Infinite Wisdom

"May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my Country, and for the benefit of Europe, a great and glorious Victory! and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it! And may humanity, after Victory, be the predominant feature in the British Fleet! - For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me; and his blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully! - To Him I resign myself, and the Just Cause which is entrusted to me to defend! Amen, Amen, Amen!"

--	Lord Nelson's Prayer, H.M.S. Victory, October 21, 1805

La Triviata

• During World War II the Japanese Army had six different kinds of ammunition for its aircraft, while the Japanese Navy had seven, only one of which was interchangeable with that of the Army, whereas the U.S. Army and Navy together used just three types � .30 and .50 caliber, and 20mm.


• During World War I, Swiss nationals made up 5.6 percent of the NCOs in the French Foreign Legion.


• In 856, Rabanus Maurus, a Frankish scholar, accepted a commission from King Lothair II of Lothringia (i.e., Lorraine) to provide a new edition of Vegetius' fourth century classic study of the Roman Army, De rei militari, for the purpose of making it useful "in modern times."


• The Peenemunde Museum, commemorating the rocketry work done for the Third Reich by Werner von Braun and others, has a picture of the 118 scientists who worked on the V-2, a photo actually taken some time after the war, at the U. S. Army's rocket research center in Huntsville, Ala., where they had all found employment.


• Between the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1747) and the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), Louis Turpin de Criss�, a highly regarded French cavalryman and author of a valuable military handbook, passed his time as a Trappist monk.


• The first American officer to be gassed on the Western Front during World War I, was Captain Robert H. Wilder, while on a fact-finding mission to the front in France during October of 1917, on behalf of New York's Veteran Corps of Artillery, which was�and is�a unit of the state militia, but not a part of the National Guard.


• For New Year's of 1805, an unknown donor treated each of the 3,000 men employed at Britain's Portsmouth Dockyard to a pint of strong beer.


• In mid-1942, President Roosevelt received a note from Chief-of-Naval Operations Ernest J. King, who observed that as his 64th birthday was coming up in November, he was subject to mandatory retirement, to which the president replied, "So what, old top? I may send you a birthday present," and there the matter rested.

More...