I like these kind of fact lists, they are interesting, and in fact checking them I often learn many interesting historical facts. However, sometimes these type of facts don't mean as much without some context. I like facts and trivia as much as the next guy (probably a lot more in fact) but I never accept anything I read without crosschecking it to the extent possible. Below are some of my notes on that last round with some corrections, and also an attempt to add some context and basis for comparison to some of the more random ones:
(1) Regarding number one, I'm not convinced that London and Baghdad are the only 2 cities to have been attacked by cruise and ballistic missiles. Even in WW2, there were probably cities that were attacked by V-1 and V-2 other than London in the UK. Additionally, Scud ballistic missiles were heavily used in the Iran/Iraq war as well as in Afghanistan during the 1980's. Many of the cities attacked by those were also attacked by US Tomahawk cruise missiles. They may well be the only two capitol cities so attacked, but I think that may also not be true, with Kabul being a prime candidate for addition to this list (although I cannot verify for sure that Kabul was directly attacked by both Scuds and Tomahawks).
(2) No dispute on the B-25 facts, it was a great plane and one of my favorites, but I would submit that the B-26 merits mention as well as it is usually cited as having the lowest loss rate of any US bomber, and probably the 2nd lowest loss rate of any bomber built in significant numbers by any side (the Mosquito was almost certainly the lowest of the common bombers, as it was virtually un-interceptable for most of the war).
(4) The class the stars fell on was very unusual, for anyone that knows how few of any given Academy class typically ever make general at any grade. I believe the actual number of Generals for that class was 59 though not 61. The actual breakdown of the class of 1915 was: Two 5 stars; two four stars; 7 three stars; 24 two stars; 24 one star. The 5 star Generals were Eisenhower and Bradley, with Eisenhower furthermore going on to be a two-term President of the United States. Even in the Civil War there were no classes that reached these kind of numbers. The highest American Civil War classes were '35 (56 Generals); '37 (50); '41 (52); '42 (56); '46 (59); '53 (52). The class of 1976 is rapidly becoming famous as the "class the stars fell on" from our era, with 33 Generals of its 855 graduates. By the way, the class of 1915 only had 164 graduates, so not only in absolute numbers is it the highest, but it is by percentage as well (36%).
(9) This one is demonstrably not true. Germany formally declared war on at least one other country during WW2 and that would be Norway on 24 April 1940.
(10) Also not true, the Japanese used chemical weapons from 1936-1939 in China and in an extensive way. They were definitely used against Chinese Army troops in battle during this period, not just against civilians (although they did that as well). There are also persistent allegations that the Nazis used chemical weapons in at least 2 isolated circumstances in WW2 against the Soviets. I haven't seen any real compelling proof of this though.
(11) This is an overstatement of a fact. The HMS Victory was in drydock and did in fact receive some damage from a bomb that fell in the drydock. It was not a direct hit though as far as I am aware. The HMS Victory is of course the oldest commissioned warship in the world, having been launched in 1765. The USS Constitution (launched in 1797 as one of the original 6 frigates of the US Navy) is the oldest commissioned warship afloat (the Victory is in perpetual drydock).
(14) I would have to see evidence of this one. I am not aware that any country used unmanned aircraft for the purpose of reconnaissance in WW2. They were however used as targets for training, and of course as guided weapons. By the way, to get real technical and nitpicky, Predators and other current unmanned aicraft are not drones. Drones refer to unmanned targets such as the QF-106. The Predator is more correctly referred to as a RPA or remotely piloted aircraft. The media insists on calling them drones and it is very irritating to a nerd that is super detail oriented like myself.
(15) This happened more than once. In the Pacific theater a P-47 struck the ocean and flew home with all blades bent back as well. What a great airplane (and engine)!
(16) Obviously this is meant to say FW-190 not 109. It also is worded misleadingly so that it appears that the TA-152 never saw combat, but that is not true. It did, albeit in small numbers (less than 50 aircraft delivered, making it the Aces High aircraft that was the rarest of anything we have in the game, as even the Me-163 was built in the hundreds of aircraft). The Bf-109 was produced in even greater numbers (most produced fighter in history with over 34k built) and with even more types and variants, with a truly staggering amount of variation, and even a number of custom one-off builds for certain aces if I remember correctly.
(17) From what I can tell, this is actually low! Those figures given add up to 136 German flag officers KIA in WW2 (this number includes all services, which may account for the difference). As near as I can tell after researching this I come up with 289 KIA. In addition, if you count those killed in accidents, suicides, and executed during and after the war, as well as those that died as prisoners, the number comes up to a staggering 969 deaths of German Generals and Admirals. They weren't the only ones though. According to one source that I found, the Soviets lost 680 Generals during the war to all causes with 245 of those being KIA. The Americans lost about 40.
(18) This is disputed as different countries counted differently, and there is lots of controversy over the numbers themselves for a variety of reasons, but on the many of the generally accepted lists, this is in fact how it is listed. In addition to the 2 with over 300 kills, there are another 13 with over 200 kills credited and a total of 35 with over 150 kills. Regardless of which side of the debate you come down on, it is clear that all the top fifty scoring fighter pilots in history are German, even if there were drastic overcounts (of which there is no evidence). While all air forces in WW2 inflated their kill counts (mainly due to the fog of war essentially), the Germans actually were pretty meticulous about crediting kills personally, and there are some aces who actually may have scored MORE than they are credited with. By the way, Aces High has really helped me understand how the overcounts happened. For those of you that haven't flown in the historical type scenarios in AH (like the BoB scenario that is going on now, FSO, and Snapshots), they typically have the kill messages turned off, so you have no idea how many kills you get unless you see the enemy crash or sustain catastrophic damage. Even then, several people may have been shooting at it. So far, for every event I have flown in, except one, I have thought that I killed more enemy planes than the logs actually credited me with afterwards. In real war, even more confusion would have prevailed no doubt.
(19) This is worded in a slightly confusing way. I believe it means to say that Ilmari Juutilainen was the highest scoring non-German fighter ace, and that is in fact correct.
(21) Disputed at the very least. Although the Brits counted V-1's as air-to-air kills, some lists don't count those, which would cause Van Lierde to drop way down the list as he only destroyed 6 fixed wing aircraft. Also, Marmaduke Pattle is considered by some to have killed between 50 and 52, which would make him the undisputed high scorer of the RAF, but many of the records were lost early in the war. Pattle makes most peoples short list as one of the greatest fighter pilots of all time independent of scoring, due to a rare combination of factors that he exhibited, much in the same way that Marseille is often listed by some as the Luftwaffe's greatest despite not being the highest scoring.
(23) Rudel predominantly flew the Stuka, but I believe that he scored all 9 of his air kills in a FW-190 which he also occasionally flew. He also flew more combat missions than anyone in history a total that is unlikely to ever be surpassed. His numbers may also be inflated some in terms of the objects killed, but as with his fighter pilot brethren, even if you cut them by two-thirds, you still end up with probably the top scorer. It's a shame he was so dedicated to such an awful cause.
