Al Nofi's CIC
|
| |
Issue #50, September 7, 2001 |
|
| |
This Issue...
|
|
Infinite Wisdom
"Nothing brings a military establishment into such disrepute as the inability to win on the battlefield or on the high seas."
--Claude C. Sturgill
La Triviata
- Not a single man was killed during the famous four hour long duel between the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia on March 9, 1862,.
- When an imperial army stormed Mantua in 1640, the loot was estimated at 18 million scudi, more than the entire annual revenue of the Holy Roman Emperor.
- It is estimated that during the late 1940s, American occupation troops in Japan spent an annual average of $200,000,000 on prostitutes.
- Criticized because, to avoid a collision, one of his men had accidentally rammed a tank into the miniscule city hall of Belt Buckle, Tennessee, during maneuvers in May of 1941, Maj. Gen. George S. Patton explained the incident by observing " . . . Belt Buckle isn't even on the map."
- The royal crown of Romania, first used in 1881 at the coronation of Carol I (1839-1914), is made of metal taken from Turkish cannon captured at the siege of Plevna in 1877.
- During the Afghan War (1979-1989), the Soviets lost 11,321 army and 548 KGB troops in combat, and a further 1,719 to other causes, most notably an explosion in a tunnel which killed hundreds of men.
- It was not uncommon during the eighteenth century for nobles to be the beneficiaries of excessive rewards for very limited military service, but surely some heads must have been turned when the youthful Duc de Crillon was awarded the Cross of St. Louis, one of France's highest decorations, for having smashed his finger with a pick during the siege of Pizzighettone in 1733.
- By mid 1944, 35 percent of the men in the German Army had been wounded at least once, 11 percent at least twice, 6 percent three times, 2 percent up to four times, and another 2 percent more than four times.
More...
|
