I found this in internet. Some of these news made me really laugh - despite the sad background. [My favorites are Nr.9 and 10] Shows how stupid humans are 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. 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 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. AND I SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST.... 11. 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. See, history can be fun!
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BABEK NUMBER 10 RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH
WW I had also funny facts, like : 1. First air battles were so funny because pilots were throwing each other with : knifes, axes, hammers and other tools 2. First bombs were black spheres with lited knot handly dropped 3. First air battle with hard weapon was when one pilot on reconaissance shoot other with handgun
fact brought by illo: during street fight in berlin, a section of about 8 soviet soldiers were descending downstairs when they encountered by german going upstaris group consisting of 7 men. probably numbers and direction was contrary. i don't remember. so they ran against each other at adjacent landings. distance between them was probably 5 meters. all of them unloaded all stacks of their semi-machine guns into each other, including spare ones. they did not scored a single hit, although they fired a vaste of bullets. well. i don't remember how much exactly. illo must remember that. may be they fired 3 stacks each? that would make ca 1350 rounds.
Ok - the next one is not from WW2 but also funny: http://members.tripod.com/ija64/id55.htm The picture shows the iranian airport Teheran-Meherabad directly after the surprise attack of Iraq in September 1980. Saddam wanted to take out the iranian air force - like the Israelis once had done with the arab bases. But all these arab MiG-23 which attacked undisturbed the iranian main airfield were only able to destroy: - The car-parking area - causing heavy damage by destroying many civilian cars which stood there - A civilian Boeing 707 was heavily damaged and taken out of service. Today its used as a restaurant at Teheran airfield - A single F-4 Phantom was hit by a bomb which didnt exploded. The plane was later repaired - A single C-130 transport plane which was hit by a bomb which exploeded and destroyed the plane. That was all. Of all the iranian planes which stood at the field these were the complete losses after the "surprise attack".
no.11 rules about Iraq-Iran war - there was Iranian movie about air combat during that confilct, anyone remembers the title of it??
Just reminded myself that before WW2 the US Navy command's full name was abbreviated into CINCUS which was pronounced as "sink us" . Also one of US infantry divisons had swastika on it's badge and it was changed only after december 41...
The title of the iranian movie is "Attack on H3" - here the story and some pictures of the film. http://members.tripod.com/kg51edelweiss/id289.htm About the island in pacific war I found this in internet: Japanese Capture On the 6th of June, 1942, the Japanese No. 3 Special Landing Party and 500 Marines went ashore at Kiska. The Japanese captured a small American Naval Weather Detachment consisting of ten men, including a Lieutenant along with their dog. One member of the detachment escaped for 50 days. Starving, thin, and extremely cold he finally surrendered to the Japanese. Allied Liberation The island was bombed for 2 1/2 months after Attu Island liberation. Thousands of US and some Canadian troops landed on August 15, 1943. The Japanese garrison of 5,200 men had been evacuated from the island on July 23 under the cover of fog. Despite massive US air power, the evacuation slipped by unnoticed. Allied casualties during the invasion nevertheless numbered close to 200, all from friendly fire, booby traps set out by the Japanese to inflict damage on the invading allied forces, or disease. There were seventeen Americans and four Canadians killed from either friendly fire or booby traps, fifty more were wounded as a result of friendly fire or booby traps, and an additional 130 men came down with trench foot.
