...was sent to retrieve the airmen. Around 50 of these buoys were anchored in the Channel during 1940, as the Battle of Britain reached its peak. 🧵2/2

Look really carefully and you'll see the front doors have no letterboxes and the windows are painted over. Apart from that, you'd never know that these fake houses are just 1.5m thick! Fascinating history in plain sight. 🧵3/3

The steam trains used on the tube network at the time needed somewhere to vent the smoke they created, so open air sections of track had to be included. By only rebuilding the fronts of the demolished houses, an air gap could be left behind for the trains. 🧵2/3

First built in a quarry in the Pas-de-Calais, this gun was badly damaged in an air raid in in July 1944 and never fired at London. Instead the Germans focused on a site in eastern Germany and successfully fired 183 rounds at Luxembourg in early 1945. 🧵2/2

The expected psychological impact was muted due to effective censorship in the US press, and by April 1945, the campaign stopped due to scarcity of resources in Japan. 🧵3/3

The plan: let them drift across the Pacific on the jet stream and cause fires, damage, and terror. Some balloons actually reached North America, causing 6 civilian deaths, but failing to start any fires. 🧵2/3

Onoda received letters from his family explaining the war was over, but refused to surrender until his former commanding officer flew from Japan in 1974 to issue the order. He returned to Japan to a hero's welcome, publishing an autobiography and dying in 2014, aged 91. 🧵3/3

...on the Philippine island of Lubang. Initially, he was accompanied by three other soldiers, with one surrendering in 1950 and the other two being killed. The group carried out guerrilla warfare against locals and the police, surviving on wild fruits, game and stolen rice. 🧵2/3

...After WW2 an ingenious solution was proposed - use some of the thousands of surplus medical stretchers to replace lost railings. What you see in the picture above was once designed for Air Raid wardens to carry bombing casualties to safety on! 🧵2/2