I must agree with the thread referring to the whole nine yards as ammo length. My uncle was a fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater. He told me that the expression “whole nine yards” meant firing your entire arsenal in a series of lengthy dogfights. Cecil, I think you should be well aware that many customs and phrases in our society originally rose from the ranks of bored military. How many expressions can you say came from the garment district?
“Don’t run with scissors, you’ll put your eye out.” OK…one.
Any chance your uncle is still alive? Some linguists here might want to follow up on this with him if so. The problem with this phrase coming from WWII is that lack of any verifiable print cites that far back.
That is a very good point. Even if this uncle can’t come up with any print cite, surely he ought to remember what model plane he was flying that used 9 yards of ammunition. From that we ought to be able to find armament experts that could look up the specs to see if 9 yards of ammo made sense for that plane.
Best evidence we have for a pre-Vietnam conflict comes from:
In that US Navy pilot Captain Richard Stratton recalls hearing a reference to “the whole nine yards” in an off color story in 1955. It seems unlikely to me that a fictional risque tale itself would be the origin of this phrase. However, what if the teller of this tale incorporated in it “the whole nine yards” because it was already a familiar phrase amongst military pilots?
But why not a single print cite of this phrase before the Vietnam War if it comes from WWII?
I just had a thought, but sadly no way of checking it out. What if Elaine Shepard herself was the inventor of the phase? I can easily imagine the soldiers she was covering as a reporter picking up a phrase she used as well as her picking up their lingo. Particularly with her being one of the few chicks around, and for that reason being popular. Unfortunately:
One other thought I have is I wonder even if Elaine Shepard didn’t coin the phrase, might she have been responsible for it entering the common language? Let’s assume some soldier in the unit she was attached to made up this phrase on the spot for no particularly good reason. And it was picked up by some of his fellow soldiers in that unit. Elaine Shepard also learns the phrase, and incorporates it in her book “DOOM Pussy”. Who would you think would be the most likely folks to want to read a novel about US airmen in Vietnam? I’d think other servicemen. Thus, “the whole nine yards” may have been popularized as a phrase amongst GIs by “DOOM Pussy”.
And, for yet another possible explanation as to the origin:
The US and South Vietnam forces employed over 20 different types of aircraft during the Vietnam War. Its a rather short sighted answer to state that they all used 20mm cannons. While I am not an expert on every type of aircraft I believe that there were severel Helicopters that used belt fed .50 ammo, regardless of that the fact is that B-52 had 4 .50 machine guns in its tail and was used extensivley during certain parts of the war.
Yes- however, the B52 had it’s tail guns (which I think were 20mm in any case) removed early in it’s career. in any case, I doubt if they were ever fired in anger.
Choppers did indeed have .50mg- however, they were fed from a standard 'ammo can". It was posted here in another thread what the extact length of that belt was, but it wasn’t 9 yards.
In any case, the myth refers to a ‘fighter giving an enemy the whole nine yards’ presumable refering to dogfighting. At the very latest, that could refer to the last vestiges of P-51’s used in Korea.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Yes- however, the B52 had it’s tail guns (which I think were 20mm in any case) removed early in it’s career. in any case, I doubt if they were ever fired in anger.
The following information on B-52 Tail Gun kills is available on the internet:
SSgt Samuel O. Turner Mig-21 B-52 #6676 Call Sign – Brown 3
On 18 December 1972 near Hanoi , North Vietnam SSgt Turner, a B-52 Fire Control Operator (Gunner), shot down a MIG-21. For his action the 30 year old Atlanta , Georgia native was awarded the Silver Star. Turner retired from the Air Force with the rank of MSgt. He passed away 12 April 1985 as the result of an illness.
AIC Albert E. Moore MIG-21 B-52 #5083 Call Sign – Ruby 03
On 24 December 1972 near the Thai Nguyen railroad yards, North Vietnam. Moore, a B-52 Fire Control Operator (Gunner), shot down a MIG-21.
Don’t know if this has been suggested in the myriad previous discussions on the subject, but…
I was told by my high school European History teacher about 12 years ago that “the whole nine yards” came from ammunition for guns mounted to ships (not guns on aircraft), in WWII I think.
Don’t recall seeing that one, but it suffers from the same problem as the airplane theory – if it was being used in WWII, why doesn’t it show up in print until Vietnam? As far as that goes, why didn’t anyone even mention the WWII theory when Cecil was first researching the subject almost 20 years ago? The farther we get from WWII, the more people seem to be sure that that was the origin, and I’m not sure why, given the lack of evidence.
Certainly it’s not impossible that it’s a WWII expression that just went unrecorded for 20 years. It just seems unlikely. That was one written down war. I own a book that consists solely of what a soldier in Australia wrote to a newspaper in San Franciso. By the end of the book, he hasn’t even seen combat --pretty much it’s a whole book about how much he hates mutton stew. With that kind of documentation of what the men in uniform were saying, it would be really hard for a catchy expression to escape being written down.
Anyone here know enough about WWII armaments to comment? Were there any commonly used guns on ships in WWII where the standard ammo belt was 9 yards long? And, if so, could any gunner on a ship reasonably use up a full ammo belt on just one incoming plane? If the time it took for a single enemy aircraft to come in range, and go out of range, was too short to use 9 yards of ammo, a gunner couldn’t give it the whole 9 yards.
