Al Nofi's CIC
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Issue #135, November 21, 2004 |
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This Issue...
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Infinite Wisdom
"The superior is always right, especially when he is wrong."
| -- | Old Piedmontese Military Adage |
La Triviata
- In a naval career that spanned some 60 years (1740-1800), Admiral Sir Alexander Hood (1727-1814), never once crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
- In the course of the Second World War, Allied special operations organizations parachuted into France 198,00 sten guns, 128,000 rifles, 20,000 Bren guns, 10,000 carbines, 58,000 pistols, 732,000 hand grenades, 9,000 land mines, 2,700 bazookas, 285 mortars, and an enormous amount of ammunition, including a remarkable 595 tons of high explosive.
- Diseases had taken such a toll of the 800 troops of the 78th Highlanders stationed at Karachi, India, in 1844, that "scarecely one hundred men were able to march . . . and every one had suffered more or less from fever."
- The word "rifle" derives from the French "rifler � to scratch," a reference to the grooves cut into the barrels to impart a spin to the projectile.
- When the Duke of Alba's army marched from Italy to Flanders in 1567, the 400 or so courtesans who accompanied it were variously described as "pretty and worthy as princesses" and "shrews, meaner than men."
- During World War I, more than 345 million tons of explosives were shipped abroad through the port of New York.
- On the night of July 25-26, 1898, the 6th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry became engaged in a lengthy fire fight near Ponce, Puerto Rico, with consequent heavy casualties to the local livestock, some of whom had inadvertently strayed into the regimental lines, though none to the enemy, who were not present.
- Faced with a serious shortage of weapons with which to equip the newly formed Volkssturm, in late 1944 Eric Koch, Nazi Gaulieter of Prussia, authorized the purchase of arms on the black market from Italian partisans, who had a good supply, gained through fighting Germans.
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