"Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence

[Jonathan Lighter]

Roger Freeman's recent book, American Eagles: P-51 Mustang Units of the 8th Air Force (Hersham, Surrey: Classic Publications, 2003), contains three passages which cast further doubt on the assertion that "the whole nine yards" originated among American fighter pilots in World War II.

On pp. 74, 88, and 95 Freeman prints the after-action reports filed by three P-51 pilots in 1944 describing the details of successful encounters with Luftwaffe fighters.  In each case, the writer ended his account, routinely it would seem, with an accounting of "Ammunition expended."

In each case (as many of us would expect), the amount of ammunition spent is indicated by the number of rounds fired (in these cases between 300 and 900 per mission) rather than by "yards" or any other measurement of length.

Naturally, this observation won't hinder the folklore that "fighter pilots" invented the phrase in World War II, especially since the pilots in the story are frequently specified as stationed in "the South Pacific" (the 8th AF flew in Europe), but it would be more than remarkable to find that American pilots anywhere on earth customarily referred counted their ammunition in any way other than by "rounds" or, if the context warranted, "belts." The same goes for aerial gunners, who never get a mention in these rumors, probably because they're not invested with the pop cultural "glamour" of the "fighter pilot in the South Pacific," perhaps specifically the fantasized flyboys of TV's "Black Sheep Squadron."


JL


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