Federal Loan Administrator deem necessary to expedite the War Program.

Organization.--The Corporation is managed by a board of directors, appointed by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and by officers and agents appointed by the Corporation. The principal office of the Company is located in Washington, D.C.
 
MontyB said:
The United Defense Supply Corporation was set up in 1940 by the then-neutral American government as a front to supply Allied nations with weapons. United Defense contracted the Marlin gun manufacturing firm to produce the Model 42 submachine gun that had been designed in 1938 by Carl G. Swebilius. These limited quantities were to be sent to the Dutch East Indies, but the Japanese invaded before delivery could be made, and the stocks were given over to the Office of Strategic Services.

.
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The DEI forces were also supposed to get the M-1941 Johnson Rifles also, even though they were in 30-06 instead of the Dutch 6.5mm standard ammo, didn't get there either.
 
Well I guess I will throw out another question...

Approximately one week before the Doolittle raid on Tokyo there was another series of raids on Japanese positions in the Philippines, over three days they flew 20 sorties without loss.
Who commanded the raids?
 
George said:
While we're waiting on this...Who was the only living person to have a Liberty ship (inadvertently) named after him?
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Francis J O'Gara was presumed killed when the Japanese submarine I-8 sunk the SS Jean Nicolet, O'Gara is the only living person to have a Liberty ship named after him. He was found after the war in a Japanese POW camp.

Now back to level bombers.
:)
 
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George said:
Who was the only person to become an Ace flying a bomber?
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I am stumped by this one as I can not find any bomber pilots who shot down any bombers from the pilots seat primarily because I can not think of any bombers where the pilot had control of the guns.

I have found a couple of instances where a crewman on a bomber was credited with 5 or more kills such as F/Sgt Peter Engbrechtof the Royal Canadian Air Force who was officially credited with 5.5 kills and 2 probables while manning the upper mid-turret of a Halifax bomber and one B-17 gunner was awarded 7 kills but I can not find his name.
 
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