Interesting WWII Trivia

[fuji869]

Interesting WWII Trivia (by Col. D.G. Swinford, USMC, Ret. history buff)

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), the 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 just the 8th Air Force than the entire Marine Corps. Airmen completing the required 30 missions had a 71% chance of being killed.

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 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 urinate in it. This was pretty universal, from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and Gen. George Patton (who had himself photographed in the act).

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

9. 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.

And The Best For Last....

10. Following a massive naval bombardment, 35,000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands. 21 troops were killed in the firefight; casualties would have been higher if there had been any Japanese on the island.

[inmate running the asylum]

What are you some kind of war-monger, Fugi?

[Tommy-the-Greek]

How could the first German killed in WW2 die 2 years before war was dereed? WW2 in Europe didn't start until after Hitler invaded Poland. Which if memory serves me right was Sept. 39. England and France declared war on Germany and then Germany responded in kind. So the first Germany casualties had to occur in mop up duty in Poland or in the Ardenne before they even got to France.

[fuji869]

I don't write the stuff, it is just an email someone sent me.

[Henry]

Well, the Japanese invaded China in 33 I believe. So it could be argued that the war started then.

Also, about tracers, I read that the Germans used to purposely shoot too high with their tracer rounds to confuse their enemy, and then aim right at their targets with their regular ammunition.

[gbear]

The funniest bit of military history I've heard was in my Western Civilization class Freshman year of college.

Evidently, the Russian had a small Airforce early in WWI. As fate would have it, they had exactly one successful mission before being shot down. Evidently, their existance shocked even their own troops. After completing their first mission, they were flying back to lands controled by Russia. Russian troops looked up, saw low flying planes coming from the West, and made the perfectly logical conclussion that since they had no airforce, the incoming planes must be the enemy's. As a result, they promptly shot them all down. :doh: Evidently, that's the story of why Russia had little in the way of airpower in WWI. In all fairness, I don't believe Airpower was a hug deciding factor in WWI short of recon.

[codeorama]

The Swastica was a symbol of good luck and was used quite a bit before being made infamous by Hitler... He was big into the occult and liked symbols and ceremonies to raise morale.

[Henry]

Originally posted by codeorama

The Swastica was a symbol of good luck and was used quite a bit before being made infamous by Hitler... He was big into the occult and liked symbols and ceremonies to raise morale.

Wan't it a Hindu symbol? How ironic.

[Romo]

I believe the swastika was a Norwegian symbol but it very well could have been both Norwegian and Indian at one point in time.

Henry is right Japan invaded China in 1933 so technically one could claim WW2 started at that time.

[inmate running the asylum]

Henry,

The swastica is actually an ancient Hindu symbol, which I saw on numerous Hindu temples while in India.

But the swastica in India is drawn slightly different then the German swastica. I can't remember which is which, but the crossing lines in one are drawn backwards. So they first look the same, but upon comparison they don't match exactly, in that the lines in the German swastica are going in one direction and the opposite in the Hindu swastica.

[redman]

The Germans drew theirs backwards (of course the Buddhists - not the Hindu's - who created their symbol, would draw their's correctly!). Hitler loved the occult and mythology and spiritualism, so he familiarized himself with some aspects of Buddhism. Buddhist monks predicted the fall of Germany based upon the Nazi corruption of the swastika symbol.

[Riggo-toni]

The Latvians also have Swastikas (although they call them something else). It was a Scandanavian symbol long before the 3rd Reich, which is why it appealed to Hitler's wacky Aryan theories. My Grandmother-in-Law (who fled from Latvia in WWII) once got chewed out by an ignorant employee at a Photo store when she got pictures of various Lativan paintings developed, and one of them contained a symbol similar to the swastika (but with only 3 lines instead of 4).

[joe]

The war's start is now generally considered to be the Japanese invasion of China. Actually, Winston Churchill considered both WW I and II to be another 30 years war in Europe. The original "30 years war" was not continuous, nor was the "100 years war"

My father earned his CIB on the Alutian Island of Attu and was part of the Kiska "invasion" force.