WW II History

WW II History - pay attention, class...
(Can anyone provide reliable information to verify, refute or expand upon this info?
-- if so, please email me. Thanks, jw)

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. General Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps. So much for the allies.

   From John Arterbury. Lt. General Lesley McNair was killed by accidental Allied bombing in France (ie: 'friendly fire'). Cite: Crusade by Rick Atkinson

   Further, from Captain Robert A. Lynn, The highest ranking U.S. general killed by enemy fire was Lt. General Simon Bolivar, Jr. He was junior to Lt. General Lesley J. McNair, who was killed by U.S. bombers.

   Rodney writes: "Highest-Ranking US Army officer killed in WW2 was Simon Bolivar Buckner, a 4-star General. He certainly outranked 3-star Lieutenant-General Lesley J. McNair, highest-ranking US Army officer who died in the ETO. Anyway, being bumped off by your own side doesn't really count; Buckner was actually killed by Japanese shellfire."

   David M adds: "The USMC general killed on Okinawa was Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner. He was killed by artillery shrapnel while observing from a forward position."

2. The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old Calvin Graham, USN. He was wounded in combat and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. (His benefits were later restored by act of Congress.)

   The item above was confirmed by a note from Richard Graham of Canton, TX who says: The story about Calvin Graham enlisted in the navy at the age of 12 is a true story. he was a cousin of mine. The last time I talked to Calvin was at a family reunion several years before his death.

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.

   Dave Walker writes: Insignia of the 45th Infantry Division. The 45th Infantry Division gained its nickname, "Thunderbird" division, from the gold thunderbird. This Native American symbol became the division's insignia in 1939. It replaced another previously used Native American symbol, a swastika, that was withdrawn when it became closely associated with the Nazi party.

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%.

   David M adds: "About the 30 mission tour that the Army Air Corps flyers had to fly during WW2. It had been 25 missions until late in the war when the tour was lengthened to 30. Flyers were "grandfathered" based on their enlistment/draft dates."

5. Not that bombers were helpless. A B-17 carried 4 tons of bombs and 1.5 tons of machine gun ammo. The US 8th Air Force shot down 6,098 fighter planes, 1 for every 12,700 shots fired.

   Bill Talbott, Major, USMC (Ret) offers some interesting Discussion of Aircraft Kill Claims.

6. Germany's power grid was much more vulnerable than realized. One estimate is that if just 1% of the bombs dropped on German industry had instead been dropped on power plants German industry would have collapsed.
7. 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.
8. 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. The tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet the 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.
9. 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).
10. German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City but it wasn't worth the effort.

    According to Bill Douglas, the Me-264 was a prototype that never went into production. Although the design was theoretically possible of a mission to New York, there was never an operational aircraft to test the theory. One reason for canceling the project was that Hitler felt the isolated bombing of New York would do more to rile the US public against Germany than any damage that was achieved.

    According to Captain Robert A. Lynn, the Me-264 V-1 DID FLY on 23 December 1942 but the Me-264 V-2 was destroyed in an air raid. The Ju-290 was the designated mid-air refueler for the Me-264. There was no loss of effort on the Germans part but the project suffered from the following: shortage of design and construction capacity, personal rivalries between Goring, Milch, and Messerschmitt, and shortage of production capacity. An air raid on 18 July 144 on Memmingen destroyed the Me-254 V-1 as well as parts of the V-3 and V-4. (cite: Hitler's Miracle Weapons-Volume 1: The Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine by Friedrich George)

11. A number of air crewman died of farts (ascending to 20,000 ft. in an unpressurized aircraft causes intestinal gas to expand 300%).
12. The Russians destroyed over 500 German aircraft by ramming them in mid-air (they also sometimes cleared mine fields by marching over them). "It takes a brave man not to be a hero in the Red Army" - Joseph Stalin
13. The US Army had more ships than the US Navy.
14. The German Air Force had 22 infantry divisions, 2 armor divisions and 11 paratroop divisions. None of them were capable of airborne operations. The German Army had paratroops that WERE capable of airborne operations. Go figure.
15. When the US Army landed in North Africa, among the equipment brought ashore were 3 complete Coca-Cola bottling plants.
16. 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 the US Army captured them.
17. A malfunctioning toilet sank German submarine U-120.

    The U-120 was scuttled by her own crew on 2 May 1945 at Bremerhaven, Germany during Operation REGENBOGEN. Info from Captain Robert A. Lynn, Robert Bogash and uboat.net: U-120.

    According to this thread, it wasn't U-120 that was lost this way, it was uboat.net: U-1206 (KL Karl-Adolf Schlitt), though there were other issues involved too. The story and more details of this incident and of U-boat toilets are included below.

18. The Graf Spee never sank. The scuttling attempt failed and the ship was bought as scrap by the British. On board was Germany's newest radar system.

    The Graf Spee did sink when scuttled, but only in waters less than 25 ft deep. It was not bought as scrap by the British, and in fact lay in the silt in the River Plate estuary in Uruguay. An effort is being made to raise her to turn her into a ship museum. See "Salvage Team Prepares to Raise WWII Ship" for more details of her sinking and the recovery effort. (Thanks to Lewis Perelman for the info)

19. One of Japan's methods of destroying tanks was to bury a very large artillery shell with only the nose exposed. When a tank came near enough a soldier would whack the shell with a hammer. "Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat." - LtGen Mutaguchi
20. Following a massive naval bombardment 35,000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska. 32 troops (28 Americans and 4 Canadian) were killed in the fire fight and over 50 wounded. It would have been worse if there had been Japanese on the island.

    From John Arterbury. Invasion of Kiska deaths were all due to friendly fire. The correct numbers are 28 Americans dead and four Canadian dead. Cite: Canadian Heroes - The Battle for Kiska. Note: this article is fascinating, and says "It was the Battle of Kiska that would lead Time magazine to create the acronym, JANFU (joint army-navy foul-up)."

    According to Captain Robert A. Lynn, PAO, Florida Guard, in addition to the men KIA by friendly fire, 50 men were WIA from friendly fire while another 130 suffered trench foot.

21. The MISS ME was an unarmed Piper Cub. While spotting for the US artillery her pilot saw a similar German plane doing the same thing. He dove on the German plane and he and his co-pilot fired their pistols damaging the German plane enough that it had to make a forced landing. Whereupon they landed and took the Germans prisoner. I don't know where they put them since the MISS ME only had 2 seats.

    Mark Anderson wrote: "In regards to the duel of two spotter aircraft doing battle during the last days of WW2, Cornelius Ryan wrote of the incident in his book Last Battle. While enroute to scout the area around Berlin Lts. Duane Francies and William Martin, in the last "dogfight" between Americans and Germans in WW2, took on a Fieseler "Storch" under pistolfire from their L-4 Cub, forced the Storch to crash land and its two occupants to be captured by an American troop convoy which had watched the action from below. The above account was also verified to me by correspondence from Mr. Martin in 2003."

22. Most members of the Waffen SS were not German.
23. The only nation that Germany declared war on was the USA.
24. During the Japanese attack on Hong Kong British officers objected to Canadian infantrymen taking up positions in the officer's mess. No enlisted men allowed you know.
25. Nuclear physicist Niels Bohr was rescued in the nick of time from German occupied Denmark. While Danish resistance fighters provided covering fire he ran out the back door of his home stopping momentarily to grab a beer bottle full of precious "Heavy Water." He finally reached England still clutching the bottle. Which contained beer. I suppose some German drank the Heavy Water.

Verification Notes:

• General: According to John Arterbury, most of these factoids are similar to those in the book Dirty Little Secrets of World War II. I don't know which came first, the book or the emails, or how much actual verification the author did of these factoids.
• #1: From John Arterbury. Lt. General Lesley McNair was killed by accidental Allied bombing in France (ie: 'friendly fire'). Cite: Crusade by Rick Atkinson

  Further, from Captain Robert A. Lynn, PAO, Florida Guard, The highest ranking U.S. general killed by enemy fire was Lt. General Simon Bolivar, Jr. He was junior to Lt. General Lesley J. McNair, who was killed by U.S. bombers.

  Rodney writes: "Highest-Ranking US Army officer killed in WW2 was Simon Bolivar Buckner, a 4-star General. He certainly outranked 3-star Lieutenant-General Lesley J. McNair, highest-ranking US Army officer who died in the ETO. Anyway, being bumped off by your own side doesn't really count; Buckner was actually killed by Japanese shellfire." (sent 5/2006)

  David M adds: "The USMC general killed on Okinawa was Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner. He was killed by artillery shrapnel while observing from a forward position." (sent 5/2006)

  I've also heard from the son of a B-24 pilot from the bombing mission that accidently killed General McNair. He mentions that this mission was portrayed on a History Channel "Military Blunders" episode, which matched his father's story of the incident. (sent 4/2004)

• #2: This item was confirmed by a note from Richard Graham of Canton, TX who says: The story about Calvin Graham enlisted in the navy at the age of 12 is a true story. he was a cousin of mine. The last time I talked to Calvin was at a family reunion several years before his death.
• #3: Dave Walker writes: Insignia of the 45th Infantry Division. The 45th Infantry Division gained its nickname, "Thunderbird" division, from the gold thunderbird. This Native American symbol became the division's insignia in 1939. It replaced another previously used Native American symbol, a swastika, that was withdrawn when it became closely associated with the Nazi party.
• #4: David M adds: "About the 30 mission tour that the Army Air Corps flyers had to fly during WW2. It had been 25 missions until late in the war when the tour was lengthened to 30. Flyers were "grandfathered" based on their enlistment/draft dates." (sent 5/2006)
• #10: According to Bill Douglas, The Me-264 was a prototype that never went into production. Although the design was theoretically possible of a mission to New York, there was never an operational aircraft to test the theory. One reason for canceling the project was that Hitler felt the isolated bombing of New York would do more to rile the US public against Germany than any damage that was achieved.

  According to Captain Robert A. Lynn, PAO, Florida Guard, the Me-264 V-1 DID FLY on 23 December 1942 but the Me-264 V-2 was destroyed in an air raid. The Ju-290 was the designated mid-air refueler for the Me-264. There was no loss of effort on the Germans part but the project suffered from the following: shortage of design and construction capacity, personal rivalries between Goring, Milch, and Messerschmitt, and shortage of production capacity. An air raid on 18 July 144 on Memmingen destroyed the Me-254 V-1 as well as parts of the V-3 and V-4. (cite: Hitler's Miracle Weapons-Volume 1: The Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine by Friedrich George)

• #17: The U-120 was scuttled by her own crew on 2 May 1945 at Bremerhaven, Germany during Operation REGENBOGEN. Info from Captain Robert A. Lynn, Robert Bogash and uboat.net: U-120. (I don't yet know if any other U-boats were lost due to toilet problems)

  According to this thread, it wasn't U-120 that was lost this way it was the U-1206 (KL Karl-Adolf Schlitt).
  

  Here is the story of the killer toilet:
  "Every U-boat, except midget craft, had a toilet, with the larger types even having two, but one of them was usually used as a larder and therefore could not accommodate the crew until they had passed the contents through the other one. All U-boats had a so-called 'upper deck toilet' as men just urinated over the side. Of course, this luxury could not be used when the boat was submerged and once deeper than about 25m the interior toilet had to be closed as well because the water pressure outside the boat was too great to pump the contents out. This was hardly an imposition at the beginning of the war, but longer dives became the order of the day as the anti-U-boat measures became more ferocious, with boats in the Mediterranean and in American waters regularly remaining submerged for periods of 24 hours or so and special, high-pressure thunder boxes had to be installed. After all a functional 'head' could make all the difference between total and partial concentration.

  The operation of this high-pressure toilet proved to be so difficult that men with a technical aptitude were specially trained to learn the intricacies of the new weapon. There was a delicate naval term for these men, and the term 'Toilet Graduate' will probably suffice in English. At least one boat, U1206 (KL Karl-Adolf Schlitt), was lost as a direct result of mishandling this complicated 'thunder box'. Kptlt Schlitt tried the system for himself but the LI sent a toilet graduate to help, and somehow with two minds on the same job, the levers were pulled in the wrong order and the commander's offering plus a thick jet of salt water was squirted into their faces. Seeing what had happened, the LI took the boat up to relieve the pressure, but some of the inflowing water drained into the batteries below to produce poisonous chlorine gases (chlorine is produced when salt from sea water reacts with acid in the batteries) and eventually, after an attack from aircraft, the boat had to be abandoned."

  Source: Showell, Jak P. Mallmann. U-Boats Under the Swastika. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. ISBN: 0-87021-970-7. Copyright: Jak P. Mallmann Showell, 1987.

  Additional info and confirmation

  1. Gudmundur Helgason, of Uboat.net confirmed this bit on the U-1206, saying "Yes, this is correct although it's a bit simplified :) This device is really a very distant relative of a normal toilet and quite complex :) The boat also had other problems before (port-diesel) and so the commander decided to scuttle the boat outside Aberdeen and save his men (3 died)." As a reference, he suggests: the book. Hitler's U-boat War, vol II by Clay Blairs.
  2. uboat.net: U-1206 lists it as "sank... in a diving accident."
  3. Does anyone have the Mallmann book?
  4. Interesting article: Life Aboard a U-Boat
  
  
• #18: The Graf Spee did sink when scuttled, but only in waters less than 25 ft deep. It was not bought as scrap by the British, and in fact lay in the silt in the River Plate estuary in Uruguay. An effort is being made to raise her to turn her into a ship museum. See "Salvage Team Prepares to Raise WWII Ship" for more details of her sinking and the recovery effort. (Thanks to Lewis Perelman for the info)
• #20: From John Arterbury. Invasion of Kiska deaths were all due to friendly fire. The correct numbers are 28 Americans dead and four Canadian dead. Cite: Canadian Heroes - The Battle for Kiska. Note: this article is fascinating, and says "It was the Battle of Kiska that would lead Time magazine to create the acronym, JANFU (joint army-navy foul-up)."

  According to Captain Robert A. Lynn, PAO, Florida Guard, in addition to the men KIA by friendly fire, 50 men were WIA from friendly fire while another 130 suffered trench foot.

• #21: Mark Anderson wrote: "In regards to the duel of two spotter aircraft doing battle during the last days of WW2, Cornelius Ryan wrote of the incident in his book Last Battle. While enroute to scout the area around Berlin Lts. Duane Francies and William Martin, in the last "dogfight" between Americans and Germans in WW2, took on a Fieseler "Storch" under pistolfire from their L-4 Cub, forced the Storch to crash land and its two occupants to be captured by an American troop convoy which had watched the action from below. The above account was also verified to me by correspondence from Mr. Martin in 2003."