Where did the phrase "the whole nine yards" originate?

Factual Questions
1

I remember reading the discussion on this in one of the books and it not coming to a satisfactory resolution. I’ve been bugged by the meaning of the phrase ever since.

Anyway, the other day I received this in an email:

The term “whole 9 yards” came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got the “whole 9 yards.”

Does this sound like it could be a possibility? I, as a rule, never believe anything I receive in my Emails unless it has to do with expensive cookie recipes, so I am of course skeptical. I thought the term was older than WWII.

2

I had an instructor in college tell me the
same thing about the WWII Fighter planes. I’ve never heard of another explanation.

3

Um, no. It is the great unanswered question.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_252.html

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/?date=19971128

http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000241.html

http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000103.html

http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000532.html

Tom~

4

I thought the great unanswered question was “Why do the French love Jerry Lewis?”

Or maybe “What’s the third common English word that ends with…”

[sounds of pummeling and genral mayhem offstage]

…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!

5

There is a pretty long thread on this on the Comments to Cecil’s Answers board right now. I also heard the machine gun possibility, but everyone seems to disregard it saying that the phrase pre-dates this possibility. No one seems to come up with any actual literary reference that pre-dates it however. Having spent the better part of last Friday looking into this whole thing, I’m inclined to go with the machine gun theory.

“In this life you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.” -Elwood P. Dowd in “Harvey”

6

Wow, I guess I should’ve looked to see if this topic had been kicked around in this group before…

Thanks for the posts, they definetly blow the military version out of the water (no pun intended).