Infinite Wisdom

"Everyday, ordinary defending Japanese soldiers routinely did things that would have earned them a medal for valor in any Allied army."

La Triviata

• After the Emperor Constantine seized Rome from his rival Maxentius, in AD 312, he razed the barracks of the Imperial Guard Cavalry, which had supported his rival, and on the ruins erected the Church of St. John in Lateran, possibly the oldest Christian house of worship in continuous use.
• In 1913 the French Army had 4.8 field guns per thousand men, plus 4.9 field howitzers, while the figures for the German Army were 5.8 and 6.6.
• Curiously, although King George II (1727-1760) had a very distinguished military career, he refused to permit his son, Prince Frederick or his grandson, the later George III (1760-1820), to serve, despite repeated attempts by both to do so.
• During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), nearly 21 percent of Japanese majors and lieutenant colonels were killed in action (263 of 1,260) as were 15 percent of lieutenants and captains (1,453 of 9,694).
• The 14,412 Regulars who formed the core of the approximately 17,000-strong V Corps that landed in Cuba in 1898 was the largest group of American Regulars ever assembled under one tactical command until 1916.
• No British regiment carries battle honors for service in the American Revolution.
• Of some 3.7 million American troops committed to combat in France, Belgium, and Germany from D-Day to the end of the war, 43 percent landed across the beaches in Normandy, or by way of the British Mulberry harbor.
• It wasn't until 1537 that French army surgeon Ambroise Pare, the "Father of Military Medicine," observed that gunshot wounds healed faster when treated with salve than when they were cauterized with hot oil, and that amputees had a better chance of survival if exposed blood vessels were tied off, a practice that had fallen out of favor for 1,000 years.

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