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Thread: Interesting WW2 facts

  1. #1
    'ave it. Skii's Avatar
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    Interesting WW2 facts

    # 6 is particularly interesting

    1. The first German serviceman killed in World War 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 U.S. Army Air Corps – so much for allies.

    2. The youngest U.S. 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 U.S. Navy command was called CINCUS (pronounced “sink us”), the shoulder patch of the U.S. Army’s 45th Infantry Division was the Swastika, and Hitler’s private train was named “Amerika.” All three names were soon changed for PR purposes.

    4. More U.S. servicemen died in the U.S. Army Air Corps than in the Marine Corps. While completing the required 25 missions your chance of being killed was 71 percent.

    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 percent 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 the allied armies reached the Rhine River in Germany, 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. George 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. The 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 then forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and further forced to fight for the German Army until they were captured by the U.S. Army.

    11. Following a massive naval bombardment, 35,000 U.S. and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands. Twenty-one troops were killed in the firefight. It would have been worse if there had been any Japanese soldiers on the island.

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    Senior Member Tumble's Avatar
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    rofl.... espesh the one about the U-boat toilet..... how the hell did a throne sink a submarine???????

    Quote Originally Posted by The Quentos
    "My udder is growing. Quick pass me the parsely sauce." Said Oliver.

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    TiG
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    I feel sorry for the koreans myself

    TiG
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    No more Mr Nice Guy. Nick's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Tumble
    rofl.... espesh the one about the U-boat toilet..... how the hell did a throne sink a submarine???????
    A particularly strong thrust of the brush?

    Or maybe the same guy who plumbed in my central heating did their boat... one flush and it keeps on coming!
    Quote Originally Posted by Dareos View Post
    "OH OOOOHH oOOHHHHHHHOOHHHHHHH FILL ME WITH YOUR.... eeww not the stuff from the lab"

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    thrust of the brush lol

    ...

    nice little snippets there Skii....

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    One skin, two skin......
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    12. Contrary to popular belief, due to the high levels of cinematography exports from Hollywood, the USA did not in fact win WWII for Europe and were two years to late for almost all of the action. It was in fact the Russians who were the main causes of an allied victory in WWII!

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    HEXUS.timelord. Zak33's Avatar
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    Mother Russia

    the strong hold of WW2

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
    "The second you aren't paying attention to the tool you're using, it will take your fingers from you. It does not know sympathy." |
    "If you don't gaffer it, it will gaffer you" | "Belt and braces"

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    TiG
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    Originally posted by Big RICHARD
    12. Contrary to popular belief, due to the high levels of cinematography exports from Hollywood, the USA did not in fact win WWII for Europe and were two years to late for almost all of the action. It was in fact the Russians who were the main causes of an allied victory in WWII!
    I don't think so, There is no one single cause for victory over the germans in wwII.

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    The poorly timed invasion of Russia - Operation Barbarossa, caused the German army to freeze solid a few miles from Moscow. The timing of Barbarossa was set back due to a number of factors, not least of which was the planned invasion of Britain which was cancelled due to the intervention of the RAF

    Many many factors caused the Germans to lose the war, not just the supreme sacrifice of so many Russian Soldiers and Civilians.

    I would say the main reason why Germany lost the war was Hitlers insistance in taking personal command of his armed forces instead of leaving the job to his wiser generals.

    It is quite alarming to see how easily Germany could have won World War 2, think how the Battle of Britain would have turned out if Hitler hadn't ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb London instead of the RAF bases.

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    Senior Member Tumble's Avatar
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    quite frightening really when you think about it like that.....

    Quote Originally Posted by The Quentos
    "My udder is growing. Quick pass me the parsely sauce." Said Oliver.

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    HEXUS.timelord. Zak33's Avatar
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    Hitler is lucky.....he might havehad ME in his Luft Waffe.....then he WOULD have had problems

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
    "The second you aren't paying attention to the tool you're using, it will take your fingers from you. It does not know sympathy." |
    "If you don't gaffer it, it will gaffer you" | "Belt and braces"

  12. #12
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    And even more amazing when you think that the 1st bombs on London were a mistake.

    Dont doubt for one minute that the RAF were 7 days off been beaten FACT. When you read the autobiographies you see that they were stunning brave men and women. My opinion is that a group won the War but the pilots of many nationallities held the nazis at bay to enable the war to be won during the B0B.

    Laddie Lucas had a conversation with Adolf Galland at the 1976 Battle of Briain memeorial day and he asked

    "Dolph why did you switch targets from our airfields to London? We were nearly broken?"

    Gallands reply was a roll of the eyes and shrug of the shoulders.

    Churchill never spoke a truer word than when he spoke of The Few

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