"Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>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.

I've read several books of accounts of aerial warfare from WW II, and I
found the same thing: measurement of ammo was in rounds (which is what one
would expect, surely). Did the P-51 book show exact counts of rounds
expended, or estimates? I think the P-51 had six guns, so estimates might
tend to be in multiples of 300 rounds.

>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."

But note that I did post here one example of belted aviation ammo being
referred to in terms of yards from WW II times: I think this is the link:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0312d&L=ads-l&D=1&F=&S=&P=10071

I do not believe that the information available to me permits any strong
position on this etymology.

-- Doug Wilson