The first German serviceman killed in World War II?

Question

Is this true:

"The first German serviceman killed in World War II was killed by the Japanese (China, 1937), the first American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians (Finland 1940), the highest-ranking American killed was Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, killed by the U.S. Army Air Corps."

Answer 1

Yes they are all true

Answer 2

Not really....

There were two US Navy sailors killed when the Japanese bombed and sank the USS Panay, a gunboat, in 1937, on the Yangtze River in China.  This is not generally considered part of WWII though - more of an event leading up to it.  The Japanese were at war, attacking China, but five other nations had gunboats on Chinese rivers.  They clearly meant to do this, and deliberately attacked the ship, but they apologized and paid reparations, so the US let it pass.

There were also US sailors killed in the fall of 1941 by German U-Boats, while escorting UK-bound convoys to mid Atlantic.  The German sank one US destroyer and heavily damaged another, both with large loss of life.  Roosevelt did not seek a declaration of war from Congress over these incidents, possibly because he was on pretty thin ice as regards the Neutrality Act.  The first official American casualties were at Pearl Harbor.

The Russians fought the Finns in 1940, in the "winter war", and took many casualties.  They had fought a brief but bloody series of battles with the Japanese before this, along the border with China, but both decided they had enough going on and did not let it develop into an all out war, and afterward maintained an uneasy peace, which lasted until Russia got into the war against Japan for the last week.

The first Germans killed would have been in their invasion of Poland, in September 1939.

Lesley McNair was one of two three-star Lt Gens killed in the war, and he was killed in July 1944 by bombs dropped short by the US Army Air Force (it had changed from the Army Air Corps in 1940).  The other was Lt Gen Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., killed in the Okinawa operation in the Pacific.  Buckner's father had been a Confederate general, who surrendered Fort Donelson to U. S. Grant in 1862, when Grant got his "Unconditional Surrender" nickname.  He probably thought these were uncharitable terms from his old friend Sam Grant.  It was the first time they had seen one another since Grant had resigned from the prewar army under a cloud, due to his heavy drinking.  Buckner Sr had loaned Grant the money to travel back east from their duty station in California.  Its not recorded whether Grant ever repaid the loan.