Random WW2 facts thats are interesting

World War 2 Facts

• 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 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 Army's 45^th Infantry division was the swastika, and Hitler's 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 8^th Air Force shot down 6,098 fighter planes, 1 for every 12,700 shots fired.
• Germany's 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 a passenger on a cargo plane.
• It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5^th found with a tracer round to aid in aiming. That was a mistake. The tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target, 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet, the 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. That 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.
• A number of air crewmen died of farts. (ascending to 20,000 ft. in an un-pressurized aircraft causes intestinal gas to expand 300%!)
• Germany lost 40-45% of their aircraft during World War 2 to accidents
• The Russians destroyed over 500 German aircraft by ramming them in midair (they also sometimes cleared minefields by marching over them). "It takes a brave man not to be a hero in the Red Army". - Joseph Stalin
• The average German officer slot had to be refilled 9.2 times
• The US Army had more ships that the US Navy.
• The German Air Force had 22 infantry divisions, 2 armor divisions, and 11 paratroop divisions. None of them were capable of airborne operations. The German Army had paratroops who WERE capable of airborne operations.
• When the US Army landed in North Africa, among the equipment brought ashore were 3 complete Coca Cola bottling plants.
• 84 German Generals were executed by Hitler
• 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 capture by the US Army.
• The Graf Spee never sank, The scuttling attempt failed and the ship was bought by the British. On board was Germany's newest radar system.
• One of Japan's methods of destroying tanks was to bury a very large artillery shell with on ly 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.
• 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 declared war on was the USA.
• During the Japanese attack on Hong Kong, British officers objected to Canadian infantrymen taking up positions in the officer's 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 "heavy water". He finally reached England still clutching the bottle, which contained beer. Perhaps some German drank the heavy water...
• Germany lost 136 Generals, which averages out to be 1 dead General every 2 weeks

http://www.world-war-2.info/facts/

Evacuation for Children

The first evacuation in England was at 11.07am on Thursday 31st August 1939 the order was given to evacuate forthwith. 1.5 Million children, pregnant women and other vulnerable people such as the disabled, evacuated to safer countryside locations in just two days. They could only bring 

Boys: 2 vests, 2 pairs of pants, Pair of trousers, 2 pairs of socks, 6 handkerchiefs, Pullover or jersey
Girls:Vest, Pair of knickers, Petticoat, 2 pairs of stockings, 6 handkerchiefs(like a very long vest with shoulder straps), Blouse, Cardigan

They traveled by train and road.

  They were sent to smaller towns and villages in the countryside. Some children were sent to stay with relatives outside in the countryside, but others were sent to live with complete strangers.
Billeting officers were responsible for helping to find homes for the evacuees. Householders in the country who billeted (housed) city children were given money by the government.

http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/war/evacuation1.html#1 

The Pacific or Band of Brother?

So I can't pick between which series I love more. I first saw Band of Brother only because my dad said "This is what your grandfather did" Well at the time I could careless. But now all this was stuff about what my grandfather did is so cool to learn about. And now the Pacific. We all started watching this in class and i have to say im loving it. It goes more in detail and it doesn't stay on that on division. So you get what everyone is doing. So I can't pick its a tie. They are both so good.

Why a camp?

I think that America put the Japanese people in this camp because they wanted to protect them. I know that a lot of people didn't like them, but America wanted to stop the racism against them. And the only way to do that was to put them away for a while so America could understand that Japanese Americans are not doing anything wrong. And that we need to think about what was really important right now. Being mean to the Japanese or getting ready to fight another big war?

Adolf Hitler avitar

                                                                  Adolf Hitler sees all.......

Kill or be Killed

If I was being bombed like this I don't think I would want to live there anymore. This is one of the scariest moments that the British civilians had to face. And most of the time they didn't know when it will happen or where. I think that the Germans did this because its kill or be killed.

17 Strange Facts About Hitler

PERSONAL APPEARANCE
• Hitler never allows anyone to see him while he is naked or bathing. He refuses to use cologne or scents of any sort on his body
• No matter how warm he feels, Hitler will never take off his coat in public
• In 1923, Nazi press secretary Dr. Sedgwick tried to convince Hitler to get rid of his trademark mustache or grow it normally. Hitler answered: "Do not worry about my mustache. If it is not the fashion now, it will be later because I wear it!"
SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
• While dining with the others, Hitler will allow the conversation to linger on general topics, but after a couple of hours he will inevitably begin one of his many monologues. These speeches are flawless from start to finish because he rehearses them any time he gets a moment.
• His favorite topics include: "When I was a soldier," "When I was in Vienna," "When I was in prison," and "When I was the leader in the early days of the party."
• If Hitler begins speaking about Wagner and the opera, no one dares interrupt him. He will often sermonize on this topic until his audience falls asleep.
PERSONAL HABITS
• Hitler has no interest in sports or games of any kind and never exercised, except for an occasional walk.
• He paces frequently inside rooms, always to the same tune that he whistles to himself and always diagonally across the room, from corner to corner
• Hitler’s handwriting is impeccable. When famous psychologist Carl Jung saw Hitler’s handwriting in 1937, he remarked: "Behind this handwriting I recognize the typical characteristics of a man with essentially feminine instinct."
ENTERTAINMENT
• Hitler loves the circus. He takes real pleasure in the idea that underpaid performers are risking their lives to please him.
• He went to the circus on several occasions in 1933 and sent extremely expensive chocolates and flowers to the female performers. Hitler even remembered their names and would worry about them and their families in the event of an accident.
• He isn’t interested in wild animal acts, unless there is a woman in danger
• Nearly every night Hitler will see a movie in his private theatre, mainly foreign films that are banned to the German public. He loves comedies and will often laugh merrily at Jewish comedians. Hitler even liked a few Jewish singers, but after hearing them he would remark that it was too bad he or she wasn’t Aryan.
• Hitler staff secretly made films for him of torture and execution of political prisoners, which he very much enjoyed viewing. His executive assistants also secured pornographic pictures and movies for him.
• He loves newsreels – especially when he is in them.
• He adores gypsy music, Wagner’s operas, and especially American college football marches and alma maters.
• To excite the masses, he also uses American College football-style music during his speeches. His rallying cry – "Sieg Heil!" – was even modeled after the cheering techniques used by American football cheerleaders.

http://www.neatorama.com/2007/09/17/17-strange-facts-about-hitler/

Hitler copied Mussolini

I think that Hitler copied Mussolini only because he was a fan of his. The people didn't really notice because there country's were getting better and nobody cared about who copied who but that their county's unemployment rate was low.

Germany wants British Empire

The Germans went to great lengths to destroy the British because that wanted more land for themselves. How they did this was to just attack and try to destroy them.

WW1 global war

WW1 is a global war because every country had allies. If two countries went to war with each other there allies would join and and so on until almost all the countries are dragged into fighting each other just because there allies to one another.