1. The first German serviceman killed in the war 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. 21 troops were killed
in the firefight. It would have been worse if there had been any
Japanese on the island.
