Strange Battles and Wars There have been some battles where it seemed one side was so outnumbered there was no way they could win. Sometimes the side with the fewest people knew they couldn’t win but were fighting a delaying tactic so some of their forces could build and then attack. Other times they were fighting to the death and hoping for a miracle and sometimes they even got one. One battle had the elements of a movie script. It was 1945 and some Germans had already surrendered. There had been German troops in a castle named Itter. It contained German prisoners. The regular army German troops had left but SS troops had taken over. Some of the prisoners were famous, one was Charles de Gaulle’s sister and some were former high ranking officials and generals. A small force of the American army headed toward the castle to free the prisoners from the SS. It was a strange group because it also included former German soldiers who were assisting. There were only two times in the war where both Americans and Germans fought on the same side. The American and German group consisted of 36 men and 4 tanks and they defeated 150-200 SS troops with 3 flack guns. Only 1 man was killed on the American and German side while the amount of SS killed was unknown but 100 were captured. There was a very strange battle which became known as the Battle of the Thirty. It took place in the 14th century when two houses from the Duchy of Brittany decided to fight it out by sending thirty knights and squires on the field of battle against the same amount from the other house. An audience was present and watched as one would watch a sporting event. As combatants would get hurt a pause in the fighting would be called and everyone would eat and treat their wounds before getting back to the fight. After many deaths, the battle stopped and both sides were declared the winners. Sometimes wars can be so short you hardly realize there was a war. Take the Anglo-Zanzibar War for example. It started in 1896 when the British wanted to control the archipelago but the sultan had other ideas. The British sent a gunboat to fire on Zanzibar which sat on the water. There were 500 casualties and the war was stopped after only 45 minutes. This became one of the shortest wars in history. When we talk about wars, we all know World War 2 was the deadliest on record, but it is said not many realize the number of people who died because of that conflict. The total number of dead was over 70 million. There is a country however, which has been around since the 4th century and has the distinction of never having been in a war. I know this sounds impossible, but it is true. I will give you a second to think about the answer. Ready? It is the country of San Marino. I don’t know why armies would want to hold a battle on a frozen lake. It is hard enough to stand without falling, but in 1242 that was exactly what happened. It is known as the battle on the ice and took place on Lake Peipus which would be between Estonia and Russia. Crusaders were fighting Prince Nevsky from the republic of Novgorod. There is a story about the ice cracking and drowning many knights, but historians say this was not true. The Prince won the battle. There was a battle in World War 2 where somehow a Japanese submarine was surfaced and was right next to the U.S.S. O’Bannon. The O’Bannon was a destroyer. The Japanese tried to fire their deck gun at the destroyer but the American sailors pelted them with potatoes. The American destroyer was going to ram the sub, but then thought better of it because the captain thought it might have mines aboard. The destroyer was so close to the sub the Japanese sailors couldn’t get the elevation on the deck gun and kept getting hit by the potatoes. The Japanese thought they were hand grenades and panicked. The sub dove and the destroyer finished her off with depth charges. One of the strangest battles of the American Civil War was the Battle of the Crater. In order to try and break through Southern defenses the North decided to undermine the ground they were on and tunneled under them. The next thing they did was fill the tunnel with explosives and set it off. The north had Pennsylvania miners working for weeks and yet they were undetected by the South. One soldier described the explosion as timbers, dirt, arms and legs, and even bodies flying everywhere. One war which took place in 1325 was fought over an oak bucket. It was actually called the War of the Oaken Bucket. It was fought between to cities, Bologna and Modena. It is said the war started when the Modenese stole the bucket from a Bolognese well. There is some disagreement over the cause of the war and some historians say the bucket was taken after the war as a trophy. John of Bohemia was the king of Luxembourg in 1296. Unfortunately for him he had lost his sight. He had received a request for help from the French King. He wasted no time getting his son to come with him and he battled on the field without his sight. He was involved in the Battle of Crecy in 1346. He actually charged into the enemy ranks. He did not survive. I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Battle of Los Angeles. It was during World War 2 when there was a panic about the Japanese reaching the west coast. They even had submarines with hangers which they could launch a few planes from. This is why when a strange object was seen in the sky above Los Angeles all hell broke loose. The site had been stocked with many antiaircraft guns and they all fired on an object which had gotten caught in our high intensity search lights. About two thousand shells were fired and the object just sat in the sky unharmed. The city however suffered some damage from the shells falling back to earth. This battle has made it into UFO lore. How many battles which we would view as strange haven’t made it into the history books? There were probably plenty. Humans have a tendency to get into a fight over almost anything and that is one of our more unfortunate traits.
|
