I have read several accounts of the Kimmel story and none say that the admiral was actually shot or wounded. The bullet penetrated the heavy glass window and struck Kimmel's jacket before falling to the floor, but the jacket was not penetrated and the admiral was not killed or wounded. Several accounts give it as a 7.7mm, while one gives it as a .50 caliber; the 7.7 story seems plausible, since no US planes were in that area firing in that direction at the time. If the bullet survives, I had not heard of it.
As to WWI bullet collisions, I have often said, and will say again, that any bullet fired has to stop someplace and do so by hitting something. And with so many bullets being fired in a relatively small area, it would seem inevitable that some bullets would strike other bullets in the air.
But that a bullet in mid-flight is so stable that another bullet striking it from the side will penetrate it, without deflecting it or distorting it other than to put a neat hole through it, seems pretty unlikely.
As to WWI soldiers having time on their hands, that war seems to have seen long periods of inactivity, broken by a few hours of sheer terror. The many examples of "trench art" in form of worked over shell casings certainly show both that the soldiers had plenty of time and plenty of ingenuity in working over various examples of deadly devices into novelties.
That does not prove or disprove that a bullet could not have been struck in the air by another bullet*, but IMHO the examples seen here (and most others) are fakes, either done with a drill, or by firing at a pulled bullet (no rifling?) stuck to a board or tree.
Jim
*There is a merged "double bullet" from the U.S. Civil War; indications are that it is genuine, the two bullets having struck nose on and fused together.
JK
