Military Historical Facts

The first German serviceman killed in the war (II) 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 Lt Gen. Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps.  So much for
    allies.

2.  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)

3.  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.

4.  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%.

5.  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.

6.  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.

7.  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.

8.  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.

9.  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).

10. German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City but it
    wasn't worth the effort.

11. A number of aircrewmen died of farts. (ascending to 20,000 ft. in an
    unpressurized aircraft causes intestinal gas to expand 300%).

12. 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

13. The US Army had more ships than the US Navy.

14. 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.

15. When the US Army landed in North Africa, among the equipment
    brought ashore was 3 complete Coca Cola bottling plants.

16. 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.

17. German submarine U-120 was sunk by a malfunctioning toilet.

18. 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.

19. 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

20. 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.

21. 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 copilot fired their pistols
    damaging the German plane enough that it had to make a forced landing.
    Whereupon they landed and took the Germans prisoner. No one knows where
    they put them since the "Miss Me" only had two seats.

22. Most members of the Waffen SS were not German.

23. The only nation that Germany declared war on was the USA.

24. During the Japanese attack on Hong Kong British officers objected
    to Canadian infantrymen taking up positions in the officers' mess.  No
    enlisted men allowed you know.

25. 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. The guess is
that
    some German drank the Heavy Water.

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