Sunday, May 24, 2009

Things your father never told you about the war...

 Subject: WWII trivia, interesting
 You have to dig deep for facts like these:
1. The first German serviceman killed in WW II
was killed by the Japanese ( China, 1937), the first
American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians
(Finland 1940); highest ranking American killed was Lt Gen
Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps.
 2. The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old
 Calvin Graham, USN. He was wounded 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. 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.

6. 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. Tracers had different ballistics
so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target
80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet 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.

7. 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.

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

9. German submarine U-120 was sunk by a
malfunctioning toilet. 10. 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.

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST....

11. Following a massive naval bombardment,
35,000 United States and Canadian troops stormed ashore at
Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands. 21 troops were killed in the
assault. It would have been worse if there had been any
Japanese on the island.

now take a moment and visit the Jimbozone.com 

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