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World War II Humor

Just gimme a couple aspirin. I already got a Purple Heart.

Getting Something Right

Starting the engine was done by two men turning a hand crank on the left side of the engine. The two cadets would crank faster and faster until the inertia starter was making a high - pitched scream. Then the cadet in front would remove the crank and quickly get out of the way of the propeller. The other cadet would check that he was out of the way and say loudly " Switch on." The cadet in the cockpit would yell, '"Switch on," the cadet on the wing would pull the handle to engage the starter, and get off the wing very quickly before he was blown off. The engine would then roar to life.

After landing they were to:

1. Raise flaps.
2. Turn ignition switch OFF after propeller stops turning.
3. Fuel shut-off valve OFF.
4. Turn all switches OFF.
5. Yell out of the airplane that all switches were off to let ground crews know it is ok to chock the wheels.

As one pilot landed he lined up on the parking lot and not the runway, he tore off both wings on the cars and the landing gear. As he was left with only the fuselage and when everything stopped, he hollered out 'Switches Off' from his cockpit, just to get something right.

Gallows Humor

Humor has long been a coping mechanism for Jews. Mel Brooks, auteur of The Producers, once said that when he was a foot-soldier in World War II, he used to tell the troops, "Nobody dies — it's all made up."

For many Jews, life is a joke, a black joke, or what the Germans call Galgen-humor, a word that only later enters English from the German in translation, as gallows humor. Gallows humor does not exactly laugh with God; rather, it spits in God's eye. Given the course of human history, it should not be surprising to find that it is a Jewish specialty. Let me give you an example of a Jewish gallows joke that is literally about a gallows:

Advancing Russians came upon a town only recently vacated by the retreating Germans. They went to the Jewish ghetto and found that every single Jew, man woman and child, had been hung from hastily erected gallows. As they stared in silence, one Russian soldier said to another, "Look what a horrible thing those barbaric Germans have done; they have hung every single Jew in the town." "Yes," said the other, "it is a terrible thing. They didn't leave a single one for us to hang."

I need a couple guys what don't owe me no money for a little routine patrol.

Winston Churchill

One day during World War II, Winston Churchill visited a naval base to observe the "Asdic" anti-submarine defense system in action. Taken to an area well populated with submerged wrecks, Churchill watched as the system located a target and a depth-charge was dropped overboard. Moments later, a tremendous underwater explosion rocked the ship and several pieces of wreckage surfaced - among them an intact door emblazoned with the letters "W. C." "The navy always knew," Churchill later quipped, "how to pay proper compliments." ['W.C.' is English slang for a toilet (water closet).]

Hammered With Potatoes

In April 1943, the U.S.S. O'Bannon encountered a Japanese submarine on patrol off the Solomon Islands. The American crew shot off the sub's conning tower, preventing it from diving, but the sub moved so close to the ship that the O'Bannon's big guns couldn't hit it. When the Japanese sailors came topside to fight, the O'Bannon's quick-witted crewmen hammered them with ... potatoes. Thinking they were grenades, the Japanese panicked, dropped their guns, tried to submerge the sub, and sank into oblivion.

SPAM

Possibly a contraction of "spiced ham", was named by actor Kenneth Daigneau, the brother of R. H. Daigneau, a former Hormel Foods vice president. When other meatpackers started introducing similar products, Jay C. Hormel decided to create a catchy brand name to give his spiced ham an unforgettable identity, offering a $100 prize to the person who came up with a new name. At a New Year's Eve Party in 1936, Daigneau suggested the name SPAM.

Jay C. Hormel, son of the company's founder, was determined to find a use for several thousand pounds of surplus pork shoulder. He developed a distinctive canned blend of chopped pork and ham known as Hormel spiced ham that didn't require refrigeration. SPAM luncheon meat was hailed as the "miracle meat," and its shelf-stable attributes attracted the attention of the United States military during World War II. By 1940, 70 percent of Americans had tried it, and Hormel hired George Burns and Gracie Allen to advertise SPAM on their radio show.

100 million pounds of SPAM were issued as a Lend-Lease staple in the rations to American, Russian, and European troops during World War II, fueling the Normandy Invasion. GIs called SPAM "ham that failed the physical." General Dwight D. Eisenhower confessed to "a few unkind words about it - uttered during the strain of battle."

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as a young woman of 18 working in her family's grocery store, remembers SPAM as a "wartime delicacy." In Khrushchev Remembers, Nikita Khrushchev credited SPAM for keeping the Soviet Army alive during World War II. "We had lost our most fertile, food-bearing lands, the Ukraine and the Northern Caucasians. Without SPAM, we wouldn't have been able to feed our army."

I Was As Drunk As A Skunk

The bomb run was exceptionally long. Flak was light to moderate. A four-gun battery was firing at our altitude, directly in our path. A few seconds before bomb release, we took a hit in the rear part of the fuselage and the rudder pedals went slack. After bomb release, the group made a diving turn to the right and I couldn't follow without rudder controls.

Continuing straight ahead, we drew all the flak and Lee Weaver, our left waist gunner, was hit and was down. I sent the flight engineer, Kivett Ivey, aft to check on Weaver and to see if we could regain rudder control. He reported that Weaver had a hole in his leg the size of a golf ball. He put a tourniquet on the leg and gave him a shot of morphine. This was ironic, because Weaver always said that all he wanted was just a scratch so he could get a Purple Heart. Well, he got it!

In trying to steer the ship with the engines, I noticed there was no throttle control on number four and it was leaking oil. I also had limited elevator control, but it was possible to get down to get the crew off oxygen. As luck would have it, England was socked in, so an instrument landing was not possible. The navigator and I decided it was best to bail out.

Once we were over land, I pointed the ship south so it would crash into the sea. On signal, the waist crew pushed Weaver through the camera hatch with a static line and followed him out. Then the forward crew jumped through the open bomb bay and the navigator and I followed.

I delayed opening my chute until just before I got to the cloud cover. That was a stupid mistake since the clouds were right on the ground. I hit hard on my first swing and suffered internal injuries, plus a broken ankle. The navigator hit a tree and broke his back. We were in the hospital for six weeks. The engineer had a scalp cut, but, sadly Weaver bled to death before he could get help.

I landed in a farmer's chicken yard and I was frozen stiff. The farmer took me in, sat me in front of the fireplace and gave me a whole bottle of rum. Before I knew it, the bottle was empty. He called the local police and told them to pick up my crew.

By the time the ambulance arrived, I was as drunk as a skunk. (Happily, Gerry recovered from his hangover and his injuries and was glad to learn that his B-24H, 42-94930, caused no injuries when it crashed on the outskirts of Hadlow, in Kent.) A doctor at Turnbridge Wells hospital took one look at me and asked, Do you Yanks always fly in this condition?

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