WWII Quiz

MontyB said:
There is also further coroborating evidence in that the three personal items listed on the body of Major Martin were identified recently as the three items that were always carried by the HMS Dasher crewman by his surviving sister.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/27/1043534001763.html
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Good site Monty, I missed that one.

Now to get back to my question.

Who was the youngest sailor to win the Victoria Cross?

On which ship did he win his VC?

During which battle did he win his VC?

At what age did he win his VC?
 
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Boy Seaman 1st class John "jack" cornwell, 16 1/2 when awarded the VH. assigned to the HMS Chester, at the battle of Jutland...his story.

John "Jack" Travers Cornwell was born as a third child into a working-class family at Clyde Place, Leyton, Essex (now in Greater London). His parents were Eli and Lily Cornwell. The family later moved to Alverstone Road, East Ham. He joined the Boy Scouts but left school at the age of 14. At the outbreak of the First World War, ex-soldier Eli Cornwell volunteered for service and was fighting in France under Lord Kitchener. The older brother Arthur also served in an infantry regiment in Flanders.
In October 1915, Jack Cornwell gave up his job as a delivery boy and enlisted into the Royal Navy, without his father's permission. He had references from his headmaster and employer. He carried out his basic training at HMS Vivid Keyham Naval Barracks at Plymouth and received further training as a Sight Setter or Gun Layer and became Boy Seaman First Class. On the Easter Monday of 1916, Cornwell left for Rosyth, Scotland to join his assignment in the navy. He was assigned to HMS Chester.
On May 31, 1916, Chester was scouting ahead of the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron at the Battle of Jutland when the ship turned to investigate gunfire in the distance. It soon came under intense fire from four Kaiserliche Marine cruisers each her own size which had suddenly emerged out of the haze and increasing funnel smoke of the battlefield. The shielded 5.5-inch gun mounting where Cornwell was serving as a sight-setter was affected by at least four nearby hits. The Chester's gun mountings were open backed shields and did not reach the deck. Splinters were thus able to pass under them or enter the open back when shells exploded nearby or behind. Although severely wounded Cornwell remained at his post until Chester retired from the action with only one main gun still working. Chester had received a total of 18 hits but partial hull armour meant the interior of the ship suffered little serious damage and the ship was never in peril. The situation on deck, however, was a bloody shambles. Many of the gun crews had lost lower limbs due to splinters passing under the gun shields. British ships report passing the Chester to cheers from limbless wounded gun crew laid out on her deck and smoking cigarettes, only to hear that the same crewmen had died a few hours later from blood loss or shock.
After the action Cornwell was found to be sole survivor at his gun, shards of steel penetrating his chest, looking at the gun sights and still waiting for orders. Being incapable of further action, Chester was ordered to the port of Immingham. There Cornwell was transferred to Grimsby General Hospital, although he was clearly dying. He died June 2, 1916 before his mother could arrive at the hospital.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cornwell
 
Question:
Name the beach that was "key to the entrance to Normandy" and which british division was given the objective to capture the city of Caen? Lastly what division did they go up against?
 
Name the beach that was "key to the entrance to Normandy"
Omaha beach

which British division was given the objective to capture the city of Caen?
3rd Infantry Division

Lastly what division did they go up against?
21st Panzer Division
 
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The 2 divisions are correct, but im gonna double check on the beach, my source says a different beach...
 
I know its a German aircraft, so thats where i started and i believe that it was the Arado Ar 65, powered by a 640 hp (477 kW) Rolls-Royce Kestrel VI engine, it had a maximum speed of 211 mph (340 km/h). im not to sure but i also believe that the Arado Ar 67 used the same engine aswell...
 
Mayser said:
I know its a German aircraft, so thats where i started and i believe that it was the Arado Ar 65, powered by a 640 hp (477 kW) Rolls-Royce Kestrel VI engine, it had a maximum speed of 211 mph (340 km/h). im not to sure but i also believe that the Arado Ar 67 used the same engine aswell...
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Oddly enough so did the Spanish version of the BF 109 and they used those from about 1935 up to the 1960s, before the war they used the Kestral engine and after the war they were refitted with the Merlin engine.
 
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BritinAfrica said:
Monty is correct on this one, it was in fact the BF109.

The Arado 65 was a biplane, production stopped in 1936
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Ok something simple:

1) Name the only winner of the Victoria Cross and Bar of WW2.
2) What aspect of this is unique (ie he is the only person to have achieved this in the history of the VC).
 
MontyB said:
Ok something simple:

1) Name the only winner of the Victoria Cross and Bar of WW2.
2) What aspect of this is unique (ie he is the only person to have achieved this in the history of the VC).
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Captain Charles Upham a New Zealander was the only man to win a bar to his VC in combat during WW2, commanding a Company of New Zealand troops in the Western Desert during the operations which culminated in the attack on El Ruweisat Ridge on the night of 14th-15th July, 1942.

The other two recipients of the VC and bar were non combatants during the Boer War and 1st World War.
 
BritinAfrica said:
Captain Charles Upham a New Zealander was the only man to win a bar to his VC in combat during WW2, commanding a Company of New Zealand troops in the Western Desert during the operations which culminated in the attack on El Ruweisat Ridge on the night of 14th-15th July, 1942.

The other two recipients of the VC and bar were non combatants during the Boer War and 1st World War.
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Close enough, although apparently the VC and Bar was won two medical officers during WW1 he remains the only combatant soldier to have won the VC twice.

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Charles Upham[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]
[/FONT] VICTORIA CROSS AND BAR
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Acknowledged widely as the outstanding soldier of the Second World War, Captain Charles Upham remains the only combatant soldier to have received the Victoria Cross and Bar (awarded to members of the armed forces of the Commonwealth for exceptional bravery). In Crete in May 1941, and the Western Desert in July 1942, Upham distinguished himself with displays of ‘nerveless competence’.[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1908 Upham was educated at Christ’s College and Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln. He was a farm manager and then farm valuer before enlisting in the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force (aged 30) in 1939, quietly citing his reason as a desire to fight for justice. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] Courage and Resource
Upham was renowned for combining controlled courage with quick-thinking resourcefulness. While most medals for bravery are awarded for a single act, Upham’s first citation was for nine days of skill, leadership and evident heroism. In March 1941, he was a Second Lieutenant in the 20th NZ Battalion in Crete. His display of courage included: destroying numerous enemy posts; rescuing a wounded man under fire; penetrating deep behind enemy lines and killing twenty-two German soldiers on the way to leading out an isolated platoon. This was all after being blown over by a mortar shell, and with a shrapnel wound in his shoulder and a bullet in his foot. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] The incident that exemplified Upham’s courage was when two German soldiers trapped him alone on the fringes of an olive grove. Upham (on his way to warning other troops that they were being cut off) was watched by his helpless platoon, who were some distance away as he was fired on by the Germans. With any movement potentially fatal, he feigned death and with calculated coolness waited for the enemy soldiers to approach. With one arm lame in a sling, he used the crook of a tree to support his rifle and shoot the first assailant, then reloaded with one hand, and shot the second (who was so close as to fall against the barrel of Upham’s rifle).[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Gallantry and Determination
Captain Upham's second citation was for his part in the July 1942 attack on Ruweisat Ridge, Egypt, where the New Zealand Division was stranded after promised armoured support failed to come through. As the Allied forces struggled to hold the line, Upham led his company on what was described as a savage attack on German and Italian strongpoints. Upham was personally responsible for destroying a German tank and several guns and vehicles with hand grenades and, though he was shot through the elbow with a machine gun bullet and had his arm shattered, he went on again to a forward position and brought back a number of his men who had become isolated. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] He was removed to the regimental aid post, but immediately after his wounds had been dressed he returned to his men. He consolidated and held his position and despite exhaustion, loss of blood and further injuries (as a result of artillery and mortar fire that decimated most of his company) he stayed with the only six remaining members until, now unable to move, he was overrun by enemy forces and captured. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]
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[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]
Typifying his character and nickname ‘Pug’, he attempted to escape numerous times before being branded "dangerous" by the Germans and incarcerated in the infamous prison fortress Colditz.
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cu-parsons.jpg

(Left to right) Captain G A Parsons, Captain C H Upham, Captain A H Armour

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]On May 11 1945 King George VI pinned an official Victoria Cross onto Charles Upham's uniform. He returned to New Zealand in September and ceased expeditionary service in November 1945. In April 1946 he was an official member of the New Zealand Victory Contingent. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Modest Hero
Epitomising a certain strain of Kiwi modesty, Charles Upham was embarrassed by the accolades he received and attempted to avoid international media attention. When the people of Canterbury collected £10,000 for him to purchase a farm in recognition of his gallantry, Upham insisted the money be put towards an educational scholarship for children of returned soldiers.
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[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]At the conclusion of the war he returned to New Zealand to resume life as a sheep farmer in Hundalee, an isolated area north of Christchurch. It was rumoured that he never allowed a German-made car or machine onto the farm. He died in 1994. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] When King George VI enquired of Major-General Kippenberger whether Upham deserved a Bar to the Cross, Kippenberger replied, "In my respectful opinion, sir, Upham has won the VC several times over." The Complete Australian and New Zealand Victoria Cross Reference affirms that "without doubt Upham remains one of the most courageous leaders of any modern conflict". Charles Upham was unassumingly a true edge warrior.[/FONT]

http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/upham.html
 
Hehe well I waited the required two days so here goes.

The only man to have recieved both awards was an Irish surgeon named William Manley, he was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions during the New Zealand Maori Wars (I think it was during the Waikato uprisings) on 29 April 1864 and he was awarded the Iron Cross was awarded for tending the wounded during the Franco-Prussian of 1870–71.

This would have been a somewhat difficult question given that the topic is WW2 Quiz and neither award was given during WW2.
:)
 
MontyB said:
Hehe well I waited the required two days so here goes.

The only man to have recieved both awards was an Irish surgeon named William Manley, he was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions during the New Zealand Maori Wars (I think it was during the Waikato uprisings) on 29 April 1864 and he was awarded the Iron Cross was awarded for tending the wounded during the Franco-Prussian of 1870–71.

This would have been a somewhat difficult question given that the topic is WW2 Quiz and neither award was given during WW2.
:)
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LOL opps I got carried away:oops:

But it was still a good'un lol
 
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