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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).
80% of Soviet males born in 1923 didn't survive World War 2
The
highest ranking American killed was Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, killed by friendly fire from the US Army Air
Corps.
Between
1939 and 1945 the Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs, An average of about
27,700 tons of bombs each month.
12,000
heavy bombers were shot down in World War 2
2/3 of Allied bomber crews were lost for each plane destroyed
3 or 4 ground
men were wounded for each killed
6 bomber crewmen were killed for each one wounded
Over 100,000 Allied bomber crewmen
were killed over Europe
There were 433 Medals of Honor awarded during World War 2, 219 of them were given
after the
receipiant's death
From 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945 in Europe the Allies had 200,000 dead and 550,000
wounded
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).
At the time of Pearl Harbor, the top
US Navy command was called CINCUS (pronounced
sink us), the shoulder patch of the US Armys 45th Infantry division was
the swastika, and
Hitlers private train was named Amerika. All three were soon changed for PR purposes.
Germany lost
110 Division Commanders in combat
40,000 men served on U-Boats during World War 2; 30,000 never returned
More US servicemen
died in the Air Corps that the Marine Corps. While completing the
required 30 missions, your chance of being killed was
71%. 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.
Germanys 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.
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
the cargo plane he was in was shot down by F6F Hellcats. He was on his way to pick up a new A6M3 Zero fighter plane.
One of Japans methods of destroying tanks was to bury a very large artillery shell with only
the nose exposed.
When a tank came near the enough a soldier would whack the shell with a
hammer. "Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat."
Lt. Gen. Mataguchi
Following a massive naval bombardment, 35,000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore at
Kiska. 21
troops were killed in the fire-fight. It would have been worse if there had been
Japanese on the island.
The MISS
ME was an unarmed Piper Cub. While spotting for 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. It is unknown where they
put them since
the MISS ME only had two seats.
Most members of the Waffen SS were not German.
Most men in the German Army hated the Nazi Party.
Air attacks caused 1/3 of German Generals' deaths
By D-Day,
the Germans had 1.5 million railway workers operating 988,000 freight cars and
used 29,000 per day
The only nation that Germany officially declared war on was the USA.
During the Japanese attack on Hong
Kong, British officers objected to Canadian infantrymen
taking up positions in the officers mess. No enlisted men allowed!
By D-Day, 35% of all German soldiers had been wounded at least once, 11% twice, 6%
three times, 2% four times and
2% more than 4 times
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 water. He finally
reached England still clutching the bottle, which contained beer. Perhaps some German drank
the water.
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