All Abnormal Sexual Urges on the Western Front

Perhaps the funniest damn thing I have ever read:

Background:
Flanders, 1915. The First World War. The British are seeking to seize a key point in the German front lines by digging a tunnel under the German positions, filling it with explosives, then blowing it up. A young officer named Cassels, with mining experience in the civilian world, is in charge of the tunneling operation. Close to the scheduled offensive, he realizes that the tunnel won't be close enough to the German positions and that a more powerful explosion than planned will be needed.

"Because of the confines of the tunnel, Cassels realized that it could not hold enough of the bulky gunpowder or guncotton to do the job. But he seized on an idea that no one had thought of before: he would use ammonal, an explosive used in mining but new to warfare, with three-and-a-half times the strength of ordinary gunpowder.

"Cassels quickly sent in a requisition for 3,500 pounds of the ammonal but, in typical army fashion, a glitch developed immediately: no one back at headquarters had the faintest idea what ammonal was. Someone assumed that it was a drug, and dispatched an inquiry to the Royal Army Medical Core. In due time, a reply was received: 'Ammonol is a compound drug extensively used in America as a sensual sedative in cases of abnormal sexual excitement.'

"What reaction this information elicted from the Quartermaster General is not known"

From A Storm In Flanders by Winston Groom