WWII Trivia #1

Enigma was cracked by Polish codebrakers - not British!

It was a combined effort! The Polish did a lot of early work which the British continued at Bletchley Park with the work of Alan Turing and the rest of the codebreakers as well making use of the computing power of Colossus.

The Polish were able to capture the machine and get it to the British. One of the most important events of the war, there's enough credit to go around.

Didn't Rejewski crack an early version of Enigma, before the war? I'm no expert, but I remember reading about a Pole who was an exceptional code breaker and whose work gave Turing and co a huge head start. Could be a different Pole, I suppose...

There were 3 of them, in 1933 so before the war. Rejewski, Zygalski and Różycki broke the enigma code in 1933 and gave their results to the British who used this during the war.

I thought the Poles worked mainly on the commercial enigma in the 30's.

^Right. And Jet Li built the Great Wall of China.

My comment above about JetLi was originally aimed at someone else citing the history of film U-571 as if it were accurate. That comment seems to have gone missing but the spirit of it lives on.

Wasn't the issue then that the method for cracking the enigma code was developed but because the code was changed every day and it took longer than that to decipher it it was useless until Turing and his team came up with a computer that could do it more efficiently?

They had to do something with all their spare time after conquest.

yes, i agree about that

u-boot = underwater shoe?

if you ask for the name of the thing, at least accept the german name indeed: U-Boot (Boot = German for Ship)

Very astute, Sister Sarah.

... and U-Boot? It's commonly referred to as this in Germany.

"U-Boot" is used in Estonia also. After typing it, I skipped the question. Furthermore, it's a difference of 1 letter from "U-Boat". I think it should count.

I always thought Panzer meant panther... I guess maybe I just assumed that years ago because there were also tigers and leopards, so it makes sense and sounds similar... I knew panzers were tanks but I missed that one because I thought the word must have some other meaning. Would have gotten it if the clue was just "what was a panzer." oh well.

The most direct translation would be armour, which later turned into tank. The allied tanks we're also often mentioned as armour, e.g. "Send in the armoured division"

panzer doesnt really mean/translates to tank. the word panzer simply means armour. But a Panzer IS a tank.

It is actually short for Panzerkampfwagen, meaning armoured combat vehicle.

(similar to how automobile are sometimes called auto, while auto in itself has the meaning of self)

So yea, English translation of panzer is shaky. It is better to say, "What is a Panzer in English?". Because it translates to armour.

Btw nouns are always capitalized in German.

well, tanks aren't really tanks, either.

panzer = armour = tanks

Y u no accept FDR?

88%...not bad...

At that time, the term armor, referred to tank or any other armored vehicle that either side possessed.

100% with 1:45 to go, I guess I paid attention in history class

Please accept the French name of "Dunkirk": Dunkerque... too hard too find for a French like me! And U-Boot should be accepted too. Good quiz though!

Just want to point out, "D-Day" was a generic term for any day when a major landing was to take place. June 6, 1944 should be referred to, more appropriately as operation overlord

It's always referred to as d day and that's how everyone knows it's so it doesn't matter too much

I believe this guy ⬆️

If you're going to be picky then at least be right. Operation Overlord lasted for nearly 3 months, not just one day - the codename for the landings on D-Day was Operation Neptune.

Surprised that everyone doesn't know Truman since he's the one who approved the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and he approved the creation of Israel and went against his own State Department and immediately recognized their new government. He was also famous for his salty language. There's a story that once a friend asked his wife Bess if she couldn't get Harry to say fertilizer instead of "manure". Bess replied, "Good Lord, Helen, you don't know how many years it has taken me to get him to say manure."

This is far too focused on the Anglo-American side of the war. More like "Western Front and Pacific Theater Trivia". It's actually repulsive to me that Eisenhower is on this quiz and Zhukov isn't.

Really, repulsive?

Why don't you make a quiz from the Russian perspective? I think it would be an interesting and educational quiz. Probably most people, unless they were interested in history or the military, wouldn't remember Eisenhower's name had he not later become a US president.

If you did well on the leaders portion of this quiz you might enjoy this expanded version, though prepare to be repulsed if you go in looking for Zhukov. It's modeled after the World Leaders quizzes and only includes kings, prime ministers and so on, not generals.

Great quiz but could you be a bit more forgiving on spelling? I spent half the quiz trying in vain to spell Chamberlain

So, are you asking QM to accept Chamberlain as an alternative spelling for Churchill? If he goes for it there are several alternative spellings I'd like him to consider, especially in the world capitals quiz. :)

lol if only Jetpunk alerted users to replies I don't think this comment would've lasted 5 years without being quietly deleted 😂

I should probably learn more about WW2 after taking this quiz...

The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first strategic setback for the Japanese and in my view was the turning point in the Pacific theatre during WWII.

Midway was a more decisive setback, but in terms of turning the tide of the war, that had already started with the Coral Sea battle.

I've only recently gotten interested in WW II history and am no expert, but it seems to me that although Japanese losses at the Coral Sea battle helped ensure success at Midway, it was the Japanese losses at Midway which gave parity to the two sides. That is why it is often credited as the turning point because it ended the threat of Japanese invasion. I'd say if any other battle could be said to be as important it would be Guadalcanal rather than Coral Sea.

Treblinka was an extermination camp, not a concentration camp.

No, actually it does ask for the English translation of a German word. It isn't a word that has disappeared from German nor been superseded with an English retrofit definition.

If you ask for the English translation of the French word entrée and insist that it means jalapeño poppers sitting on a napkin in a paper dish, you are wrong. To answer the question correctly it means entrance in French.

Isn't there a honorary title for Stalin, like "fuhrer" or "duce"? Were the latter less authoritarian than the Soviet leader?

I think it is more appropriate to say 'Soviet dictator' rather than 'Russian dictator'.

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what

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I'd call this a general knowledge quiz rather than 'trivia'. These are not trivial matters.

Could you accept Oświęcim for Auschwitz seeing as it is the Polish name of the town/camp?

Stalin was Georgian.

"Soviet dictator" would be a better description anyway.

Stalin rose to power along with his gangster friends Lenin, etc in Russia, where they eventually assumed total control over the Soviet Union, which was on paper a union of equal republics but in reality was de-facto a new Russian empire.

"Soviet dictator" would be slightly more accurate, but "Russian dictator" is not inaccurate as "Russian" and "Soviet" at the time of WW2 were used synonymously.

I agree that the use of “Russian” is okay, also considering that different nationalities of the Soviet Union had their own communist parties and leaders, and the Russian one was the most important and influential one. But as for the term “dictator”, I feel like “General Secretary”, “Premier” or even the Russian word for leader, “Vozhd” could be more suitable options. And yes, I am aware that Stalin only became Premier in 1941, but Soviet Union was hardly even in the war before that year. The use of Vozhd also has some problems as few people know the word, but if Hitler and Mussolini can have their titles in their native languages, I can’t see why it shouldn’t be the same for Stalin :)

General Secretary of the Communist Party is a little wordy. And most English speakers have never heard the title "Vozhd" before. Not that they shouldn't, necessarily, but it's just the common convention.

Exactly, Stalin was Georgian, nor can we say he ruled Russia as there was no such thing at the time. He neither ruled Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic which was just one of 15 other SSRs that formed the whole Soviet Union. Please rename him simply to "Soviet dictator" and it should be fine.

"Trivia"? That Hitler was the German leader? Then what would qualify as a WWII question that is not trivia?

Seeing as how the war was over 70 years ago I think it's safe to call everything about WW2 trivia. It's not trivial relative to other information about WW2... but it is trivia that also happens to be related to WW2.

certain people would complain if we included too many questions about things that didn't directly involve their countries.

Russian dictator? Stalin was in charge of the Soviet Union, which was 14 republics. And he was from Georgia, so can't say he was russian as an excuse.

Also Hirohito should be replaced with Tojo, as he really didnt do anything

It shouldn't talk about Auschwitz so casually,

WW2 killed upwards of 90 million people. It talks about that casually as well

I personally knew 2 people who narrowly survived WWII.

One was a man I grew up calling "Uncle" who was a little boy in Germany just before the War broke out. His mother had taken him to the doctor when he was about 4 for a deformity in his foot when she overheard the doctor talking with someone about the proposed "treatment". Horrified, she scooped him up and left the office and within hours was packing up their possessions to leave the country, saving his life. She made her way to the U.S. where he grew up, married and raised 3 boys, bad foot and all. My brothers and I hung out with his sons all the time, being as we were all around the same age.

The other was my dad, who was on the Liberty ship "Francis B. Ogden" coming up the coast of N.Carolina when their sister ship was sunk by a U-boat. (torpedo struck the magazine, completely destroying the ship) They were racing a hurricane, which ultimately allowed them to get away from the U-boat and reach port safely.

I guy I knew grabbed a rifle and headed into the woods to do his duty for the Fatherland and defend his village from the invading US tanks. He probably would have started shooting too, except his mum shouted at him - he was 7.

Please accept Oświęcim or Oswiecim for Auschwitz. Not many people really call it by its German name here in Eastern Europe - for the obvious reasons. Neither it is respectful to Poles I guess :)

I wonder why Midway's percent answered is so low. I assume the pacific theater does not hold much precedent in European schools?

No, as much is in the USA - ours. I remember some guy from the USA was really surprised when I told him that it was my great-granddad from a small village in Russia that entered Berlin first - not an American soldier

Americans care only about their part, we really only know:

Pearl Harbor - a lot of food/guns/cars from Land Lease - D-Day - Two "suns" being dropped on Japan

Really sad that there is nothing on Eastern Front. A lot of Western/Pacific - but only one question about Stalin basically. Could at least have a question about Stalingrad - the true turning point in the war, after which everybody knew Hitler was done

All those WWII movies really helped