A Military Miscellany

Book by Ayres Thomas

U.S. MILITARY PRODUCTION IN WORLD WAR II
From mid-1940 until 1945, U.S. production of war materials overwhelmed the great Axis factories of Krupp (Germany), Fiat (Italy), and Mitsubishi (Japan). During the war, America produced:
Warplanes 296,429
Tanks 102,351
Artillery pieces 372,431
Trucks 2,455,964
Warships 87,620
Cargo ships 5,325
Aircraft bombs (in tons) 5,922,000
Small arms 20,086,061
Small-arms ammunition (rounds) 44 billion
NOTABLE QUOTE
"To American production, without which this war would have been lost."

–Joseph Stalin, offering a toast at a meeting of Allied leaders in Tehran, Iran, 1943
DATELINE

London (June 1, 1943) – Leslie Howard, who played Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, was killed when his plane was shot down. He was fifty.
RATIONED AT HOME IN WORLD WAR II
Automobiles
Meats
Automobile tires
Cheese
Gasoline
Butter
Bicycles
Coffee
Bicycle tires
Cigarettes
Shoes
Lard
Sugar
Canned fish
*From February 1942 until the end of the war, no civilian automobiles or trucks were manufactured in the United States. When production stopped, there were 500,000 vehicles in stock. The government promptly took title to all of them, stored them in warehouses, and carefully doled them out to the military and to civilian applicants like country doctors, farmers, scientists, and individuals critical to defense production.

*Owning an automobile was not easy for a nonpriority citizen. A class "A" stamp on the windshield entitled the owner to only three gallons of gasoline a week. Many a vehicle sat idle because tires were unavailable and there were no parts for repairs.

*Some citizens began riding bicycles, until they also were rationed and replacement tires became unavailable. Walking was not a good option because civilians were limited to only two pairs of shoes a year. As a result, Americans witnessed a return of the horse and buggy in some rural areas. Old bicycles built for two (popular at the turn of the century) were hauled out of barns and woodsheds, as were cars from another era. Baker Electric Cars made a brief comeback, and puffing Stanley Steamers, last manufactured in 1925, occasionally were seen.
"LUXURY" ITEMS UNAVAILABLE AT HOME IN WORLD WAR II
Hair curlers
Suspenders
Electric trains
Wigs
Rayon products
Cooking tongs
Kitchen utensils
Bronze caskets
Beer mugs
Lawn mowers
Electric toasters
Spittoons
Many paper products
Waffle irons
Cameras
Girdles
Eggbeaters
Birdcages
Nylon stockings
Tin soldiers
Cocktail shakers
Corn poppers
Leather
Sliced bread
Cast-iron skillets
Whiskey
Diapers
*From autumn 1942 to the summer of 1944, whiskey disappeared from store shelves. Enterprising distillers tried to bridge the drought with substitutes made from some unlikely products. Old Spud, distilled from waste potatoes, required a palate adjustment.

*While GIs lit up Camels and Lucky Strikes, civilian smokers puffed on strange-tasting new brands with names like Fleetwood. Many questioned whether these new cigarettes contained tobacco at all.

*Sliced bread became a delicacy of the past when the government removed slicing machinery from bakeries for the metal content. Bread came in whole loaves.

*Home-front fashion took a beating. Ladies' "stockings" came in a bottle and had to be painted on legs. Seams were drawn down the backs of legs with eyebrow pencils. Men's pants came minus cuffs and coats without lapels.

*Diapers were scarce. Moms coped by using scrap materials. Remarkably, a generation of U.S. babies survived.
WHEN THE U.S. ARMY INVADED RUSSIA
Unknown to most Americans and little noted by historians is the fact that 11,000 U.S. troops invaded Russia in 1918 and some remain buried there. Even as the U.S. entered World War I, civil war raged in Russia as the Bolsheviks tightened their grip on the country after overthrowing Czar Nicholas.

Anxious to assist remnants of the czar's White Army opposing the communist takeover, on August 15, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson broke diplomatic ties with the Bolshevik government. Within three weeks, 7,000 U.S. Marines had landed at the port city of Vladivostok on the coast of Siberia. Another 4,000 troops were dispatched to the far north of Russia to join British soldiers already fighting there. In Siberia, Marines fought beside their Japanese allies in support of the White Army.

In the north, the fighting was especially intense and American troops sustained several hundred casualties. The Marines in Siberia took lesser, but still significant, casualties.

In 1920, well after the end of World War I, and with the White Army defeated, Wilson quietly withdrew American troops. Although the venture was quickly forgotten in the United States, it was remembered in the Soviet Union. It set the stage for a cold war that would continue for most of the twentieth century.
NOTABLE QUOTE
And when I die, please bury me
'Neath a ton of sugar by a rubber tree;
Lay me to rest in an auto machine,
And water my grave with gasoline.

–A popular homefront jingle in World War II
IT'S A FACT
*Japan and Russia had been fighting over the sovereignty of several Pacific islands and Manchuria long before World War I. Japan also had ambitions to control part of Siberia. Technically, Japan and Russia are still at war, since both refused to sign a peace treaty at the conclusion of World War II.

*Casualty figures from America's involvement in Russia are included in World War I statistics and still cloaked in secrecy.
STONEWALL JACKSON'S 10 ECCENTRICITIES
1. He would bathe only in cold water, even in winter.
2. Refused to read by artificial light.
3. Would not let his back touch the back of a chair.
4. He thought his spine was out of alignment, causing his internal organs to be out of balance.
5. Believed one leg was shorter than the other.
6. Believed he did not sweat on one side of his body.
7. He would sit in silence and stare at a wall for an hour or more each evening.
8. Consumed large quantities of water at one time to cleanse his body.
9. He liked to suck on lemons.
10. Believed that holding his arm aloft helped keep his internal organs in balance and his blood circulating properly.
GENERAL PATTON'S 7 PAST LIVES
General George Patton was a devout believer in reincarnation. He believed in past lives he was:
1. A prehistoric hunter-warrior who "battled for fresh mammoth and warred for pastures new."
2. A Greek Hoplite soldier who fought against the Persians of King Cyrus.
3. A soldier in the army of Alexander the Great at the siege of Tyre.
4. Hannibal, crossing the Alps to invade Rome.
5. A legionnaire in the Roman army under Julius Caesar in northern Gaul.
6. An English knight in the Hundred Years' War who fought at the battle of Crecy.
7. A marshal in Napoleon's army at a time when "one laughed at death and numbers, trusting in the
emperor's star."
IT'S A FACT
Even in the heat of battle, General Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson might be seen sitting on his horse, sucking on a lemon and holding one arm above his head. Those who knew Jackson were more amused than concerned by his eccentric behavior. They knew he was a hopeless hypochondriac. As a teacher at Virginia Military Institute, there was nothing about him to suggest to his students that he would become a famous general. They called him "Tom Fool" and drew caricatures with emphasis on his huge feet. They mocked his nervous mannerisms and imitated his awkward gait as he made his way across the campus. Jackson's hypochondria was not all in his imagination. He suffered from poor eyesight, a recurring throat infection, earaches, and chronic stomach gastritis. Modern doctors believe he might have suffered from peptic ulcers or even cancer of the stomach. In 1858 he had his tonsils removed, but it did not relieve problems with his throat. Contrary to the myth, Jackson did not believe lemons had special medical qualities. In fact, he never had any particular fondness for them until his troops captured a large quantity of lemons from the Union Army. After that he sucked on them to relieve the soreness in his throat. While still a teacher, he set aside an hour each evening for thinking. His wife was forbidden to disturb him as he sat motionless and stared at a wall. Gen. Richard Taylor witnessed similar behavior in the field, noting in his memoirs: "He [Jackson] would visit my campfire, sit and stare straight ahead for a time, then depart without ever having said a word."
2 WOMEN WHO BECAME WORLD WAR II AIR ACES
1. Lieutenant Lily Litvak, Soviet fighter pilot, seven kills.
2. Lieutenant Katya Budanova, Soviet fighter pilot, six kills.
The early air war between Germany and the Soviet Union took a heavy toll on Russian planes and pilots due to the superiority of German aircraft. Women were pressed into service to fill the depleted ranks of Soviet pilots. Both Budanova and Litvak died in combat when their planes were shot down in 1943.
EVOLUTION OF THE SUBMARINE
The concept of an underwater device for military use dates back to the Greeks and Romans, both of whom attempted to build such a craft. Milestones in the development of the modern submarine include the following:
1620–Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel constructed an underwater craft of leather and wood. He demonstrated it in the Thames River, taking it to a depth of fifteen feet.

1727–King James I of England reportedly rode in an underwater craft. By this date, fourteen different types of submarines ha...