Infinite Wisdom

"We have to work with realities, not with fiction."

La Triviata

• During the 21-day Battle of Sakarya (Aug. 23-Sep. 13, 1921), about 80 percent of Turkish officers became casualties in the desperate fighting that halted a Greek offensive against Ankara.
• Shortly after World War II a hungry Berliner sold the original manuscript of Frederick the Great’s 1752 “Political Testament” to a U.S. Army officer for a case of rations.
• On Dec. 12, 2012, a lock of Lord Nelson’s hair was sold at auction for $12,000.
• The average age of the 100 or so generals in the U.S. Army in the early 1930s was 61, of whom the youngest, at 55, was Douglas MacArthur, the Chief-of-Staff.
• Based on The Iliad, it seems that in Homer’s era about 75 percent of men not killed outright in combat would subsequently die of their wounds.
• Although Horatio Kitchener (later a field marshal and an earl) reportedly despised journalists, during his 1898 campaign against the Mahdists in the Sudan he nevertheless pirated the reports of Daily Mail correspondent G.W. Steevens, the latter labeled “brilliant” by Winston Churchill and termed by H. L. Menken as “the greatest newspaper reporter who ever lived”.
• During World War II, the U.S. officially built 287 C-87 aircraft, the commercial version of the B-24 Liberator bomber, but an unknown number of additional copies were “unofficially” converted from bombers to C-87s, or built from scratch out of “wrecked” aircraft and spare parts, to provide posh transports for senior officers.
• When, at the Battle of Manila Bay, Commo. George Dewey said, “"You may fire when ready, Gridley," Capt. Charles V. Gridley of the USS Olympia promptly passed the order to Gunner’s Mate 1^st Class John Christopher Jordan, one of several black crewmen, who actually fired the first round.

More...