World War II, analyzed!

My Father was shot in the leg with a wooden bullet, in WW II.

When and where, please?

This is a story that refuses to die. I'd love for a German to come forward with personal knowledge or experience.

The best theory I've heard on this is that some manner of training ammo got sent to the front, and was used more in desperation than anything else.

My Grandfather (PFC USMC) was wounded in the Philippines during WWII with a wooden bullet. It basically destroyed his hip. After surgery and rehab he returned home and continued to have medical problems. The wood (bamboo) stayed in his system and caused several tumors. Shortly after he returned he started losing the feeling in his legs. He'd be walking down the street, stumble, recover his balance and wait for the sensation to return. Once, he called my father and asked him to take him to the dentist. When they got there, he told the dentist which tooth he wanted pulled. The dentist refused at first because x-rays showed it to be a health tooth, but my Grandfather told him that either the dentist pulled it or he'd do it himself due to the pain. After it was pulled you could see the tiny growth of bamboo from the root. In later years the tumors along his spine caused kidney failure. This was the eventual cause of death. I don't believe it was a training round, most of those have no primer or powder. This prevents accidents during training. His opinion was that wood was used because the Japanese were running out of metal. Bamboo was still available. Injuries from wooden bullets may not have been common, but they're not a myth.

FYI, Google brings up this from the NY Times archive:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract. ... 5F408485F9

It seems that on June 11, 1944, there was an article titled "Germans use wooden bullets". The article is only paying members, though.