With that definition out of the way I thought maybe a thread of interesting or humorous historical anecdotes might be interesting. If we get enough of them I'll make it a sticky thread so it's always near the top.

I'll start it out.

I just finished reading the book The Few, about the American airmen who fought in the RAF during the actual Battle of Britain. Hidden in the footnotes is the following story.

One American was assigned to 601 squadron, known as "The Millionaires" because of the number of sons of well known, and rich, families that were in the squadron. At the outbreak of the war the members of the squadron were concerned that the inevitable gas rationing would cut down on their ability to drive to the pub after the days battle. One officer, WIllie Rhodes-Moorehouse, was appointed "petrol officer" with the instruction to keep the Bentley's and Morgan's running. He came back one day with the news that he had gotten enough to probably last the war. He'd bought the local garage! Unfortunately it was discovered that the tanks of the garage were nearly empty. When this started a discussion on how to stockpile petrol one officer finally said, "I'm not sure, but I think I'm a director of Shell." (Only in Britain. ) After contacting his secretary a couple days later, just before rationing began, the garage's tanks were full.


I can't imagine this story taking place any time, or any place, other than the RAF of 1939.

I was taking a class on World War II. The class was set up rather differently than others because we had veterans from the war come and talk to us about what they had done. One gentleman was a waist gunner on a B-24 based in Italy. He was telling us about this training on the B-24 and then about the flight path they took to Northern Africa. After Italy was invaded they moved their base to Foggia Italy so they could bomb Romania. He said most of the time they would fly out on their mission, shoot at the fighters attacking them, drop their bombs, and then head back to base. Not much would happen if you were in the center of the bomber box, as their bomber normally was. As the war went on there were fewer and fewer fighters to deal with and they could pretty much do a mission without firing their guns once.

After landing on an early morning raid he and his crew mates noticed a couple of guys loading a toilet onto an adjacent B-24. They wondered what they could be possibly doing with a toilet on a B-24, but went along to debriefing as normal. The next day was another raid on an oil facility in Romania so they went to their planes, loaded their guns, and suited up for the long cold flight there and back. The mission went of fairly smoothly and when they were over the target they head the tail gunner start to laugh. The pilot told him to keep the intercom clear. So, nobody knew what he was laughing at. When they landed they asked him what was so funny about being over Romania, dropping bombs, and getting shot at. He asked if they remembered those guy loading the toilet onto that other ship. Yes, they did. Well, those guys threw that toilet at the target. The tail gunner burst into uncontrolled laughter after telling his story.

Now that is what must be meant by maximum Effort.

Some of you have seen this before but since we are in a bomber mode I thought I would post this. One of the funnier things I have found on the interwebs:

"Allegedly the German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They, it is alleged, not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.
Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."
Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven." The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark,... and I didn't land."

Excellent idea for thread Rodger,
I have one from the Aussies campaign in PNG in 1942. Teh Aussies had just been pushed back to the outskirts of Port Moresby, General Blamey was to say the least not to pleased about this thinking that his troops and officiers had put up very little resistance (completely untrue) He said to the men after completely humilating them that "only running rabbits get shot" and that soldiers should not be afraid to die. The men absolutley detested what Blamey said snd news quickly spread around PNG of Blameys tirade. Blamey was shecduled to visit some wounded in hospital shortly after. These men had heard about what he had said and showing their disdain for the man, they had lettuce leaves smuggled in, so as he walked around everyman in the ward munched away on lettuce leaves

Jim, did they "use" the toilet first?

Shaun, there is a similar story about a Lufthansa pilot complaining about having to speak English.

"I'm a German, flying a German airliner, landing in Germany, why do I have to speak English?'

A British voice came back...
"Because you LOST."

Andrew, I was up before O dark Thirty this morning, it took me the longest time to figure out what PNG was. I thought it some guy of Aussie slang. Good story.

LOL Sorry Rodger I was being lazy, to many letters to type out hehe

I once new a veteran from the Italian theatre of war who told me the following story.He was with a British mortar company who were tasked with mopping up a small Italian town. Whilst checking one house they came across an upright piano,as it happens one of the group was a pianist so they got the piano into the street .Then as the rest of the group cleared a house he sat outside playing the piano.House cleared move piano start again,this went on through the town until an officer claimed the piano for the officers mess.

That class I had was great. It gave me plenty of good stories and also helped keep my GPA up there.

Another vet we had talk in our class flew on the B-29, “The Great Artiste”. They flew on both atomic bomb missions as an observation plane. He was the radio operator, Cpl Abe Spitzer. He talked a little about the training they went through in the desert for the bombing mission. Nobody knew what their mission would be or if they would ever actually fly a mission. One day they told everyone they would be deployed to Tinian and to get their affairs in order. They all wrote home telling their families they would be leaving and would be back when the war was over. From what he heard, nobodies letters made it home.

They flew to Tinian and readied for the missions. He said the worst duty was standing guard around the planes. Even thought there were no Japanese on the island they had to guard the planes every moment they were on the ground. The night before the first bombing mission he had to guard the Enola Gay. He walked around for a while and figured with all the Marines already guarding the whole base he could relax a while. He sat against the nose wheel and soon was joined by Robert Oppenheimer.

He knew the plane had something special on board because they had all been ordered inside and guarded. When they came out the plane had a canvas skirt around its bomb bay. They were all told to stand clear of the bomb bay. As he sat there Dr. Oppenheimer asked him if he had a smoke. He handed the Dr. a smoke and they both had a smoke. After he was done with his cigarette he asked Dr. Oppenheimer what was going to happen tomorrow. He said the Dr. looked and him and said, “I don't know.” With that the Dr. got up and walked off into the night.

Oddly enough he felt relaxed after that.

Here's one I read - not sure it's 100% true...

Following a long series of conferences and briefing a group of military officers were letting a little steam in the Office's Club. In the group there were Generals from England, Australia and America. Into their midst came a general officer from France. The French General was annoyed that all the others were speaking in English. He remarked to the gathering, "I don't know why we always have to speak in English!"

Without missing a beat the Australian answered, "That because the British, Australians and Americans made sure you didn't have to speak German."

My story is similar to Dennis':

Two troopers in Holland found a working piano in a house and since one of them knew how to play he sat down and played. The other trooper stood just to the side of the doorway and each time a german came to investigate he grabbed them and slit their throats. I think they got around seven or eight germans. I heard this recently but don't remember where.

Matt

@ Matthew
you story is told in the one of the books that are the biography of Donald Burgett. The Road to Arnhem tells this story.

I also know some pretty funny things or at least anecdotes that made me laugh.

The british army had a special deception unit which only goal was to invent things to annoy the germans... set them on the wrong path. somehow slow them down. etc. etc. (maskelyne was the inventor of the silk maps), Fake airfields were erected with as only goal to attract bombs, Letting the Thames dissapear and that kind of stuff... but some truely remarkable things were invented.

The exploding lightbulb
Designed to be turned into fittings of German barracks by collaborators. When the lightswitch was turned on the lightbulb would explode tossing around sharp shrapnel wounding everybody inside.

Painted bombcraters
To fool the German (dive) bombers into not attacking british airfields in Afrika the brits painted bombcraters on big canvas tarps which they put on the landing strip. Any german bomber would fly over thinking they already destroyed this one. Only downside was that the tarps needed to be turned every hour to match the shadow with the angle of the sun

The false "go" map
I think they were called "go" maps. Since the brits always had colonies in Africa they had a great knowledge of the continent and that showed in their maps. The british army use dmaps on which several routes were shown. All had a grade of how good or how bad the route was. So you had good routes. Slightly less good route. Bad routes and really bad routes. The people of Maskelyne saw a good use in this to slow down the advance of the germans in Africa. What they did was they changed the routes on the map... naming the really bad route the good route etc etc.
A couple of recon vehicles were send out to find Germans. when they got them in their sights one vehicle was sacrificed with the idea of it being damaged or somehow not able to go further and it was abbandonned. The germans would go and check the vehicle and found the maps.
Accounts go that german officers in POW camps in Africa told the british officers that they were really happy with finding the maps since the Brit maps were much much better then the German maps of Africa. Except that they eventually turned out to be even worse.

Exploding Cameldung
Probably one of the weirdest things the guys from Maskelyne invented was the exploding Cameldung. Several artists were send to the zoo to do research on camel poo. With the intention of making a mine in the shape the same object namely camel poo. The idea behind this was to put it on the roads in the desert. If you are driving your Kubelwagen or whateverwagen for hours through the boring desert seeing only sand, hills, sand, hilss, occasional tuft of grass, sand, rocks, and sky and you suddenly see a heap of cameldroppings on the road the urge to drive over it just to break the boring travel.
Go and explain your officer that a heap of camel poo costed you the frontwheel suspension of your Kubelwagen.

Another fact which I read on another Dutch forum not that long ago also made me laugh.

During the Ardennes Offensive Skorzeny made use of so called Greifers. Soldiers dressed in US uniforms complete with US ID papers but sadly for some of the greifers the Deutsche Grundlichtkeit was the reason they were caught quite easily. The US ID card had a typo in it. it said iNdentification. The German forger corrected this mistake. The greifers were captured because they had the wrong right ID

Heard this one last year at AMPS:
"Why do the french plant those nice rows of trees down both sides of all their roads?"
"Because the Germans prefer to march in the shade"

An elderly man arrives at the Paris airport.
When he gets to customs the official asks for his passport. Instead of whipping it out, the old man fumbles, puts down his bag, starts looking, fumbles some more, looking in different pockets....
The French offical, being french, gets snotty, fuming, "Your Passport !"
The old man keeps looking and mumbles that he's sorry he hasn't quite found it yet.
The Frenchman finally snaps,"You should have your passport ready for inspection!"
The old gent says, "Well, last time I didn't need one"
The Frenchman says, "Impossible! You cannot enter France without showing your passport"
The old man says, "Well, when I landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day there were no Frenchmen around to ask me for it!"

Many years ago, the medical officer of our reserve unit was talked into going on a jump bivouac with the Airborne Regiment (didn't take much arm twisting). He was a jumper, with a white maple leaf on his wings (signifying operational jumps) but hadn't jumped in many years.

After the first day's jumps, everyone was sitting around the mess enjoying a few adult beverages, when he was asked by a pimply faced private about the white maple leaf, and the number of jumps he had made. Doc looked at the lad and told him that before that day, he'd made 5 jumps. The kid got snarly and "informed" doc that you had to have at least 5 to pass jump school, so he wasn't qualified to wear the wings. Then asked where the jumps were made.

Doc looked at him and said the first 3 were in England, the 4th was in Normandy, and the 5th was over the Rhine.

Needless to say, the kid shut up.