Just a funny bit of history from WW2. I live in the Shetland Isles and people here take great pride in the fact that the first ever german bomb to fall on British soil was in Shetland, killing a rabbit . This led to the song "Run Rabit Run" gaining new popularity.

The rabbit bit was probally a myth but in November 1939 six Heinkel bombers flew over Lerwick harbour to target the shipping. Check out the following link.

http://www.shetland-heritage.co.uk/shetlandbus/pages/wartime_shetland.htm

Does anybody else have any intresting facts from their local area?

Jamie
:-)

You still can see the shrapnel-holes on the old houses in my city (Budapest), and a live artillery grenade was just recently removed from the wall of the biggest cathedral of the city... (They always find some American bombs, Russian mines... the Danube is said to be full of monitors and other small battleships, and -so I was told- the ships have to take it into consideration when traveling around.) Not very interesting

(Jersey, and the rest of the Channel Islands, however were the only British territory occupied by the Germans. the whole island -not too big- is filled up with castles and bunkers...)

There used to be a few POW camps for German prisoners in my area. From what I've heard the locals were surprised by the "harmlessness" of the German POW's. They must have been expecting something out of the propaganda posters and were surprised by the lack goose-stepping!

I've talked to a few people that say they recall attending several important religious holiday services the POW's and a couple of guards. The POW"s were escorted to in town to the local parish and then were allowed to trade items they made or vegetables they'd grown for things like candy and playing cards etc.

Apparently not many folks thought bad of the German's in captivity.

The Shetland Bus is another interesting WW2 bit of history. It was a special operation that kept a permanent link between Shetland and Norway.

It lasted from the start of the Norway occupation until the end of the war and at the beginning of the operation all the vessels were local fishing boats. This made the crossing dangerous as they were carried out at night and they had to avoid the attention of the germans. Eventually three submarine chasers from the US Navy were transferred for the operation.

Here is a good link about the whole operation:

http://www.shetlopedia.com/Shetland_Bus

Jamie