Are these facts true?????? - Printable Version

Are these facts true?????? - Printable Version

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Are these facts true?????? - Mr Grumpy - 09-11-2009

I have no idea......;)

WW II Trivia

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); 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.

YOU'VE GOT TO LOVE THIS ONE........

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 they decided 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 United States and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands. 21 troops were killed in the assault on the island. It could have been worse if there had been any Japanese on the island.

RE: Are these facts true?????? - Xandor - 09-11-2009

About any facts I can tell wheter it's true or not:

3. Yep. CINCUS (Commander-in-chef United States [Navy]) was an official abbreviation for the top UN navy command but 20th Decamber 1941 admiral Ernst King was assigned as COMINCH that became a new abbreviation.
And yes, the shoulder patch of the US Army's 45th Infantry division was the Swastika. "Before the 1930s, the division's symbol was a red square with a yellow swastika, a tribute to the large Native American population in the south-western United States." © Wiki. But in 1939 the new simbol was approved featuring the Thunderbird, another Native American symbol.

8. Range of Me-264 was 9500 miles (15000 km) so it could theoretically reach New York in case taking off from aroun Paris. But this plane was only a prototype for navy puroses (long range recon and naval bombing) and only 3 pcs were built so they never palnned to bomb US with that. They developed "Amerika bomber" but it's a complete different story.

9.In many sources it is stated that U-120 was lost due to a toilet problem. This is not true, U-120 was scuttled 2 May, 1945 at Bremerhaven before capitulation. Raised in 1950 and broken up. But I should mention that U-1206, a much larger boat, did have toilet problems that helped to contribute to its loss in April 1945.

RE: Are these facts true?????? - Mike Abberton - 09-11-2009

11. is basically true. The Japanese abandoned Kiska after Attu fell without the US/Canada realizing it. So they invaded and found the Japanese positions empty although there were some booby traps left behind.

From Wikipidia (although I've heard the story elsewhere):

Admiral Ernest King reported to the secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, that the only things that remained on the island were dogs and fresh brewed coffee. Knox asked for an explanation and King responded, "The Japanese are very clever. Their dogs can brew coffee."

I suspect number 3 not quite true. I am completely sure that 71% of USAAC personnel were not killed. Not even 71% of USAAC personnel were casualties (casualties include killed, wounded, and other various non-combat reasons for removal from combat duty like illness, a fact many people don't realize). It's possible that 71% of bomber flight crews in the US Eighth Air Force were casualties during some period of the war, but I don't think that's reperesentative of the overall casualty rates. I've usually heard that the highest casualty rate for the entire war was the U-Boat crews, and I don't think they were at 71%.

RE: Are these facts true?????? - Xandor - 09-12-2009

And some additional info:

1)Not formal true 'cause WWII is official name of war lasted since 01.09.1939 (german invasion in Poland) to 02.09.1945 (Capitulation of Japan) So neither civil was in China nor Winter War are counted as parts of WWII.
Sofar, there were US sailors killed in the fall of 1941 by German U-Boats, while escorting UK-bound convoys to mid Atlantic. The German sank one US destroyer and heavily damaged another, both with large loss of life. Roosevelt did not seek a declaration of war from Congress over these incidents, possibly because he was on pretty thin ice as regards the Neutrality Act. The first official American casualties were at Pearl Harbor.

The first Germans killed would have been in their invasion of Poland, in September 1939.

Lesley McNair was one of two three-star Lt Gens killed in the war, and he was killed in July 1944 by bombs dropped short by the US Army Air Force (it had changed from the Army Air Corps in 1940). The other was Lt Gen Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., killed in the Okinawa operation in the Pacific. Buckner's father had been a Confederate general, who surrendered Fort Donelson to U. S. Grant in 1862, when Grant got his "Unconditional Surrender" nickname. He probably thought these were uncharitable terms from his old friend Sam Grant. It was the first time they had seen one another since Grant had resigned from the prewar army under a cloud, due to his heavy drinking. Buckner Sr had loaned Grant the money to travel back east from their duty station in California. Its not recorded whether Grant ever repaid the loan.

2) is true. His name was Calvin Graham. There is an article about him at Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Graham . He had kinda interesting biography.

5) Generally speaking pilots divided on two categories: shooters and targets ;)
There are a lot of high-scored aces that were killed in action and even more pilots with 1-2 victories that survive the war. It's all about the mathmatics: the more aircrafts has the country the less score has its pilots and vice versa.

RE: Are these facts true?????? - Xandor - 09-12-2009

And yet another one:

6) Partial true.
It's true that tracer bullet has different aerodinamics, weight and penetration ability (tracer won't penetrate even regular helmet from 200m) but not that much to make 80% missing during shooting. During WWII average distance of air conbat was 200-400 meters (often closer but rare farther) so ballictics difference doesn't afeect much in this distances. So 20% accuracy was not the result of tracer ballistic but the result of WWII air combat's nature itself. It's quite hard to hit anything moving at 400 km/h 200 meters from you while you're moving at 400 km/h yourself.

RE: Are these facts true?????? - Mr Grumpy - 09-12-2009

Thanks for the info, interesting stuff.......:)

RE: Are these facts true?????? - ekrommen - 09-12-2009

10 - I'm pretty sure this is related in Keegan's "Six Armies in Normandy". But I think the Koreans were laborers, not soldiers at this point. It took a while to figure out where they were from. Also Keegan noted they were repatriated after the war and were likely involved in the Korean War as well.

RE: Are these facts true?????? - Jobu88 - 09-12-2009

"Toilet problems" sounds funny but it's not, ask anyone who wears dolphins. Any opening that lets water into the people tank is bad for business.

Trash compactor / ejector problems have long been one of the hypotheses of what sank USS Scorpion in hmmmmmm what year was that 1960 maybe? I forget.

RE: Are these facts true?????? - Xandor - 09-12-2009

It's absolutely not funny especially if it causes casualties. In case of U-1206 it was not even mailfunction or failure. It was misuse. Due to compicated head system crew member should use toilet with help of qulified specialist. But U-boat commader, Kptlt. Karl-Adolf Schlitt decided to use it by his own. Of course he did something wrong and the flooding of the forward section left Schlitt with no alternative than to surface. Once surfaced U-1206 was discovered and bombed by British patrols, forcing Schlitt to scuttle the submarine. One man died in the attack, three men drowned in the heavy seas after abandoning the vessel and 46 were captured.

IIRC USS Scorpion sunk in 1968.

RE: Are these facts true?????? - zeiss - 09-13-2009