10 Weirdest WWII Stories You Probably Haven't Heard

In 1941, following his inability to defeat Britain in the Battle of Britain, Hitler directed his attentions to the Soviet Union. Stalin believed that the non-aggression pact that Russia had with Germany would prevent an invasion. (Oh boy, was he wrong!) Hitler launched the largest invasion in military history with 3 million troops, 2700 aircraft, 7200 artillery guns and 3000 tanks. Before long and with half of Russia's population was under Nazi occupation, something clearly needed to be done.

Following a devastating political purge, the Russian army leadership had been decimated. Stalinist forces had arrested, tortured and executed more than 500 senior officers, including eight generals. The Red Army was ill-equipped to defeat an experienced German army. What do you do next? Enlist dogs to destroy tanks, obviously.

Yep, you heard me right, anti-tank dogs. Their genius plan was to train dogs to run under German tanks (tank recognition classes with dogs sounds unproductive though) with a time-delayed bomb strapped to their back, they would then release the bomb and run away as the bomb detonates. Sounds simple, right? Anyone that has a dog will know they do not always do as they're told! Sometimes the dogs would forget to release the bomb and then run back to their handler for praise, with the timer counting down!

After this categoric failure, the Red Army simplified the plan. Instead of using a user releasable bomb, they would use a bomb that would detonate as soon as the dog ran under the tank. The dogs would be starved for a few days, then warm food would be placed under a tank. Even though it's estimated that the Red Army deployed thousands of suicidal sheepdogs, there were only a dozen documented successes.

Whoever came up with this idea must have been barking!