"Whole nine yards" spotting

[Xema]

In the December 2007 issue of Smithsonian magazine is an article “Ike at D-Day”, an excerpt from Michael Korda’s biography of Eisenhower. In the description of invasion-eve preparations appears this:

… everywhere ground crews worked through the night, loading bombs, rockets and long belts of ammunition into combat aircraft - the belts of .50 caliber ammunition for the heavy machine guns of the American bombers were 27 feet long (whence the expression “the whole nine yards”).

I’m not sure how, but it ought to be possible to check on this (has anyone done so?). Some few of those bombers survive today, and it’s quite fashionable among the warbird crowd to fit them with every sort of authentic accessory - I have seen P-51 fighters with wing guns that looked factory-new, complete with loading diagrams.

[Khampelf]

@Xema

In the December 2007 issue of Smithsonian magazine is an article “Ike at D-Day”, an excerpt from Michael Korda’s biography of Eisenhower. In the description of invasion-eve preparations appears this:

I’m not sure how, but it ought to be possible to check on this (has anyone done so?). Some few of those bombers survive today, and it’s quite fashionable among the warbird crowd to fit them with every sort of authentic accessory - I have seen P-51 fighters with wing guns that looked factory-new, complete with loading diagrams.

When was the biography written? Those sounds like the biograuthor’s words, easily written after the nine yards/ammo belt UL (ML?) was established.

I envy you, I’ve passed up the chances I’ve had to check out vintage warbirds up close. Allways too far, or too busy.

SLK

[Sternvogel]

@The Sonoran Lizard King

When was the biography written?

Ike: An American Hero was published last August 21.

Here is Cecil’s column on the dispute over the phrase’s origin. Note this quote from the final paragraph:

@Evan Morris

“The whole nine yards” first cropped up in print in the mid-1960s. . . . Even if machine gun belts really were 27 feet long in WWII, why has the phrase “the whole nine yards” not been found in a single published account of that very well-documented war?