Hi Guys,

This is my first topic on WWII. A friend sent me this in an e-mail.

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.

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)

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.

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%.

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.

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.

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).

German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City but it wasn't worth the effort.

German submarine U-120 was sunk by a malfunctioning toilet.

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.

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.

[ 06 August 2002, 09:06 PM: Message edited by: the gunners dream ]

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If you are able,
Save for them,
A place inside of you.
And take one backward glance,
When you are leaving,
For the places than can,
No longer go.

Excellent Facts and........... welcome to the board mate. ((Grin))----(Normally I would use one of the faces icons but for some strange reason when I do--my message gets deleted)

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

I love facts like those.

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"If your gonna buy the angel s**t, you might as well go for the zombie package as well."
-George Carlin

Excellent facts!!! Welcome to the forum!!! We hope you to enjoy yourself here and to see you very often here!!! [img]smile.gif[/img]

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Only thing with these facts is sometimes they are done to make us laugh, and othertimes to enlighten us to stupidity-sometimes however it pure fantasy.
The U-120 story-i think that is just a tad incorrect, wasnt it scuttled in Bremerhaven!!!!!
Perhaps i am wrong-just curious-before i put it into my notes-can anyone verify that?

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"GARRY OWEN"-Traditional war-cry of the US 7th Cavalry.
"CURRAHEE"-War-cry of the US 506th PIR.
"Everybody thinks that they are going to get the chance to punch some Nazi in the face at Normandy-and those days are over, they are long gone"-Lt Chris Burnett

There are similar quotes I remember having read, so I´d like to carry on with this and if someone else has some specialties, why not put them here:

The famous Otto Skorzeny scar. I read a while ago that he got it during early years ( high school or army cadet? ) while he was keen on fighting duels and once he got a sword wound on his face. That´s how it was done ( other stories on this? )

Himmler asked once Joachim peiper why he didn´t have a nazi pin.Joachim answered he never had got himself one and never would geet one. he was an officer, not a nazi.

The russian T 34 was reliable, but yet at least in the earlier versions the driver had a little hammer with which to hit the gear in if there was some problems.

The Finns had a surprise plan for the russians if they had been able to smash our defences during the summer attack in 1944. The karelian isthmus is on a lower level than the rest of Finland´s mainland on sea level, say some 2-3 meters. In Saimaa there is a lot of water, as you know in Finland there is as well many lakes. The idea was to explode then the dams on saimaa and thus get at least a momentary "tide" on Karelian isthmus, like the germans did in Holland etc. Ha-haa, that would have been a surprise for the attacking russian soldiers and tanks!

The soviets never claimed the guns, tanks etc won by Finland from them, as their politics said they were unbeatable and never could admit that finns could have any soviet military stuff. Instead the german weaponry etc was required to be given to them.

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Found this story in the net. Can anybody verify this or is it just a story?? it describes the time he was in Italy 9/1944.

Peiper disliked a high Nazi party official billeted near his headquarters. He exploded some grenades at his door to terrify the man. Then Peiper noted that the Italian Government had rounded up a group of Jews. He decided to save them so they were released to him and he set them free. The Rabbi thanked Peiper and asked if there was anything they could do for him. As one of the Jews was a good singer he told them that there was a party official in town who loved to hear good singing. The next morning the party official was woken up by a choir of Jews singing folk songs in Yiddish under his window. After the war when Peiper was on trial the Rabbi wrote a testimony to his kindness

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Ha! Those are nice ones! I will post some of those later.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Tell me if youve heard this one: 2 army privates when engaged in a heavy firefight along with their company in sicliy against an italian company/battalion. In the middle of the fight, 1 private said to his buddy: "I bet they'd give up if i asked them." the other guy told him he was crazy, but the guys stood up anyway and bagan walking towards the italian lines. To the americans' suprise, the italians stopped shooting. 10 minutes later that american private came back to the american lines with over 150 italian prisoners.

CVM

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I havent heard this one but, its similar to what actually happened on Saipan with Marine Corporal: Guy Gabaldon. His nickname was: The Pied Piper of Saipan.

BTW, Guy Gabaldon is still living AND lives on Saipan. He was supposed to have been recommended for the Silver Star, and last I heard--was recommended for the CMoH.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Hahaha! Those guys are quite some guys...

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Some more details.

The SS runes sign was developed by SS-Sturmfuhrer Walter Heck in 1931. He was paid 2.50 reichsmarks for the creation...

The camouflage clothing by SS, the tarnjacke, was patented by SS so Wehrmacht could not use it.

Ferdinand tanks were used in the Kursk attack in the northern pincer only. the russians claim to have destroyed ferdinands in the southern part as well. This may be true but it means they had quite a powerful AT gun to use...

During the winter 1941-42 in the russian front the soldiers wrote graffitis to the remaining walls of houses: " we want to go home ", " we want food ", " we want a vacation ".

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Great stuff Kai, and speaking of Kursk--I am currently reading two books on that battle now.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Well, if you don't mind, gentlemen, I will use some of those facts to write an article on WWII for the magazine I am writing for. They will love those funny facts.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

U-120
Type IIB
Laid down 31 Mar, 1938 Flender-Werke, Lübeck
Commissioned: 20 Apr, 1940 Oblt. Ernst Bauer (Knights Cross)
Commanders:
20 Apr, 1940 - 25 Nov, 1940 Oblt. Ernst Bauer (Knights Cross)
26 Nov, 1940 - 19 May, 1941 Wolfgang Heyda
20 May, 1941 - 24 Feb, 1942 Willy-Roderich Körner
25 Feb, 1942 - 30 Sep, 1942 Hans Fiedler
15 Sep, 1942 - 24 May, 1943 Alfred Radermacher
26 Jul, 1943 - 14 Sep, 1944 Oblt. Joachim Sauerbier
15 Sep, 1944 - 2 May, 1945 Oblt. Rolf Rüdiger Bensel

Career: No patrols
20 Apr, 1940 - 30 Jun, 1940 U-Bootschulflottille (school boat)
1 Jul, 1940 - 16 Mar, 1945 21. Flottille (school boat)
17 Mar, 1945 - 2 May, 1945 31. Flottille (training)

No successes (never on combat patrol)

Fate: Scuttled 2 May, 1945 at Bremerhaven. Raised in 1950 and broken up.

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„Solange man nicht mit dem Kopf unterm Arm rumläuft geht es doch noch!" Erwin Rommel

Go ahead Friedrich!
These are the kind you seldom find and in a way they are little treasures!I hope the readers will like them as well.

Did you know who where the first russian soldiers in the Hitler bunker? ( this is probably a very old story ). Some women soldiers after Eva Brauns clothes and stockings!! men were afraid of mine traps etc but women just marched in like nothing !!

During the winter 1941-1942 in Lapland the german soldiers had vodka but no winter clothing. On several evenings they did have strange people coming over to visit them...
Finns would come and exchange their winter clothing over them for the vodka. As the finns would leave almost with just panties on the germans asked " where do you get new clothes? " The answer " from the russians..." was sort and prompt!

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Those are true, Kai! I don't know about the finns and the wódka but the Germans stole the Russian's clothing.

And I am sure I will contribute that many people more will know a bit more about WWII, and perhaps they will like to make some research by their own!!! That would be great!!!

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Some weird stuff I found yesterday:

During the beginning of Operation Brbarossa Josif Stalin´s son Jakov Stalin was caught. He served at the 14th panzerdivision´s artillery. On 19th of July Satlin was informed of this from Berlin.Stalin had almost the whole family of the son´s mother executed and the wife was sent to jail. She was set free in 1943 after it was found that Jakov was not a traitor. In 1943 Jakov had a quarrel with a guard and was shot dead.

Another one:

During the Lushno battles on 22nd September 1941 Totenkopf engineers marked something weird..

An engineer unit dug in behind a minefield were surprised to be attacked by a herd of pigs which had been driven across the field by the russians in an effort to clear it...The story doesn´t continue, I´m sorry.

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I Thought Stalin's son from another marriage was a pilot who was shot down and used as propaganda and they even put him up for ransom. Stalin did not give in to the request for the ransom. Stalin had said "let him die".

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Maybe we´re both right. [img]smile.gif[/img] SO far this was on the net on Stalin´s grandson:

Dzhugashvili, who uses the Georgian surname that was Stalin's family name, is one of the dictator's eight grandchildren. His father - Yakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin's oldest son - was captured by the Germans during World War II and died in a Nazi prison camp, an apparent suicide.

Germany offered Stalin a swap - Yakov in exchange for a top general captured by the Red Army. The Soviet leader refused, regarding his son as a traitor for having fallen into enemy hands.

here they say it´s Yakov, the oldest son.I´ll try to find more.

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About the family:

In June 1904 he married Yekaterina Svanidze, a simple, devout peasant girl who was devoted to him. The marriage, evidently a happy one, was typical of the more conventional unions that Georgian radicals, unlike their Russian counterparts, usually contracted. His wife died on April 10, 1907, leaving a son, Yakov (Jacob). Thus by 1905, Dzhugashvili led the life of a typical fledgling provincial revolutionary, hardly the heroic role ascribed to him later in the official Soviet histories

On March 24, 1919, Stalin married his se