162 Fun Facts About Military

Which unit of an Imperial Roman legion was typically double-strength and carried the eagle standard?

First Cohort troops were the legion's senior soldiers, and its eagle went into battle with them; losing one was the worst disgrace, and after three fell to German tribes in AD 9 Rome fought for years to win them back.

Which Persian king led the invasion delayed at Thermopylae in 480 BC?

Xerxes I led the army in person; after two days of failed assaults a local man, Ephialtes, showed the Persians a mountain path around the pass, and the Greek rearguard under Leonidas was surrounded.

The earliest known crossbows were invented in which civilization?

China had crossbows by the 6th century BC, with trigger mechanisms cast in bronze; massed crossbowmen could see off a cavalry charge, and the weapon is credited with much of the Han dynasty's military success.

What was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II?

Operation Barbarossa was named for Frederick Barbarossa, a crusading medieval German emperor; Hitler expected victory within weeks, but the advance stalled outside Moscow in December 1941.

Which US armed service comes under the Department of Homeland Security instead of the Pentagon in peacetime?

The Coast Guard is one of the six armed services yet answers to Homeland Security, not the Pentagon; by law it operates as part of the Navy when Congress, in declaring war, or the president so directs.

Which fruit is the word 'grenade' thought to come from, given the shape of early bombs?

Pomegranate is 'grenade' in French, from the Latin for 'having grains', and the word named the fruit long before the weapon; the bomb is thought to have taken the name in the 1500s, for its shape or its seed-like filling.

Which military discipline covers the movement, supply and maintenance of forces?

Logistics can decide campaigns: in 1944 the Red Ball Express, a truck convoy system driven largely by African American soldiers, hauled thousands of tons of supplies a day to the Allied armies racing east from Normandy.

What was the German fortified belt across the northern Apennines in Italy during World War II called?

Gothic Line defences were the last major German barrier before the Po Valley; Allied troops broke into them in autumn 1944, but the decisive breakthrough did not come until April 1945.

Which computer worm, uncovered in 2010, sabotaged the centrifuges of Iran's nuclear programme?

Stuxnet, widely reported to be a joint US-Israeli weapon, made uranium centrifuges at Natanz tear themselves apart while feeding their operators normal readings.

Which gas did Germany release as a greenish cloud at Ypres in 1915, in the first large-scale lethal gas attack?

Chlorine Gas was released from thousands of cylinders on 22 April 1915 and left to drift on the wind over French colonial troops, tearing a gap several kilometres wide in the Allied line.

Which Roman general defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC?

Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal at Zama in 202 BC, ending the Second Punic War; the victory earned him the honorific 'Africanus', though political attacks later drove him into retirement at Liternum.

Tanks first went into battle on 15 September 1916 during which First World War offensive?

The Somme offensive saw tanks debut at Flers-Courcelette; of about four dozen Mark I machines many broke down before reaching the front, yet Haig was impressed enough to order hundreds more.

What is the primary role of a destroyer in a modern naval fleet?

Escorting and defending larger vessels has been the destroyer's job since the 1890s, when 'torpedo-boat destroyers' were built to hunt the small torpedo craft that menaced larger warships; the name was later shortened.

Which tall cap, first worn by grenadiers to look more imposing, do Britain's Foot Guards wear on ceremonial duty?

Bearskin caps made grenadiers, already picked for their height, look taller and more frightening; Britain's Grenadier Guards took theirs from Napoleon's Imperial Guard after defeating it in 1815.

Which strategist is traditionally credited with the treatise 'The Art of War'?

Sun Tzu, a Chinese general of about 500 BC, is traditionally credited with its 13 chapters; Mao Zedong was among the later leaders who studied it, quoting its advice to 'know your enemy and know yourself'.

Which type of military aircraft is built mainly for air-to-air combat?

Fighter aircraft were born in the First World War to shoot down the planes scouting enemy lines; a pilot who destroys five or more enemy aircraft is known as an ace.

Which chain of border fortresses, built in the 1930s, did German forces bypass in 1940 by attacking through Belgium?

The Maginot Line guarded France's border with Germany but stopped short of the Belgian frontier; German tanks went around it in May 1940, and France fell in six weeks.

What is the term for a war in which rival powers back opposing sides instead of fighting each other directly?

Proxy war suited the Cold War superpowers: fearing that a direct clash would turn nuclear, the United States and the Soviet Union armed opposing sides in other countries' conflicts, such as Angola's civil war.

Which technology did Britain's WWII Chain Home coastal stations use to detect aircraft?

Chain Home was Britain's early-warning radar network; its coastal stations could spot enemy formations assembling over France, giving RAF commanders time to put fighters in a raid's path.

Which special operations force is known for its motto 'Who Dares Wins'?

British SAS troops began in 1941 as a small desert unit raiding airfields behind enemy lines in North Africa; the regiment won worldwide fame in 1980 by storming the Iranian Embassy in London on live television.

What is the highest military award for valor in the United States Armed Forces?

Medal of Honor rolls were purged in a 1917 review that struck off Civil War surgeon Mary Walker, the first woman to receive it; she went on wearing hers until her death in 1919, and it was restored in 1977.

Which battle is considered Napoleon Bonaparte's final defeat?

The Battle of Waterloo ended Napoleon's Hundred Days; Wellington's army held until the Prussians under Blücher arrived, and the name became a byword for decisive defeat.

Which of these military ranks is typically found in the non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps?

Sergeant comes, through Old French, from the Latin for 'serving'; unlike captains, colonels and generals, who hold commissions, sergeants are enlisted soldiers promoted from the ranks to lead small units.

What term describes military members who hold civilian jobs while staying ready for call-up?

Reserve Forces let a country keep a smaller full-time army in peacetime yet expand quickly in war; US reservists typically drill one weekend a month and two weeks a year.

During World War II, the aircraft carrier replaced which type of vessel as the centrepiece of the world's major fleets?

Battleship firepower counted for little against attack from the air: in April 1945 American carrier aircraft sank Japan's giant Yamato with bombs and torpedoes before she got near Okinawa.

Which collective defense alliance was formed in 1949 against the Soviet threat?

NATO's founding treaty treats an attack on one member as an attack on all; that pledge, Article 5, was first invoked not against the Soviet Union but after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Which French-derived military term means scouting ahead to gather information about an enemy or the terrain?

Reconnaissance is French for 'recognition': scouts go ahead so that a commander can recognise what lies in front before committing the main force; soldiers shorten the word to 'recce'.

In which 1982 conflict did HMS Conqueror sink the cruiser General Belgrano?

Falklands War: HMS Conqueror's torpedoes sank a ship that had come through Pearl Harbor unharmed in 1941 as the American cruiser USS Phoenix, later sold to Argentina and renamed.

Which ancient Greek city-state was renowned for its disciplined, formidable military?

Sparta's agoge took boys at seven and made hoplites of them; it was the dominant land power of Greece until Thebes beat it at Leuctra in 371 BC.

Which city gives its name to the 1949 conventions that protect prisoners of war, the wounded and civilians?

Geneva was home to Henry Dunant, who was appalled by the untended wounded after the 1859 Battle of Solferino; his campaign led to the Red Cross and, in 1864, the first convention.

What is the military term for a minor, relatively indecisive engagement between small forces?

A skirmish can still matter: the brief clash on Lexington Green in April 1775, which left eight militiamen dead, opened the American Revolutionary War.

What colour are the helmets and berets that give United Nations peacekeepers their nickname?

Blue berets and helmets were introduced by Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1956 for the first UN Emergency Force in Egypt, whose soldiers kept their national uniforms and needed a common badge.

Which uniform colour, adopted by British troops in India to blend into the terrain, takes its name from a word for dust?

Khaki comes from the Urdu for 'dusty'; British troops gave up their conspicuous red coats for it in the 19th century, and by the Boer War they were nicknamed 'the Khakis'.

What was the secret undertaking that developed the atomic bomb during World War II called?

The Manhattan Project employed some 130,000 people at its peak, most with no idea what they were building, and produced the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Which islands gave their name to the June 1942 battle that turned the Pacific War?

Midway Atoll gave its name to a battle the US Navy knew was coming: codebreakers had uncovered Japan's plan weeks ahead, and all four Japanese carriers sent against the atoll were lost.

Destroying everything the enemy could use as you advance or withdraw: what's the term?

Scorched earth means destroying anything the enemy could use—crops, livestock, wells, bridges—as Russia did while retreating before Napoleon in 1812.

Which ancient Greek military formation was a tightly packed rectangle of spearmen?

The phalanx was a dense block of spearmen with overlapping shields, perfected by the Greeks and Macedonians; Rome used it early but replaced it with the manipular legion.

Combat engineers are traditionally known by which name, from the trenches they once dug toward enemy fortresses?

Sappers took their name from the 'saps', the trenches they dug to bring attackers close to a fortress under fire; a private in Britain's Royal Engineers holds the rank of Sapper.

Which winter 1942-1943 battle is considered the turning point on WWII's Eastern Front?

Battle of Stalingrad ended with the German Sixth Army encircled; Hitler made its commander Paulus a field marshal, expecting him to die rather than surrender, and Paulus gave himself up the next day.

Which B-29 bomber dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945?

Enola Gay was the name of pilot Paul Tibbets's mother; he had it painted on the nose just before the mission, and Bockscar dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki three days later.

Which term for hit-and-run fighting by small bands of irregulars entered English during the Peninsular War?

Guerrilla is Spanish for 'little war'; Spain's bands of irregulars helped drain Napoleon's occupying army, in a conflict he came to call his 'Spanish ulcer'.

Which Allied amphibious invasion of June 6, 1944 opened a second front in Western Europe?

D-Day went ahead a day late: a storm forced Eisenhower to postpone by 24 hours, and a forecast break in the weather let about 156,000 Allied troops land in Normandy on June 6, 1944.

Which 1919 treaty limited Germany's army to 100,000 men and banned it from having an air force?

Treaty of Versailles terms left Germany an army of 100,000, no air force and a small navy; Hitler formally repudiated them in March 1935, and resentment of the treaty had helped the Nazis win support.

Which medieval siege engine used a falling counterweight to hurl heavy stones at castle walls?

Trebuchet arms were swung by a heavy falling weight instead of twisted rope or teams of men hauling on ropes, so they could fling far heavier stones than earlier catapults.

Which Roman general is known for his conquest of Gaul in the 50s BC?

Julius Caesar's Gallic campaigns of 58–50 BC made him enormously wealthy and popular; his refusal to give up his army afterwards triggered the civil war that ended the Republic.

What is the primary mission of the United States Marine Corps?

Expeditionary and amphibious operations fill the Marines' Hymn: 'the shores of Tripoli' recalls 1805, when a handful of Marines and several hundred mercenaries marched some 500 miles across the desert from Egypt to storm Derna.

George Washington established the Badge of Military Merit, forerunner of which decoration, in 1782?

Purple Heart: Washington's badge was a heart of purple cloth, and only three soldiers are known to have received it before it lapsed; the Army revived it in 1932, the 200th anniversary of his birth.

Which general did President Truman dismiss in 1951 for publicly challenging his conduct of the war in Korea?

Douglas MacArthur pressed to carry the war beyond Korea's borders and defied orders; Truman relieved him on 11 April 1951, a decision that upset much of the American public, and eight days later the general addressed Congress.

Queen Victoria introduced the Victoria Cross in 1856 to honour valour in which war?

The Victoria Cross was instituted in January 1856 to reward valour in the Crimean War; legend says the medals are cast from captured Russian guns, though later research points to Chinese cannon instead.

Which organisation defined the NATO phonetic alphabet in 1955-56?

The International Civil Aviation Organization approved the alphabet for use from 1 March 1956, replacing the wartime 'Able Baker' set; the last word settled was November, which beat Nectar for the letter N.

In the NATO phonetic alphabet, which code word stands for the letter Z?

Zulu is the code word for Z; it also names 'Zulu time', the military term for UTC, because Z is the zone letter for zero offset from Greenwich.

Ground was broken on the Pentagon on what notable date in 1941?

Ground was broken on the Pentagon on September 11, 1941; exactly 60 years later, on 9/11, Flight 77 struck its western side, killing 184 people besides the hijackers.

Founded in 1802, the oldest of the five US service academies overlooks which river?

Hudson River bluffs made West Point a key Revolutionary War fort, the one Benedict Arnold plotted to hand to the British in 1780; the United States Military Academy opened there in 1802.

Which US agency keeps a registry of men aged 18 to 25 in case of a military draft?

The Selective Service System stopped registering men in 1975, but President Carter revived registration in 1980 in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Which US president signed the 1969 amendment that turned the draft into a lottery?

Richard Nixon signed the draft reform bill on 26 November 1969, saying it would cut a young man's years of uncertainty about being called up from seven to one; the first lottery of birthdays followed on 1 December.

Hannibal annihilated a larger Roman army at Cannae in 216 BC in which region, the heel of Italy's boot?

Apulia's plain at Cannae saw Hannibal let his centre give ground, then close his wings around the legions; the consul Paullus died in the slaughter, while his colleague Varro escaped.

Hannibal's attack on which Roman-allied Iberian city in 219 BC sparked the Second Punic War?

Saguntum held out for months before Hannibal stormed it; Rome then declared war, and he answered by marching his army and its war elephants across the Alps into Italy.

Which English king was defeated by William of Normandy at Hastings on 14 October 1066?

Harold Godwinson had marched south straight from beating a Norwegian invasion at Stamford Bridge only nineteen days earlier; Edward the Confessor's childless death had triggered the whole struggle.

The fleet that Nelson destroyed at Trafalgar in 1805 had sailed from which Spanish port?

Cádiz sheltered the French and Spanish ships until Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, learning that Napoleon had sent another admiral to replace him, put to sea; he ended the battle a prisoner.

Nelson's famous Trafalgar signal read 'England expects that every man will' do what?

'His duty' finished the signal; Nelson's flag lieutenant swapped 'confides' for 'expects' because the latter was in the signal book and saved hoisting extra flags.

Nelson lost his right arm in a failed attack on which island in 1797?

Tenerife's defenders threw back the July 1797 landing at Santa Cruz, where a shot shattered Nelson's right arm and it was amputated; after months recovering at home he returned to destroy a French fleet at the Nile.

Who was Nelson's flag captain aboard his flagship at Trafalgar in 1805?

Thomas Hardy was Nelson's flag captain at Trafalgar; the dying admiral's 'Kiss me, Hardy' was addressed to him, and Hardy later served as First Naval Lord.

Agincourt was fought on 25 October 1415, a date marked as which feast day?

Saint Crispin's Day, 25 October, is the feast of the martyrs Crispin and Crispinian; Shakespeare's Henry V turned the date into the 'band of brothers' speech.

Which 1346 Hundred Years' War battle saw Edward III's longbowmen rout the French?

Crécy saw Genoese crossbowmen, outranged by Edward III's archers, fall back and be cut down by their own French knights; asked to rescue his sixteen-year-old son, Edward replied 'Let the boy win his spurs'.

Which forward-curving knife is the traditional weapon of the Gurkhas?

The khukuri is also Nepal's everyday farm and kitchen knife, which gives the lie to the old tale that one may never be sheathed until it has drawn blood.

France's Foreign Legion, founded in 1831, was first sent to fight in which newly invaded North African territory?

Algeria, which France had invaded in 1830, got the new corps because the army there needed reinforcements and the law founding the Legion under King Louis Philippe barred it from serving on the French mainland.

Which 1863 Mexican battle does the Foreign Legion commemorate each year on 30 April?

At Camerone on 30 April 1863, Captain Danjou's 65 legionnaires held a hacienda for hours against a far larger Mexican force; his wooden hand is paraded on Camerone Day every year.

Which pope established the Swiss Guard in 1506 and hired Michelangelo?

Julius II welcomed the first Swiss mercenaries into Rome in January 1506; when the city was sacked in 1527, most of the Guard died fighting while Clement VII was hurried to safety.

Which Soviet tank commander designed the AK-47?

Mikhail Kalashnikov served with Soviet tank units and turned to gun design after fellow soldiers complained that their rifles were no match for the enemy's; his AK-47 fires the 7.62x39mm cartridge.

Which cipher machine did engineer Arthur Scherbius patent in 1918 and first sell as a commercial product?

Enigma went on sale in 1923 as a machine for businesses; the German navy adopted a modified version in 1926 and the army followed, turning an office product into a military secret.

Mathematicians from which country first broke Germany's military rotor cipher in the early 1930s, years before Bletchley Park?

Poland's Marian Rejewski worked out the machine's wiring by mathematics, helped by documents from a spy; in July 1939, with war weeks away, the Poles revealed their methods to British and French codebreakers.

Which machine, used at Bletchley Park from 1944, was the first programmable digital electronic computer?

Colossus was built by Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers to crack the Lorenz cipher used between Hitler and his generals; it stayed secret for decades, so Flowers and his team long went without credit.

Churchill's 'finest hour' speech of 18 June 1940 named which coming campaign before it had begun?

The Battle of Britain got its name when Churchill told the Commons that the Battle of France was over and he expected this one to begin; that August he saluted its pilots as 'the Few'.

Which aircraft, alongside the Hurricane, was the RAF's main interceptor in the summer of 1940?

The Supermarine Spitfire, designed by R. J. Mitchell, took the glory, yet the more numerous Hawker Hurricane actually shot down more German aircraft that summer.

The 99th Pursuit Squadron, America's first black flying unit, was the first squadron of which famed WWII group?

The Tuskegee Airmen began with the 99th, sent to North Africa in April 1943; the escort pilots of the 332nd who followed painted their planes' tails red, earning the nickname 'Red Tails'.

Lacking a word for submarine, Navajo code talkers called it what?

Iron fish, besh-lo in Navajo, belonged to a code in which tanks were tortoises and minesweepers were beavers; the code was never broken.

Which Treasury secretary urged Congress to create the Revenue-Marine, a fleet of armed customs cutters, in 1790?

Alexander Hamilton wanted ten cutters to stop smugglers dodging the customs duties that funded the new government; with the Navy disbanded, they were the nation's only armed ships afloat until 1798.

Raymond Loewy, who drew the cutters' 'Racing Stripe', also designed which aircraft's livery?

Air Force One got its colour scheme from Loewy, working to the president's own preferences; the president was so pleased that he suggested the cutters' service as the designer's next job.

Which rapid-fire gun did its North Carolina-born inventor patent in 1862, hoping it would shrink armies?

The Gatling gun was patented in 1862 by Richard Gatling, who held a medical degree; he hoped a weapon doing the work of many soldiers would shrink armies and so cut deaths from battle and disease.

Which philosopher tutored Alexander the Great until he was 16?

Aristotle taught the teenage prince at Mieza; as his fee, Plutarch records, Philip II rebuilt the philosopher's home town of Stagira, which he had destroyed, and brought back its exiled citizens.

In which city did Alexander the Great die in 323 BC?

Babylon is where Alexander died in June 323 BC, aged 32; Ptolemy later met the funeral procession in Syria and took the body to Egypt, where it was entombed in Alexandria.

What was Genghis Khan's birth name?

Temüjin, by the earliest tradition, was named after a Tatar chief his father had just defeated; he took the title Genghis Khan in 1206, when a great assembly proclaimed him ruler of the Mongols.

George S. Patton competed in which event at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics?

Modern pentathlon: Patton finished fifth at Stockholm, undone by the pistol shooting, where judges scored a miss and he insisted the bullet had passed through a hole made by an earlier shot.

Which formation did Patton command across France and into Germany in 1944 and 1945?

Third Army was Patton's command from August 1944: it swept across France, then wheeled north in midwinter to relieve Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge; he had led the Seventh Army in Sicily.

'I shall return', vowed an American general in March 1942 after Roosevelt ordered him out of where?

The Philippines were being overrun when Roosevelt ordered the general to Australia, where he made the vow to reporters; in October 1944 he waded ashore at Leyte and announced 'I have returned'.

Joan of Arc was tried for heresy and burned at the stake in 1431 in which English-held city?

Rouen saw Joan burned on 30 May 1431, condemned as a relapsed heretic after she resumed men's clothes; in 1456 a retrial ordered by the pope overturned the verdict.

Joan of Arc is honoured for her role in lifting the siege of which city?

Joan of Arc lifted the siege of Orléans in May 1429, within days of her arrival; she then pressed Charles VII to be crowned at Reims that July.

Under which president did the Navy form its first SEAL teams?

John F. Kennedy told Congress in May 1961, in the speech that set the Moon goal, that special forces would be expanded, and the Navy formed its first two SEAL teams the following year.

Which US frigate became 'Old Ironsides' when British shot seemed to bounce off her hull?

USS Constitution won the name fighting HMS Guerriere on 19 August 1812: as enemy shot glanced off her oak hull, a sailor is said to have cried that her sides were made of iron.

Which ship, the oldest naval vessel in commission, was Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar?

HMS Victory, launched in 1765, has sat in dry dock at Portsmouth since the 1920s yet still serves as flagship of the First Sea Lord; Nelson died aboard her at Trafalgar.

HMS Dreadnought of 1906 was the first capital ship powered by what?

Steam turbines made Dreadnought the fastest ship of her kind in the world; her only significant action was ramming and sinking the German submarine U-29 in March 1915.

Which British biplane crippled the Bismarck's rudder with a torpedo in May 1941?

Fairey Swordfish from HMS Ark Royal, slow biplanes nicknamed 'Stringbags', jammed the Bismarck's rudder on 26 May 1941, and the fleet caught and sank her the next morning.

Which British battlecruiser was destroyed by Bismarck at the Battle of the Denmark Strait?

HMS Hood blew up and sank on 24 May 1941 after a shell from Bismarck reached a magazine; only three of her crew of more than 1,400 survived, and the Royal Navy hunted Bismarck down within three days.

Which US submarine made the first submerged transit of the North Pole in 1958?

USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, dived off Alaska and passed beneath the Pole on 3 August 1958, pioneering a short cut under the ice between the Pacific and the Atlantic.

Which Lockheed division developed the SR-71 Blackbird as a black project in the 1960s?

Skunk Works, Lockheed's secret design shop under Kelly Johnson, built the SR-71 mostly from titanium that the CIA quietly bought from the Soviet Union through front companies.

Which Soviet interceptor, built to chase Mach 3 American aircraft, did a defecting pilot land in Japan in 1976?

The MiG-25 Foxbat that Viktor Belenko flew to Hakodate in September 1976 proved an intelligence windfall: Japan allowed American experts to examine the secret jet at close quarters.

What name was given to the exposed ground between opposing trench lines in World War I?

No man's land was the cratered, wire-strewn strip between the opposing trenches; patrols crossed it at night and attacks died in it by day.

Which Confederate general gave his name to Gettysburg's doomed final charge?

George Pickett led one of three divisions, some 12,500 men, sent across a mile of open ground toward Cemetery Ridge; about half were lost, and the spot they reached is called the Confederacy's high-water mark.

Lincoln's Gettysburg opening, 'Four score and seven years ago', recalls which event?

The Declaration of Independence of 1776 lay 87 years back; Lincoln spoke for about two minutes after Edward Everett's two hours, and Everett wrote to him that Lincoln had come nearer the central idea.

Which Union general's Army of the Potomac won at Gettysburg?

George Meade replaced Hooker only three days before the fighting began; Lincoln then criticised him sharply for letting Lee's beaten army escape back into Virginia.

Napoleon escaped from which island in 1815 with about a thousand men and marched on Paris?

Napoleon slipped away from Elba on 26 February 1815; Marshal Ney, who had promised the king to bring him back in an iron cage, marched out to stop him and changed sides instead.

On which island was Napoleon born in 1769?

Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on 15 August 1769, a year after France acquired the island from Genoa; he left for school on the mainland in 1779.

Which Latin epic is the main surviving ancient source for the Trojan Horse story?

Book II of Virgil's Aeneid gives the fullest surviving account: Aeneas tells Dido how the Greeks built the horse after ten years of siege, and how Laocoön's warning went unheeded.

The Continental Congress resolved on 10 November 1775 to raise two battalions of Marines while meeting in which city?

Philadelphia was where the Continental Congress adopted the resolution, on the date the Marine Corps observes as its birthday; legend puts the first recruiting at the city's Tun Tavern.

Marine lore says Germans nicknamed them 'Devil Dogs' during which 1918 battle?

Belleau Wood, fought in June 1918, is where legend says Germans dubbed the Marines 'Devil Dogs'; yet American newspapers were already printing the nickname that April, weeks before the battle.

Which act established the US Air Force as a separate branch in 1947?

The National Security Act of 1947 made the Air Force a separate service, and the same law created the CIA and the National Security Council and put the armed forces under a single defense secretary.

Which studio drew Fifinella, the female gremlin adopted as mascot by WWII's Women Airforce Service Pilots?

Disney designed Fifinella for a planned film of Roald Dahl's gremlin story and let the pilots use her; of some 25,000 women who applied, 1,074 earned their wings, and veteran status came only in 1977.

Which aviator, later the first woman to break the sound barrier, directed the WASP program in WWII?

Jacqueline Cochran won the 1938 Bendix race and took charge when her training programme merged with Nancy Love's ferry pilots in 1943; in 1953, coached by Chuck Yeager, she went supersonic in a borrowed Sabre.

The Charge of the Light Brigade took place during which 1854 battle?

The Light Brigade charged at Balaclava on 25 October 1854 after a garbled order; Lord Cardigan led roughly 670 men straight at the Russian guns at the end of the valley.

Which poet published 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' six weeks after the event?

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, then Poet Laureate, wrote the poem in a few minutes from his memory of a Times report and published it on 9 December 1854, calling the ground 'the valley of Death'.

US soldiers wear two identification tags so one can stay with what?

The body keeps one tag: the Army authorised a single aluminium tag in December 1906 and later added a second, to be removed when a soldier was buried.

Troops kept calling the canned meals that the MRE replaced in the early 1980s by which older name?

C-rations was the name troops kept using for the canned Meal, Combat, Individual, though it had officially replaced the true C-ration in 1958; its pouch-packed successor was soon mocked as 'Meals Rejected by Everyone'.

Which island sultanate lost history's shortest recorded war to British warships in under 45 minutes?

Zanzibar held out for about 38 minutes on 27 August 1896: British ships opened fire at 9:02 a.m. and the shelling stopped around 9:40. Roughly 500 of the sultan's defenders were casualties, against one injured British sailor.

Which crop-raiding birds outlasted Australian soldiers sent to cull them with machine guns in 1932?

Emus split into small, fast groups that were hard to target, and the mocked field force withdrew after about a month. Its commander claimed 986 kills from 9,860 rounds, exactly ten bullets per bird.

What animal was Wojtek, enlisted by Polish soldiers and said to have carried shells at Monte Cassino?

A bear cub adopted in Iran in 1942, Wojtek was put on the army's rolls because the transport ship taking his unit to Italy barred pets. He loved beer and saw out his days at Edinburgh Zoo.

Which island's invasion did Britain's Operation Mincemeat hide by planting fake plans on a corpse off Spain?

Sicily was passed off as a mere feint by letters on the body of 'Major William Martin', which pointed to Greece and Sardinia. German reinforcements went there, and Sicily got none.

Which animals did wartime America plan to fit with tiny firebombs and release over Japanese cities?

Bats were expected to roost in the eaves and attics of wood-and-paper buildings before their charges went off. In a 1943 test, armed ones got loose and set a New Mexico airfield on fire.

The word 'kamikaze' first described storms said to have wrecked whose fleets off Japan in 1274 and 1281?

The Mongols under Kublai Khan sailed against Japan twice and lost both fleets, and the storms were hailed as a 'divine wind'. Wartime propaganda revived the name for suicide pilots more than 600 years later.

Which B-29, named after pilot Paul Tibbets's mother, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima?

Enola Gay got her name only on the eve of the mission, when Tibbets took command of the aircraft. His mother had herself been named after the heroine of a novel.

Which battleship, sunk at Pearl Harbor with 1,177 of her crew, still leaks oil into the harbour?

USS Arizona blew apart when a bomb set off one of her magazines, and her dead were about half of everyone killed in the attack. More than two quarts of oil still escape from the hull each day.

Which city did Napoleon's army enter in September 1812, only to watch most of it burn within days?

Moscow had been abandoned by the Russian army and most of its people, and fire gutted about three-quarters of the city. Short of provisions and warned by the first snow, the French pulled out on 19 October.

The 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam was named after which holiday, when many defenders were on leave?

Lunar New Year, Tết Nguyên Đán in Vietnamese, came with a promised truce, so many South Vietnamese troops were away when more than 100 towns and cities were struck at once.

Britain's war with Spain that began in 1739 is named after which body part of mariner Robert Jenkins?

An ear said to have been sliced off by a Spanish coastguard officer in 1731 gave the war its name. Opposition politicians used the story seven years later to whip up support for fighting Spain.

Operation Desert Storm in 1991 drove Iraqi forces out of which country they had occupied for months?

Kuwait was freed after weeks of bombing and a ground advance that the coalition halted after just one hundred hours. Retreating Iraqi troops set fire to roughly 700 of the country's oil wells.

Joe Rosenthal's 1945 photograph of Marines raising a flag on Mount Suribachi was taken on which island?

Iwo Jima's famous image actually shows a second, larger flag replacing the first one raised that day. It won a Pulitzer Prize the same year, the only photograph ever to do so.

From which French port were over 338,000 Allied soldiers rescued by warships and 'little ships' in 1940?

Dunkirk's rescue, codenamed Operation Dynamo, lifted only 7,669 men on its first day. Hundreds of fishing boats, yachts and lifeboats then helped ferry troops off the beaches to larger vessels.

Which December 1944 clash was Hitler's last major offensive in the West, fought in the snowbound Ardennes?

Battle of the Bulge is named for the dent the attack pushed into Allied lines. Surrounded at Bastogne and told to surrender, American commander Anthony McAuliffe sent back a one-word reply: 'Nuts!'

Which blockaded city did Western air forces keep supplied entirely by air from June 1948 to May 1949?

Berlin's western sectors were kept alive by an airlift that, at its height, landed a plane every thirty seconds. Crews also dropped candy to the city's children in what was called Operation Little Vittles.

Which river did George Washington's army cross on Christmas night 1776 to surprise Hessians at Trenton?

The Delaware was crossed as a storm and heavy snow set in, and the Hessian commander assumed no attack worth worrying about would come that night. Washington's men struck Trenton the next morning and won.

Francis Scott Key wrote the US anthem's words after watching British ships shell which Baltimore stronghold?

Fort McHenry came through 25 hours of shelling in September 1814. Key's poem was set to the song of a London gentlemen's club and became the national anthem only in 1931.

Which Roman frontier barrier, begun in AD 122, ran 73 miles across the whole width of northern Britain?

Hadrian's Wall was studded with forts housing 600 men each, with small manned milecastles in between. An ancient biographer said the emperor built it to separate the Romans from the barbarians.

Which Union general accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender in Wilmer McLean's parlour at Appomattox Court House?

Ulysses S. Grant took the surrender in the home of a man who had moved there to escape the war after its first big battle hit his farm at Bull Run. McLean supposedly said it began in his yard and ended in his parlour.

Which soldier, hailed as America's most decorated of World War II, played himself in To Hell and Back?

Audie Murphy had been turned away by the Army, Navy and Marines as underweight and underage, and got in only after his sister swore to a false birth date. Hollywood went on to cast him mostly in Westerns.

Which European volunteer turned George Washington's ragged army into a drilled force at Valley Forge in 1778?

Baron von Steuben spoke little English, so he wrote his drills in French and had aides translate them. His 'Blue Book' of regulations stayed the army's drill manual for decades.

Which Union ironclad with a revolving turret fought the Confederate CSS Virginia to a draw at Hampton Roads?

USS Monitor and her rival pounded each other for about three hours in 1862, the first fight between ironclad warships, and neither could do serious damage. Her turret inspired the design of later battleships.

Which incendiary weapon, sprayed from Byzantine warships, burned on water and had a recipe now lost?

Greek fire was such a closely guarded state secret that rival powers never managed to copy it. A chronicler credited it to Kallinikos, a refugee architect from Syria, in about 672.

Which Japanese holdout fought on in the Philippine jungle until 1974, refusing to believe the war was over?

Hiroo Onoda gave up only when his former commanding officer, by then a bookseller, flew out to order him to stand down in person. He had kept up a guerrilla campaign for nearly 29 years.

Which country did El Salvador fight in the brief 'Football War' of 1969, amid riots at World Cup qualifiers?

Honduras had been reclaiming land farmed by Salvadoran immigrants, and thousands of them fled home in the weeks around the matches. The war itself ran just four days that July.

Which British commando officer carried a longbow, a broadsword and bagpipes into World War II battles?

Jack Churchill, nicknamed 'Mad Jack', led his commandos ashore at Catania in 1943 with the sword at his waist, the bow and arrows round his neck and the pipes under his arm.

Which part of England was supposedly at war with the Netherlands for 335 years without a single shot fired?

Isles of Scilly royalists were raiding Dutch shipping in 1651 when a Dutch naval commander is said to have declared war on them. Nobody made peace until 1986, when the Dutch ambassador visited to end it.

The Janissaries, elite infantry first raised from Christian boys of the Balkans, served which empire?

Ottoman sultans raised the corps through a child levy on Christian families, then struggled to control it. Mahmud II abolished it in 1826 in the 'Auspicious Incident', when 6,000 or more Janissaries were executed.

Which title does the US Constitution give the president, putting a civilian atop the armed forces?

Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy is the wording of Article Two. The same clause adds the state militias, but only when they are called into the actual service of the United States.

Which officer rank takes its name from Old French words meaning 'place holder', or deputy?

Lieutenant joins 'lieu', place, and 'tenant', holding, the same 'lieu' as in the phrase 'in lieu of'. Nobody knows why Britain pronounces it with a 'lef' sound, a habit that goes back to the 14th century.

Napoleon's troops nicknamed him 'the Little' what, borrowing a junior army rank, after the 1796 Battle of Lodi?

Corporal was an ordinary soldier's rank, and one suggestion is that Napoleon earned the nickname by personally directing some of the guns at Lodi. The victory cleared his way to occupy Milan five days later.

Which rank is said with an 'r' sound missing from its spelling, a relic of the French form English borrowed?

Colonel entered English in the 1540s as 'coronell', from French. Scholars later respelled it to match the Italian original, and the two pronunciations coexisted until about 1650, when the older one won.

Which wartime leader was the only holder of the rank of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union, created in 1945?

Joseph Stalin soon regretted accepting a title he found overly showy. He rejected the opulent uniform designed for it and went on wearing a marshal's insignia.

Which military term first meant a younger son, the sort noble French families sent off to the army?

Cadet goes back, by way of Gascon, to a Latin word meaning 'little chief'. Younger sons of noble families were sent to the French court to serve as officers without first rising through the ranks or attending military school.

Which post outranks every other US officer, yet by law carries no command over combat forces?

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is an adviser's job. A 1986 law made its holder the principal military adviser to the country's civilian leaders, outranking every other officer without commanding any of them.

Which rank did Congress give George Washington in 1976, placing him above every Army officer, past or present?

General of the Armies was a bicentennial honour that fixed an oddity: Washington had died a three-star general, and by 1953 he was outranked by 45 other generals, living and dead.

Which US Army rank, the lowest of all at pay grade E-1, is worn with no uniform insignia?

Private at grade E-1 leaves a blank patch on the combat uniform where rank would sit, earning the slang nickname 'fuzzy'. The word is short for 'private soldier', a 1570s term for a common soldier.

Which Roman army officer, marked out by a sideways helmet crest, commanded a unit of about 80 legionaries?

Centurion comes from the century he led, a unit typically about 80 strong, not 100, after the Marian reforms. He carried a vine staff to enforce discipline and to beat anyone trying to flee.

Which lowest commissioned rank in the US Navy takes its name from a flag that junior army officers once carried?

Ensign began on land: the most junior officer of an infantry regiment traditionally carried its colours and took his title from the flag. The old rank of cornet, named after a troop's standard, arose in the same way.

Which Nazi leader received the new rank of Reichsmarschall in 1940, outranking every other Wehrmacht officer?

Hermann Göring was given the title at the very ceremony in which Hitler made twelve generals field marshals, so that the Luftwaffe chief would still stand above them. It brought him no extra authority.

Which Army chief of staff, hailed by Churchill as 'organizer of victory', became America's first five-star general?

George Marshall is one reason the grade is not called field marshal: the title would have made him 'Marshal Marshall'. His plan to rebuild Europe later won him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Which naval title did Matthew Perry carry when his squadron pressed Japan to open its ports in 1853–54?

Commodore was a title, not a permanent rank: an officer took it while leading a squadron and officially reverted afterwards. In practice holders such as Perry kept it for life.

Which class of US Army rank, sitting between the enlisted and the commissioned, commands most Army aircraft?

Warrant officers are the Army's technical experts, and they also command its seagoing vessels and most of its bands. Vietnam's demand for helicopter pilots roughly quadrupled their flying ranks within four years.

Which naval title for an officer in training comes from the part of a ship where its holders once worked?

Midshipman first described an experienced seaman posted amidships, between the main and mizzen masts, who was no officer at all. Only later did the word come to mean a trainee at a naval college.

Which Royal Air Force rank is the lowest commissioned grade, despite a title that suggests flying aircraft?

Pilot officer does not imply aircrew at all: RAF aircrew and engineers are commissioned one rung higher and skip the rank altogether.

Who is the only officer to have held five-star rank in two US services, the Army and the Air Force?

Hap Arnold was taught to fly by the Wright brothers and was one of the world's first military pilots. He led the Army Air Forces through World War II, before the air arm became a separate service.

Which tree's leaf is the US Army insignia for a major in gold and for the next grade up in silver?

Oak leaves were chosen as a major's badge in the 1830s, and the reason remains unclear. They also show a quirk of American insignia, in which silver outranks gold.

Which honorary promotion, given to almost every senior Union officer by 1865, brought a grander title but no extra pay?

Brevet rank let an officer be addressed as his superior's equal while conferring none of the authority, precedence or pay of the real thing. The word comes from an Old French term for a letter or note.

Which president authorised the Army Special Forces to wear the green beret, calling it 'a symbol of excellence'?

John F. Kennedy reversed an earlier ban at Fort Bragg, where soldiers had gone on wearing the headgear in secret. The Special Forces' own warfare centre and school now carries his name.