[WW] WII trivia

[Erik Kjerland <erikk@lithtech.com>]

Dont' know how much of this is true, but....

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. . . . So much for allies.


 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 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.

11. 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. It would have been worse if there had been
any Japanese on the island.











Thanks,
Erik Kjerland
Documenting Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know