Rambling Anecdotes

[4V50 Gary]

"Once before I had passed an evening in the ADSEC billet at the Hotel Harscamp in Namur while motoring back to Luxembourg from the First Army. I recall the name of that hotel clearly. It was dusk and we had stopped in town to inquire of a GI the way to Harscamp.

"Whore's camp?" At first he looked puzzled but then he brighterend with the thought, "say-d'ya mean they really got one here?"

From Omar Bradley's A Soldier's Story, page 502.

 

[4V50 Gary]

British soldiering

Having served as a teenaged home guardsman, Bill Ness came into contact with old soldiers/veterans who had served in WW I. From them he learned much about army life before he enlisted into the Duke of Wellington's Regiment and later the Paras.

One thing the veterans instructed was to respect authority and never question an order. "Always do as you're told. If you couldn't, salute smartly, turnabout and disappear. Alternatively, if you received an order that was stupid, salute smartly and go away."

Lurned it in James Goulty's The Second World War Through Soldiers' Eyes: British Army Life 1939-1945. Goultry does for the British soldier/army what Irving Bell Wiley did in The Life of Billy Yank and The Life of Johnny Reb. Started it today and about 1/2 through.

 

[Mk VII]

“I had trouble with my bedroll. We were restricted to one bedroll per officer, which had to be within a specified maximum weight, and they were all weighed on an old platform scale, to keep us honest. Mine was slightly over weight, mainly due to a hundred rounds or so of .45 pistol ammunition which I'd included. I'd brought my old Colt .45 automatic from Canada with me, one I'd bought, as I always believed that if one ever needed a pistol, the biggest slug one could get was best, and our issue handguns were .38 S&W revolvers. All my spare .45 ammunition was tied up in a sock in my bedroll. I unrolled, it, took out half or more of my supply, and threw it under a hedge where I'd been sleeping. I suppose it is still there … my bedroll passed the weighing.
….

I had brought my Colt .45 pistol back with me, unloaded and tucked inside my BD blouse, and when I first got into bed, I slipped it under the mattress. When I was issued a little drawstring bag for soap, shaving gear, etc., I put it in that. But twice, nurses making my bed or getting my shaving gear found it, and gave me hell. The last time, I returned from a walk, and it was gone. I demanded to know where it was, and was told I couldn't have it, and it had been turned in their stores. I hobbled to the Stores, and found a Colour Sergeant and his Cpl with it on their desk, all stripped down, they intended to keep it as a souvenir. I scooped all the loose parts off their desk, and distributed them through my pockets, and walked out. I heard no more about it, but from then on, I left it in bits, and was very careful about where I kept them."

R.F. Fendick, A Canloan Officer

 

[4V50 Gary]

Judge Roy Bean was shady?

"My favorite Bean story concerns a Mexican lady who came into his courtroom with a quart bottle of milk, while he was on the bench in El Paso. She was a customer of Bean's dairy. It was one of his many commerical enterprises. The customer went straight up to the bench, plunked the bottle in front of Bean, showed that the cap was still sealed, pointing at a live minnow swiming inside, and accused him of watering the milk.

"Damn," he said, "I told that stupid boy not to let those cows drink in the Rio Grande."

 

[4V50 Gary]

From a PoW memoir:

"Another time the Gestapo agents came in the barracks and woke us up in the middle of the night. They made us take down our pants and bend over while they looked up our a**holes. I don't know what they were looking for, but one of the fellows down the line from me had a good case of dysentary, and as the Gestapo was looking, he almost got an eye full. Needless to say, the German moved on quickly. We never did find out what they were looking for that we would hide up in that part of our anatomy."

 

[4V50 Gary]

Transported for Life

Was the 19th Century way of saying banishment. Generally the deported did not have the means to pay for return passage.

 

[4V50 Gary]

"Your sons planning to kil Stalin?"

"Thus Abukumov and I kept out of each other's way - until falsifying investigators were on the loose and I received an unexpected phone call from him. 'What is this I hear about your sons planning to kill Stalin?'

'What do you mean? I asked.

"Just what I said,' replied Abakumov.

'Do you know how old they are?' I asked.

'What's the difference?'

'Comrade Minisiter,' I replied, 'I don't know who told you that, but the truth of the charge is highly unlikely because the younger of my sons is three and the older one is five years old.'

Abakumov slammed down the receiver andthat was the last I heard of him for almost a year."

I wonder if the accuser got a bullet?

Excerpt from Sudaplatov's Special Tasks.

 

[Sarge]

Excerpted from The Prairie Traveler by Capt. Randolph B. Marcy, published by Authority of the War Department in 1859


"Notwithstanding Colt's army and navy sized revolvers have been in use for a long time in our army, officers are by no means of one mind as to their relative merits for frontier service. The navy pistol, being more light and portable, is more convenient for the belt, but it is very questionable in my mind whether these qualities counterbalance the advantages derived from the greater weight of powder and lead that can be fired from the larger pistol, and the consequent increased projectile force."

"This point is illustrated by an incident which fell under my own observation. In passing near the "Medicine-Bow Butte" during the spring of 1858, I most unexpectedly encountered and fired at a full-grown grizzly bear; but, as my horse had become somewhat blown by a previous gallop, his breathing so much disturbed my aim that I missed the animal at the short distance of about fifty yards, and he ran off. Fearful, if I stopped to reload my rifle, the bear would make his escape, I resolved to drive him back to the advanced guard of our escort, which I could see approaching in the distance; this I succeeded in doing, when several mounted men, armed with the navy revolvers, set off in pursuit. They approached within a few paces, and discharged ten or twelve shots, the most of which entered the animal, but he still kept on, and his progress did not seem materially impeded by the wounds. After these men had exhausted their charges, another man rode up armed with the army revolver, and fired two shots, which brought the stalwart beast to the ground. Upon skinning him and making an examination of the wounds, it was discovered that none of the balls from the small pistols had, after passing through his thick and tough hide, penetrated deeper than about an inch into the flesh, but that the two balls from the large pistol had gone into the vitals and killed him. This test was to my mind a decisive one as to the relative efficiency of the two arms for frontier service, and I resolved thenceforth to carry the larger size."

 

[Hawg]

Excerpted from The Prairie Traveler by Capt. Randolph B. Marcy, published by Authority of the War Department in 1859


"Notwithstanding Colt's army and navy sized revolvers have been in use for a long time in our army, officers are by no means of one mind as to their relative merits for frontier service. The navy pistol, being more light and portable, is more convenient for the belt, but it is very questionable in my mind whether these qualities counterbalance the advantages derived from the greater weight of powder and lead that can be fired from the larger pistol, and the consequent increased projectile force."

"This point is illustrated by an incident which fell under my own observation. In passing near the "Medicine-Bow Butte" during the spring of 1858, I most unexpectedly encountered and fired at a full-grown grizzly bear; but, as my horse had become somewhat blown by a previous gallop, his breathing so much disturbed my aim that I missed the animal at the short distance of about fifty yards, and he ran off. Fearful, if I stopped to reload my rifle, the bear would make his escape, I resolved to drive him back to the advanced guard of our escort, which I could see approaching in the distance; this I succeeded in doing, when several mounted men, armed with the navy revolvers, set off in pursuit. They approached within a few paces, and discharged ten or twelve shots, the most of which entered the animal, but he still kept on, and his progress did not seem materially impeded by the wounds. After these men had exhausted their charges, another man rode up armed with the army revolver, and fired two shots, which brought the stalwart beast to the ground. Upon skinning him and making an examination of the wounds, it was discovered that none of the balls from the small pistols had, after passing through his thick and tough hide, penetrated deeper than about an inch into the flesh, but that the two balls from the large pistol had gone into the vitals and killed him. This test was to my mind a decisive one as to the relative efficiency of the two arms for frontier service, and I resolved thenceforth to carry the larger size."

A Colt army in 1858???

 

[Sarge]

A Colt army in 1858???

You caught that too, LOL.

My guess is he was referring to one of Colt's Dragoons.

 

[Jim Watson]

You mean we have been debating Bear Pistols for over 150 years?
I thought that was an Internet Subject.

 

[bobn]

1972 great lakes boot camp. i laughed at a guy getting chewed out for a shave and finger nail inspection. due to my blond peach fuzz i never had to shave.
... My first class petty officer stood me at attention and burnt the peach fuzz off my face with a lighter, never laughed again at the more hairy fellow sailors. bobn

 

[4V50 Gary]

Mafia to the rescue.

During WW II, British MI9 branch responsible for assisting Allied personnel to escape from German lines to England was desperately in need of Colt 32 ACP pistols with which it could arm its personnel.

"At this time the favourite weapon of my agents, a 32 Colt Automatic pistol, was virtually unobtainable in England and I asked our American liasion officer if he could help. 'Sure captain,' he replied, 'no problem.' A month later he gave me 20 with the necessary ammunition. As it was not a regulation service weapon, I could not resist asking how he had got them.

"'Plumb easy,' he said. 'I cabled the War Department, asking them to request the Mayor of Chicago to put out an appeal to the gangsters. I have 300 more when you want them.'"

 

[4V50 Gary]

"It was while I was placating the American evaders (who were voicferous in their complaints of what they considered very high-handed action by a British officer in closing down a good party), the hepers and hangers-on, the hotel manager and the Rescue Team officer, that an RAF sergeant evader asked if he could have a word with me in private.

We strolled over to a vacant table and called for two beers.

'Yes, sergeant,' I queried, 'what can I do for you.'

'Don't look around, please sir,' he whispered 'But that man in plain clothes over there is a German officer.' I choked over my beer. 'How the hell do you know?'

'Well sir, I was a prisoner for a short time and he twice interrogated me.'

'Are you sure?'

'Certain, sir. Look out, he is getting up and walking out.'

'We will follow him,' I said. The street outside was full of people and it was obvious that he would be quickly lost in the crowd.

I came up close behind him, pulled out my loaded revolver and stuck the muzzle in his back.

'Stop,' I hissed nervously,' you are a German spy.'

'No, no, no,' he quavered, 'I am a German officer trying to escape and I will prove it,' he continued, pulling a sheaf of papers out his pocket only to drop them on the pavement at my feet.

It seemed so so natural at the time. 'Here, hold this,' I said, passing my revolver to and stooping down to pick up the papers with my one hand [note: right before Dunkirk the writer was injured and had his injured arm amputated.] A glance at the top one, his military identity card with a photograph was sufficient confirmation of his statement. I handed back his papers and received my revolver in return.

'The crowd will kill me if they learn who I am,' he muttered, glancing at one or two passers by who had stopped and were eyeing us with curiousity. Yes, I thought, they probably will but it is nothing to what Norman Crockett will do to me when he learns I have handed an evading German officer a loaded revolver to help him on his way.

'You will be perfectly all right if you come along quietly with me,' I assured him. And so it proved as I handed him over to the nearest Military Police headquarters."

 

[4V50 Gary]

Thunk! Thunk! or mysterious sounds on a battlefield

The scene is an infantry battalion antcipating a panzer counterattack. An argument ensured as to where to lay a minefield with the engineering officer wanting to lay it across a field that flanked the American position and the American tanker insisting that they be placed on the road. The engineer won and so late at night they began laying the mines where the engineering officer wanted. He describes their work and a mysterious sound.


"....the guys stopped bringing the mines. We were out of our mines and Huey and I were standing out there in the dark. Huey said, "Lieutenant, I'll run back and see." I said, "No, you stay right there. I'll see what's the matter." I went about fifty yards when I heard what sounded like a bunch of Germans. I hunkered down and said to myself, "God-dang it, they're already behind us." I stayed there for a few minutes and then I heard 'em going thunk-thunk-thunk. I couldn't figure out what they were doing. I finally got up enough nerve and moved a little closer, then I could tell they were taking English. It was the rest of my platooon. They had run into a watermelon patch and the dang guys had set the mines down and were thumping the watermelons, looking for ripe ones! Right in the middle of a war! You could get your dang head blown off! So I got 'em back to work and we got all the mines laid out."

The German panzers and panzergrenadiers attacked the next day not along the road that the American tanker insisted they would use but right into the minefield. Eight panzers and two armored half-tracks were knocked out by the mines.

 

[rc]

Don't shoot tires with BB guns. The BBS will bounce right back at you with considerable speed. I am lucky I didn't put my eye out as a kid and it just hit me in the belly.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Scattering of German troops in WW II.

During the iniitial invasion of Russia (Soviet Union), some motorized German troops scattered in panic.

Suddenly there were screams, people running around, and buzzing noises all around us. We looked around surprised, and then ran as if possessed by the devil, wildly flailing about with our arms. The whole company was trying to escape from a swarm of bees. Some really greedy boys had knocked over the beehives to get at the honey and the bees were getting their revenge for the robbery. When the bees had finally calmed down and quiet reigned once more, the culprits had to suffer at the hand of their badly treated comrades.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Control files

Dr. D. Janda (ret.) served under Surgeon General Koop and was warned never to attend a party at #41's house. He was advised that something would be done to drug him and he would be placed into bed with men/women/boys/girls and those photos would be placed into a control file (blackmail). This happens to almost all politicians in DC. Now that you know what a control file is, here's the relevance to this incident.

Back after Germany fell in 1945, a popular lieutenant got drunk and accidentally shot himself in the foot. Remember, guns and alcohol don't mix. Anyway, he was afraid he might not be able to return to the states with the unit so with the captain's consent, he was squirreled away at a local home. The doctor came from battalion to dress his wound daily until it healed.

"While Lt. Baxer was bed ridden, we decided to play a little joke on him.

We rounded up a woman mannequin and one evening while he was asleep in his bed and pretty well wined up, we slipped the mannequin into his bed. One of the guys took pictures with him and the mannequin in different positions.

Some days later when Lt. Baxter was sober and the pictures had been developed, we showed it to him. Well, he became unglued as we laughed and heckled him mercillessly. He hopped around the room, chasing and cursing us, trying to destroy the pictures.

We finally gave him all of the photos with the negatives but not before we had our full measure of fun. Finally he laughed along with us saying, "You conniving SOBs."