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November 2, 2013
Oddities of War
I was talking to Charlie last night about some peculiarities of WWII. He thought I was full of bull, so I thought I'd document a few of my stories. Note that all stories are sourced by Wikipedia, not by dubious email chains:
- Japan bombed the mainland USA during WWII. They launched thousands of bombs suspended from hot-air balloons from Japan, which followed the jet stream as far east as the Mississippi River. One even killed 6 people on a church picnic near Bly, Oregon.
- The Germans landed soldiers on U.S. soil during WWII. They did it by submarine. Some of the German soldiers landed on Long Island, just east of New York City..
- Two pilots (one Allied, one German), shot each other down over occupied Europe one cold winter during WWII. Both found their way to the same shelter/cabin, and instead of killing each other, sought refuge together and became friends. They met again, after the war was over, and remained life-long friends.
- A German fighter pilot flew up to a severely damaged Allied (British) bomber over occupied Europe during WWII. Instead of shooting down the bomber, the German fighter escorted the bomber back to England. After the war, the two became good friends and remained friends for the rest of their lives.
- During the trench warfare of WWI, one Christmas, the British and German troops came out of their trenches and sang Christmas carols together and played football. These were spontaneous acts, as there were no official cease-fires declared.
- In the Phillipine-American War, American General "Fearless Freddy" Funston tricked the Filipino President Emilio Aguinaldo into getting captured by Funston's troops at Palaan. They pretended to be prisoners of Macabebe scouts, then captured Aguinaldo when they got close to him.
- The War Between the States was not about slavery. Abraham Lincoln told the southern states unambiguously that they could keep their slaves. His goal was to preserve the Union. "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it..."
- Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until 1863, 2 years after the start of the War Between the States. He freed a total of zero slaves with the proclamation. The slaves in the North were not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. They remained property of their owners. The slaves that were theoretically freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, were, in fact, living in a different country, where Abraham Lincoln had no jurisdiction
- More soldiers (U.S. and Confederate) died fighting in the War Between the States, than have died in all subsequent wars combined, involving U.S. troops. If you count all of the U.S. soldiers killed in the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., you still don't get close to the number of troops killed in the War Between the States
- In the War Between the States, the South killed more soldiers of the North, than the North killed of the South, but the North still won the war.
- The Battle of New Orleans was a decisive victory for the U.S.A, and the largest battle of the War of 1812. It was fought two weeks after the British officially surrendered, but because the telegraph wasn't invented at the time, no one in North America knew that the British had already surrendered.
I have researched, documented, and linked to sources for all of the facts mentioned above.
Below, are some additional "war oddities" that I found online. I cannot testify to their veracity, as I have not researched the information listed at the link found below. They may be true. Maybe not. I'm not clear.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 2, 2013 at 7:25 PM
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