Though the Third Reich started it, the Allies ended it in spectacular fashion: with that "it" being WWII. As part of the comprehensive crushing of Germany required to defeat Hitler's regime the Allies dropped roughly 1.9 million tons of bombs on Germany during the war, with the vast majority of this destruction coming in the war's final year. During the entirety of the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive (a round the clock offensive led by the British Royal Air Force at night and United States Army Air Force during the day) approximately 500,000 Germans were killed.
Thinking they had spotted some amber, two women suffered second and third degree burns this past weekend from coming into contact with what is believed to be WWII era white phosphorus they found at a beach on the island of Usedom along Germany's Baltic Coast.
One of the unfortunate outcomes of the Baltic Sea's significance as one of history's more fiercely contested regions is the immense quantities of unexploded munitions littering the seabed, contaminating the sea, or washing ashore as their metal casings rust out.
