Military History

[Bigglesworth]

> Lessons to be learnt

 

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>

 

> Military History

 

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> This is from Col. D.G. Swinford, USMC, Ret. HISTORY BUFF

 

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> 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.

 

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> (His benefits were later restored by act of Congress)

 

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>

 

> 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.

 

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> 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%.

 

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> 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.

 

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>

 

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> 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.

 

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>

 

> 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).

 

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> 8. German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City

 

> but it wasn't worth the effort.

 

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

 

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> 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.

 

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> THE BEST FOR LAST....

 

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> 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 even worse if there had

 

> been any Japanese on the island.

 

 

[Yenn]

The first US soldier killed in Vietnam

 

Was killed by

 

US Friendly fire!