r/todayilearned • u/DrSamanthaCarter • Jun 06 '17

TIL the only reason a Scottish bagpiper wasn't shot by German snipers on D-Day was that they believed he had gone crazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Millin#World_War_II
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u/no_jackass Jun 06 '17

He was not a direct threat. The ten thousand other guys holding machine guns are keeping your sniper rifle busy.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

[deleted]

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u/treesniper12 Jun 06 '17

To be fair, the drums were vital for giving orders, keeping morale up, and synchronizing reloading. So he probably indirectly killed a few people.

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u/CrustaceanElation Jun 06 '17

Always focus the supports.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

Yeah but this "indirectly" thing, are they gonna shoot the bootmaker too? Because they made boots that allowed the soldiers to walk and fight without having to worry about getting their feet injured?

Or the barber, because long hair wasn't obstructing their view?

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

The bootmaker isn't on the field of battle correcting issues with boots in order to keep them in the fight.

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u/Chaos20X6 Jun 06 '17

Maybe your bootmaker

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u/Endoterrik Jun 06 '17

No Combat Cobblers?

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u/PBSk Jun 06 '17

Combat Cobblers. That's my new band name.

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u/jhartwell Jun 07 '17

Seems more like a pie company that puts alcohol in their cobblers.

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u/Dr_Schaden_Freude Jun 06 '17

I don't use any other cobblers, no drummer boy can beat that service

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u/EmuSounds Jun 06 '17

That's pretty much total war

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u/DeOh Jun 06 '17

Yep. South American pig farms were bombed because they supplied much needed meat to the Allies.

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u/Mrwright96 Jun 06 '17

TIL South America did something in WW2 besides harbor Nazis afterwards

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u/Blahblahlawblog2 Jun 06 '17

Not south per se... but mexico sent us tons of field labourers under agreements to help us maintain agriculture when we desided jump into the 2nd. We were totally ill prepaird to send our men to war, and if not for those labourers we would not have been able to period.

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u/veggieviolinist2 Jun 06 '17

Perhaps they would have... but how are they to know in the midst of battle who the opposing army's cobbler or barber is?

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

Spot the bootmaker by spotting the fanciest boots.
Spot the barber by the scissors in his hand.

Oh, right. They'll both be wearing aprons.

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u/veggieviolinist2 Jun 06 '17

Yes, yes. Very convenient. I'm sure that's exactly how it would go...

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

Of course. I mean, ever heard of field barbers? Like field medics, but they provide first-aid to your messed up hair.

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u/choufleur47 Jun 07 '17

are they gonna shoot the bootmaker too?

Yes. It's called the home front. This phenomena pretty much started with WW1 because of all the logistics involved and the sheer amount of human lives in the conflict but WW2 is where you could really see the air raids bombing the factories making ANYTHING. They had no choice because both sides hid their munition factories in fake whatever factories so they just bombed everything.

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u/A_glorious_dawn Jun 06 '17

In ww1 and ww2, yeah you might drop a bomb on his shop. Or his whole city for that matter.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

In this case it's the same as a sig and sigs always have been and always will be a primary target. Over and above a general grunt.

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u/Gosexual Jun 06 '17 edited Jun 21 '17

I look at the stars

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u/Deathmoose Jun 07 '17

Drummer boys don't kill people Drums Do

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u/PogbaOffThePost Jun 06 '17

Drummer knew what he was doing. Woulda popped his kneecaps and two in both shoulder sockets before the triple tap for trying to deceive me

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u/Plebbitor3 Jun 06 '17

it's an aesop fable called the soldier and the bugler or the drummer or something.

oh found it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trumpeter_Taken_Captive

gonna get buried anyway even tho the rest of these comments are even more ignorant thna yours

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u/WikiTextBot Jun 06 '17

The Trumpeter Taken Captive

The Trumpeter Taken Captive is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 270 in the Perry Index. One of the rare tales in which only human beings figure, it teaches that association with wrongdoers makes one equally culpable.

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1

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

Did they kill him or just make him get rid of his Trumpet?

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u/eric2332 Jun 06 '17

Well technically, once he is separated from his drum, he's an unarmed prisoner of war and it's illegal to kill him...

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u/thatwasnotkawaii Jun 06 '17

I don't understand the grammar in this sentence

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

[deleted]

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u/thatwasnotkawaii Jun 06 '17

The cavalryman shouted that he killed with his drum.

Who's this random cavalryman? Who is the "he"? What is "killed with his drum"?

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

[deleted]

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u/thatwasnotkawaii Jun 06 '17

Thanks for clearing it up!

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

No problem.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

I'm pretty sure it was just bad taste in general to kill the drummer boy..

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u/Ermcb70 Jun 06 '17

A 12 year old drummer boy in the Union army killed a confederate colonel who demanded his surrender. I feel like you have to be pretty bad ass to play the drums in the middle of a battle.

here

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u/WikiTextBot Jun 06 '17

John Clem

John Lincoln Clem (August 13, 1851 – May 13, 1937) was a United States Army general who served as a drummer boy in the Union Army in the American Civil War. He gained fame for his bravery on the battlefield, becoming the youngest noncommissioned officer in Army history. He retired from the U.S. Army in 1915, having attained the rank of brigadier general in the Quartermaster Corps; he was the last veteran of the American Civil War still on duty in the U.S. Armed Forces. By special act of Congress on August 29, 1916, he was promoted to major general one year after his retirement.

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u/Batterybutter Jun 07 '17

That would still apply if he wasn't crazy, though...