Bizarre Tales from World War II

by William B. Breuer

Ernest Hemingway stalks U-Boats. A Belgian woman halts the Panzers. Adolf Hitler plays Santa Claus. If you think these are tall tales, guess again. More than 140 of the most bizarre, curious, and downright strange incidents from World War II are documented here based on personal interviews, archives and declassified documents.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II

220 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 2005

About the author

William B. Breuer landed with the first assault waves in Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944), then fought across Europe. Later, he founded a daily newspaper on a string in Rolla, Missouri, and after that, a highly successful public relations firm in St. Louis, Missouri. He had been writing books full time since 1982

Reviews

[Joe Krakovsky]

This book is an easy read with a lot of interesting information, mainly for your entertainment. It won't help you pass a history test at school but makes for good topics of conversation.

[Wendy]

The tales weren't really that bizarre. Some of them were interesting. Some left me wondering why they were included. At the end of almost every anecdote he would say "And that surely was the first time that X happened while X at X." or some variation thereof.

[Sammy]

As a historian, I picked up this book looking for a light, interesting read. The citations consisting of mainly "from authors archives" told me to take this book cum grano salis, so I had no expectations regarding the stories accuracy. With that being said, the constant use of phrases such as "no doubt..." and "perhaps it had been the only instance..." left me aggravated. Was this truly the only instance? When you say no doubt I promise you, it makes me doubt you ten times more than if you had omitted the phrase entirely.
It is a book of war stories, a handful of them bizarre, but wildly underwhelming.

[J.L.]

This is an easy-to-read collection of short snippets organized by time period before, during, and after World War II. I'd hesitate to call them bizarre tales, however. Curious coincidences and interesting anecdotes is probably more appropriate.

I would not recommend this as a reference book for those writing about WWII. It is, though, probably a great source of inspiration for those looking for story fodder or to add elements of realism to work they are already doing.

[Margaret]

As expected, some of the stories were stranger and more interesting than others. All of them are 1 to 2 pages so it is good for a light read. Obviously this is not a book you use as research material for any scholarly undertaking, but if you just want some light reading about World War 2, it is a good choice.

[Mark Braun]

A series of mini- short stories of things that happened during WW II. I wouldn't call the incidents"bizarre" but rather unique

[Stephanie]

This book had a very annoying tone - full of aggrandizement and over the top “wink wink nudge nudge” language. It was also weirdly bombastic and cavalier at times. The verbal ticks of “no doubt” “never again” and “forever remain a mystery” got super annoying super fast. The quality of each tale varied greatly. It was surprising to see stories about the light airplanes (L-birds) and even glider pilots as these are not normally told. As with most books of this kind, the more you already know about WWII the better the book will be.

[airotky]

I love history but most of these stories were uninteresting and similar to each other. Some of them were really interesting but most of them weren't. I'm not a fan of books in the form of collections of short stories, maybe that's it.

[Dennis Molner]

Fun read, enjoy learning about little known episodes of WWII.

[Lance]

Decent easy reading. Nothing mind blowing or extremely academic.

[Al]

Interesting anecdotes of unpublicized oddities which occurred during WWII.

[Charity]

My favorite way to connect with my dad. He loved history and we could talk about WWII.

[Jim]

Interesting stuff

[John]

I am part-way through this short anecdotal book. It is a good bathroom or commuter train read, as all of the episodes are around a page long. There are some interesting stories, many obscure, but the book was tainted for me from the first story by jarring bad editing for accuracy. It says the B-17 Flying Fortress was being built by The Glen Martin Co., when it was actually Boeing, and misspells the "Vought" aircraft company as "Voight". A few pages further on, it refers to a British "Flight Officer", which should be "Flying Officer". It makes me wonder about other inaccuracies that are not obvious to me.

It reminds me of a Robert Ludlum book I read decades ago, where he had a single-seat jet fighter (basically a huge engine with a pilot attached to it)converted into a luxurious biz-jet. You can't get there from here.

Having now finished this book, I am less-inkling to be picky. It is an enjoyable, light-weight read, full of interesting little episodes. I found it in the bargain bin, and don't feel I wasted any money.

[Brent Henry]

Why do I read this stuff? I read another book by the author and while it wasn't too bad, there seem to be numerous small errors and repetition. If I saw feldgrau defined one more time, with the exact same definition, i would have screamed.

There are some interesting stories, but there is also a lot of fluff and lazy writing. The various error, such as B-14 vice B-24, are examples of bad proofreading that a good publisher would have caught. If you know a lot of the history, you will for the most part learn nothing new or be frustrated reading this book.

As someone said, a good bathroom or commuter read. But I got more from the Bathroom Reader series than these two books.

[Liam Thompson]

I enjoyed this book it was easy to read and i finsihed it in less than a week. Easily understood short paragraph sized stories that are dumbed down to the letter(almost too much). Overall, i would reccomend it for someone who just needs to relax between two deep books.

[Patrick Shrier]

A good book full of interesting and strange happenings from WWII. The tales were weighted towards stories from the ETO but that is to be expected as more writing has come out of the ETO in English language historiography.

[Alexander Soo]

Okay, have to admit some stories are a little boring, while some are cool and awesome while some are mysterious, like where one ship was totally invisible.

[Beth/Chuck]

Interesting reading, some subjects I'd heard about before, but nonetheless entertaining.
Each subject is short, so it's a good book to pick up when you have a little time.

[Ruth]

another interesting and well written book by William Breuer

[Sherrie]

I don't believe this author knows what the word 'bizarre' means. This book should be titled 'Mildly Interesting Tidbits about War'

[Patrick]

The book did not really match the title. There were some interesting snippets of WWII lore, but lacked an overall theme.

[M]

A riveting collection of quirky and unbelievable accounts from WWII. I would recommend this book to those who wish to learn about the untold moments of the war.

[Rob]

interesting light reading.