Posted on 06/27/2016 3:30:54 PM PDT by cvolkay
1. In WWII a number of soldiers died of well, farts. When ascending in an unpressurized plane to 20,000 feet, it causes intestinal gas to expand 300%. I guess some guys couldn't fart quickly enough.
They should have brought pigs along with them. Then when Porkie was ready to blow, fly over the enemy's plane and drop him. When Porkie goes Blammo you blow the enemy to hell!! Even if you miss, it's okay. The explosion and fire fries up Porko Boy nice and crispy and countryside below rains down bacon, so the starving countryside gets fed. Yay!
2. Speaking of 20,000 feet, impossible to believe but about 10 servicemen, without parachutes, were blown out of the sky, fell to earth and actually lived. One was Alan Magee who fell 20,000 feet, hit a glass roof in a train station, then hit some water and lived. How? I have no idea. Most of the others survived as follows: They hit large trees (probably pines). When you hit the top, you hit little thin branches that won't kill you but begin to break your fall. Then as you progress into the middle and lower branches the limbs get slowly bigger and this forms a sort of slow braking action. Presumably the lower branches stop you, but by then your speed has broken. Good for you but not so good for the local Robins.
3. This one shocks me simply because of all the gung-ho war movies I've seen over the years. I heard this on PBS, so it must be true, they'd never lie would they? In WWI, only 20% of the U.S. servicemen who were in the trenches (trench warfare) actually fired their guns. Amazing. Only one out of five soldiers stuck his head up and fired. As some of the guys would come back down without heads anymore, it probably had a slight impact on their decision. Not exactly a good situation for company morale, you think?
4. A Japanese soldier, Hiroo Onoda, who never heard the war was over in 1945, continued patrolling his assigned Philippine island for almost 30 years until 1974 when he was finally officially relieved of his post. And you thought the communication between you and your spouse was bad?
5. In WWII, nine Americans survived a plane crash at sea. One was picked up by an American submarine. The other eight were captured by the Japanese. So what did the Japanese do? They ate 5 of the 8. After lengthy experimentation it was decided that people were best when served with a light garlic butter. Oh and the guy that was rescued by the sub? None other than George H.W.Bush, future president of the United States. If the sea currents had been just a little different, when he later said "read my lips" he might of thought, oh damn, I don't have lips anymore, they were used for dessert!
6. A good friend of Eleanor Roosevelt (FDR's wife) came to her with an idea. We should invent a bomb that would sail down and then, before hitting the ground would open up with 40 to 50 bats stashed inside. They would all have plastic explosives strapped to their legs. Then the bats would disperse throughout the city going to hopefully, 40 or 50 different buildings. Then after a few minutes the guys back on the plane would push a button and destroy all of those buildings. The only thing that stopped the plan was that the engineers and scientists couldn't development a strong enough and small enough plastic explosive to fit the bat's backs with.
Nonetheless, they worked on this plan until it gave way to a better plan, the atomic bomb. Actually this wasn't a bad plan, very inventive. Only problem was, eventually the Bat Lobby wanted to know what was in it for them, and that was a tough question to answer.
A wink and a smile to you!
Technically, Glenn Miller was an Airman when he was shot down :)
I have heard similar stats regarding WW2 soldiers and
that even at the front the highest percentage of grunts
never fired their weapons in anger. Asked my WIA WW2
paratrooper dad about it once and he basically said that
if there was ever a guy in his Company on Leyte who didn’t
fire his weapon then he would have sure wanted to have
the guy’s ammo.
“Men Against Fire” by SLA Marshall documented the failure of combat infantry men to fire their weapons in combat. It was a failure of training. They had been taught to take careful aim and not waste ammunition. Works fine on a target range with large red bullseyes. Most of the time you don’t see those in combat. Major training change to emphasize volume of fire and difficult to see targets.
The bats were actually going to carry incendiary bomblets not plastic explosives.
I assume that a lot of soldiers 1) showed up in the trenches 2) died from artillery, and were never even in a situation where they would fire their weapons.
Lt. Hiroo Onoda heard many times that the war was over...he just didn’t believe it. He was part of a special infiltration unit deposited on Lubang Island late in the war, and they had been told to disregard any such reports as propaganda. Even when he and his men captured a modern Japanese transistor radio and were able to pick up Radio NHK out of Japan itself, they believed it was an elaborate plot...though they were quite interested in the race reports and news of the royal family.
In the end, Lt. Onoda finally surrendered when his old commanding officer—by then a bookshop owner in Tokyo, who had long since given Onoda up for dead—read him the Imperial order of surrender, in person.
The record was a rifle found with 13 bullets and powder charges loaded in to it. A lot of it was not “just wouldn’t shoot.” In the heat battle, it is very easy to drop a cap, or miss putting it on the nipple before cocking the weapon and aiming. When General Grant was given command of all Union field armies, one of his first orders to those armies, was that every soldier in every army was to load and fire his weapon under the supervision of an officer. It was a problem recognized in those days.
I thought he was a major in the United States Army Air Forces...
***4. A Japanese soldier, Hiroo Onoda, who never heard the war was over in 1945,***
Same for Guam. While there in 1968, the fences alongside the roads had warning signs telling us not to go into the jungle.
Several years later, one or two Japanese soldiers were pulled out of there.
This is why soldiers are trained to fire instinctually now. They are trained to fire automatically using “muscle memory” when circumstances are right.
CC
When ascending in an unpressurized plane to 20,000 feet, it causes intestinal gas to expand 300%. I guess some guys couldn’t fart quickly enough.
That is why astronauts eat special diet - steak, eggs, toast, coffee/orange juice
Avoid gas producing foods like cabbage, corn and yes BEANS!
High protein, low residue leaves little matter in intestinal
tract...
He was indeed in the Army Air Force...and would have been considered an Airman, and not a Soldier.
The TBM had a crew of 3. Pilot, ball turret gunner & tail gunner. Bush lost both his crewmen.
I remember being warned about eating flatulent foods before flying at high altitudes as it can expand and cause extreme pain. Never heard of anyone exploding though.
I never had a problem like that at 30,000 feet but I did experience some minor discomfort in an altitude chamber.
One thing Brits found was that large number of bombs were
hung up in racks
Was traced to crew members peeing in bomb bay as plane made its climb
Pee would freeze at high altitude cold and cause bombs to hang up in racks.....
Wow. All those mountain climbers scaling Mt. Everest. 29,000 feet and hope they don’t eat beans for lunch that day.
Hard to believe a 250lbs bomb would be held by frozen pee.
Maybe actuators/electrical connections would be insulated but would like to read a link on the allegation that pee held up bombs. Besides, climbing and decending many times you transition through or fly through moisture and that doesn’t cause hang-ups.
Excellent documentary on this guy.
Oh, I worked an exchange assignment to work Operations Research with the RAF Air Warfarre Center and we studied WWII air power and never came across that belief.
Not that they wouldn’t shoot, panicked. They did not receive the training we have and while extraordinarily brave, not well trained.
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