Hope this isn't a repeat, but here it goes:
The first German serviceman killed in the war was
killed by the Japanese (China, 1937), the first
American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians
(Finland 1940), the highest ranking American killed
was LtGen. Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air
Corps. So much for allies.
The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old Calvin
Graham, USN. He was wounded in combat and given a
Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. (His
benefits were later restored by act of Congress).
At the time of Pearl Harbor the top US Navy command
was called CINCUS (pronounced "sink us"), the shoulder
patch of the US Army's 45th. Infantry division was the
Swastika, and Hitler's private train was named
"Amerika". All three were soon changed for PR
purposes.
More US servicemen died in the Air Corps than the
Marine Corps. While completing the required 30
missions your chance of being killed was 71%.
Not that bombers were helpless! A B-17 carried 4 tons
of bombs and 1.5 tons of machine gun ammo. The US 8th
Air Force shot down 6,098 fighter planes, 1 for every
12,700 shots fired.
Germany's power grid was much more vulnerable than
realized. One estimate is that if just 1% of the
bombs dropped on German industry had instead been
dropped on power plants German industry would have
collapsed.
Generally speaking there was no such thing as an
average fighter pilot. You were either an ace or a
target. For instance Japanese ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa
shot down over 80 planes. He died while a passenger on
a cargo plane.
It was a common practice on fighter planes to load
every 5th round with a tracer round to aid in aiming.
This was a mistake. The tracers had different
ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were
hitting the target 80% of your rounds were missing.
Worse yet the tracers instantly told your enemy he was
under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was
the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end
of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo.
This was definitely not something you wanted to tell
the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their
success rate nearly double and their loss rate go
down.
When allied armies reached the Rhine the first thing
men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from
the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a
big show of it) and Gen. Patton (who had himself
photographed in the act).
German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York
City but it wasn't worth the effort.
A number of aircrewmen died of farts. (ascending to
20,000 ft. in an unpressurized aircraft causes
intestinal gas to expand 300%).
The Russians destroyed over 500 German aircraft by
ramming them in mid-air (they also sometimes cleared
minefields by marching over them). "It takes a brave
man not to be a hero in the Red Army" - Joseph Stalin
The US Army had more ships than the US Navy.
The German Air Force had 22 infantry divisions, 2
armor divisions, and 11 paratroop divisions. None of
them were capable of airborne operations. The German
Army had paratroops who WERE capable of airborne
operations. Go figure.
When the US Army landed in North Africa, among the
equipment brought ashore was 3 complete Coca Cola
bottling plants.
Among the first "Germans" captured at Normandy were
several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the
Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians
and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they
were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for
the German Army until they were captured by the US
Army.
German submarine U-120 was sunk by a malfunctioning
toilet.
The Graf Spee never sank. The scuttling attempt
failed and the ship was bought as scrap by the
British. On board was Germany's newest radar system.
One of Japan's methods of destroying tanks was to bury
a very large artillery shell with only the nose
exposed. When a tank came near enough a soldier would
whack the shell with a hammer. "Lack of weapons is no
excuse for defeat." - LtGen. Mutaguchi
Following a massive naval bombardment 35,000 US and
Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska. 21 troops
were killed in the firefight. It would have been
worse if there had been Japanese on the island.
The MISS ME was an unarmed Piper Cub. While spotting
for US artillery her pilot saw a similar German plane
doing the same thing. He dove on the German plane and
he and his co-pilot fired their pistols damaging the
German plane enough that it had to make a forced
landing. Whereupon they landed and took the Germans
prisoner. I don't know where they put them since the
MISS ME only had 2 seats.
Most members of the Waffen SS were not German.
The only nation that Germany declared war on was the
USA.
During the Japanese attack on Hong Kong British
officers objected to Canadian infantrymen taking up
positions in the officer's mess. No enlisted men
allowed you know.
Nuclear physicist Niels Bohr was rescued in the nick
of time from German occupied Denmark. While Danish
resistance fighters provided covering fire he ran out
the back door of his home stopping momentarily to grab
a beer bottle full of precious "Heavy Water". He
finally reached England still clutching the bottle.
Which contained beer. I suppose some German drank the
Heavy Water.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Sep 02 2000 - 09:32:37 PDT