A fascinating collection of World War II historical facts & fictions laced with examples of propaganda and outright lies. Students of the Second World War will recognise some of these brief stories but nonetheless there will be scores of others which are new to many.

There are tales of super weapons which, thankfully, were never made, the use of birds, bats, cats, dogs and other animals as weapons or mascots, strange plans which failed to get beyond the drawing board and spy stories mixed with some of the more disturbing events on World War II, such as the Japanese Army's use of "comfort women" from the female populations of Korea and China (a fact that the Japanese Government still denied in the 21st Century) and the horrific experiments carried out by German and Japanese military.

However, most of these very brief stories (most of them only a few paragraphs long) are very entertaining and some of them will even make the reader smile. This book also proves that "fake news" is nothing new and that “In war, truth is the first casualty.”

The signing of the Treaty of Versailles signaled the end of World War 1. In part, it stipulated that Germany pay reparations of 3.5 billion dollars which would in today's economy be somewhere in the neighborhood of 46 billion dollars. It was never paid.

Some twenty years later, Germany reclaimed some of its land lost through the ravages of war. And if that's not enough, the warring country began to build armaments once again; it knew not peace. To the amazement of the world, the battle-prone country was beginning to flex its military muscles once again. Fool me twice...

Finally, In September, 1939, Germany boldly invaded Poland. The world was in shock. In retaliation, Britain and France declared war on the invader. Notice had been served. It marked the beginning of World War II.

By May, 1941, blanket bombing had been responsible for the senseless death of 40,000 British civilians. Over a million homes were in ruins. Six million people had been exterminated in death camps the likes of Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka. At the hands of the merciless Japanese, thousands of British POWs died while building the Burma Railway. To cap it all off, the first use of a nuclear weapon on a civilian population ended the lives of tens of thousands of Japanese bringing the war to a tumultuous end.

Those were all some of the worst, most memorable tragedies that will live on in our minds and hearts for eternity. Out from the rubble of this nightmare, however, arose some of the weirdest, yet, interesting events that never made it into the history books.

In a well-written narrative, Richard Denham brings to light an overflowing assortment of the strangest occurrences to address the war such as: anti-tank dogs, balloon bombs and pigeon missiles, just to name a few. The author revealed countless uncanny events that could best be described as bizarre. This flip side of the war proved to be entertaining.

Contained in this book are a multitude of episodes that just seem too unbelievable to be true, in many cases, absurd would better describe it. If you have an unspoken desire to learn about the uncanny and curious events that baffled the world during World War II, then this is the book for you.

I offer my gratitude to NetGalley and Thistle Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

World War II has long held a morbid sort of fascination for me. And why I attempt to explain this fascination I come up with something like…it is the perfect microcosm of good and evil from the recent past. It’s a time that’s produced some of the most compelling dramatic works of historical fiction, but also giving credence to the maxim, when it comes to WWII the truth has always been stranger than fiction. This is a collection of such truths (strange, bizarre and credulity stretching as they are), presented and told with an anecdote like quality. The author deliberately threads lightly in some very dark territories, making this a relatively easy read despite the heavy subject matter. It’s prefaced by M.J. Trow’s succinct account of WWII summary to provide readers less familiar with the war a basic outline. I’ve read a lot on the subject and have watched tons of educational programs, so many of these stories were familiar, but there were still some interesting new things. The volume is slim and each story is only a few pages, it’s probably made for dipping in and out off, not plowing through the entire thing in two sittings, but it’s easy to get through either way and informational in an entertaining manner. The version from Netgalley had some typos, nothing too distracting, presumably this’ll be taken care off for the final publication. Fans of historical nonfiction angling toward brevity should enjoy this one. Thanks Netgalley.

These WWII mini-tales are interesting anecdotes about some of the stranger things that occurred during WWII, some of which I knew about but most of which were new to me. They will be interesting to people interested in WWII, although serious scholars will be disappointed that there are no footnotes included.