WW2

[mcski]

My dads unit had Jackie Coogan in it. Yes uncle fester. Jackie had been married to number one pin up girl Betty Grable before the war and was the envy of most GIs. When my dad was introduced to him, he got Coogan's standard line :

"Shake the hand that holds the cock that fucked Betty Grable!"

[St. Jerry]

My grandfather helped develop stronger shells on eggs in order to help the war effort. Poultry scientist. Can't have have the eggs breaking in transit when there are hungry troops to feed.

On the other hand, my wife's grandfather was in the merchant marine. Ship got sunk by a u-boat and floated in the water for days before being rescued. Named my son after him.

[Buster Highmen]

A deceitful conscription caused my dad to be jerked out of high school @ 16 and plunked into the Navy as a medic in the South Pacific on an aircraft carrier.

He will not talk about it except to mention being tricked into being forced out of school, sewing up casualties and a lifelong aversion to loud noises.

His older brother, who he worshipped, was killed in Normandy. That event, also never discussed, cemented a position on religion and war.

[TBS]

Grandfather was a medic in the British army. Ran Rommel out of the desert in North Africa then landed on Sword Beach on the 6th of June with the 1st Special Service Brigade. He spent time at the Buldge and crossed the Rhone. Have a box full of medal and photos, one where he smoking a pipe with Monty. Perhaps more impressive was his time as British Army heavyweight boxing champ. Interesting guy, war wasn't kind to him however.

My Uncle Herb served with Patton from North Africa thru Italy and up to the Bulge. He kept a diary which was given to me - pretty chilling. He didn't come back the same person he left and ended up killing himself.

My dad served on an Attack Transport in the Pacific. He was a cmbat engineer that would clear the beaches ahead of marine landings. Would always say " A marine never landed on a beach where there wasn't a sailor there to shake his hand".

He was at Nagasaki two weeks after the bomb. When I asked him what it was like he looked at me with a really sad look on his face and said " you have no fucking idea" and never would say more.

[wooley12]

My pop was in the 1st Ranger Battalion and got injured when somebody's ammo blew up while boarding for the invasion of Sicily. When he was being patched up, the nurse was a girl from his neighborhood. Then there is the story he told about a Norwegian lass, and engagement ring and a bag of gold teeth.
To be continued.

[GeezerSteve]

My old man, an Army buck sergeant, got hit on D-Day +8 in France, hit an anti-personnel mine while driving two officers in a jeep. One of the officers was killed instantly. My old man was propelled into the air 20+ feet, unconscious, and landed on his ass in a sitting position. Severely broke his back and blew out his left ear drum, rendering him single-sided death (as I am now, although different ear). He spent a couple months in an Army hospital on an English air base. He suffered the rest of his life with numerous extended hospital stays.

When I was 10 or 11 I watched him dig a shard of shrapnel out of his leg. He told me not to mention it to anyone.

He saw some fighting before he was hit, never talked of his war experience, but it was obvious that it fucked him up pretty good. PTSD for sure. He died at age 57. Little doubt his death was hastened by his WWII injuries.

My family has paid a steep price for U.S. wars. My brother, an Army officer, was killed in Viet Nam. My maternal grandfather was hit in WWI, spent the rest of his life in VA hospitals with a tin plate in his head, suffered terribly for 20 years before he died weighing 75 lbs.

Fuck war

[capulin overdrive]

I don't have any agenda with this thread. I pulled a random history book quote out of somewhere about WW2 and after a while I started to think about the stories going away....and I like stories, so if you have a WW2 story, tell it.

I have a few. Some of them may be questionable, we'll leave that to the future,

One thing that is true is that my father enlisted on his 18th birthday, March 18, 1943. And that after training at Fort Benning Georgia he was shipped to Europe as a Combat Infantryman, and put in charge of a .50 cal BAR which he carried across France and to the Rhine, as he chopped up Germans as they chopped up his unit.

Not to get all Woody on you, sorry. But he did that, he killed Germans with a machine gun. Many of them. He certainly wasn't proud of it and never spoke of it. But it's true.

There are stories that guys here might know, that id they're not told now they may be forgotten forever. At least if yuo tell a story now Google can find it later. It's not dead. Tell the story. Don't worry about boring us. If we're bored we'll just go the next story.

BAR = 30-06

BMG = 50cal

[papapoopski]

My grandfather served in the Pacific on an aircraft carrier. He died a long time ago, before I knew to ask him about it. He was a hard working, hard drinking man that went to NASA years after the war. Worked every day until a week before he died.

Sitting having breakfast with my kids, an older woman smiles at us and stops to say hello on her way out. We get to discussing heritage and the fact that I am of Norwegian decent on my fathers side, where the old woman was born. I asked her why she left Norway at 16. Her answer was simply "the Nazis". I was pretty much speechless after that. I had a talk with my kids about some history that day.

My grandmothers side came from Alsace. My grandmother kept a picture of a man in Nazi uniform in her house, apparently a family member. When asked she wouldn't talk about it, just that she liked his uniform. In learning a bit about Nazi's in Alsace-Lorraine, on many occasions when Nazi's came into town the choice was join us or we will kill you, your whole family, everyone in town and burn everything to the ground. I have hours of interviews recorded of my grandmother but never a word of this came out of her.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

BAR = 30-06

BMG = 50cal

Are you the WW2 story thread fact checker?

My grandparents on both side were too old for armed service in WWII but both my grandmothers and my dad's dad worked in the shipyards in Puget Sound. My mom's dad worked with the Army Air Corp in AK and went on to establish the modern air traffic control system up there. My parents and my aunts and uncles were all too young for WWII.

My daughter's relatives on their mother's paternal side spent the war in the Minidoka internment camp in ID. The exception was great uncle Craig who served with the 442 RCU.

[yeahman]

Former landlord used to tell me how he faked his age and enlisted at 16. Fought in the Pacific. One day he showed me a large glass jar half full of gold teeth he dug from the mouths of dead Jap soldiers. No remorse whatsoever, he clearly held on to the hatred.

Recently I've been watching the HBO series The Pacific and it has shed a lot of light on what the old guy was telling me.

[skaredshtles]

I found both Band of Brothers and The Pacific to be very well done shows. If you have interest in WWII you should do yourself a favor and watch both.

My grandfather on my mom's side was in the Merchant Marines in the Pacific. Don't really know any details about his service...

[hop]

Mom's side: Great-grandfather was in the trenches in WW1. We still have a lot of scrimshawed artillery shells he did while over there. I also have his cuff links, cigarette case, and a couple other items from his service. Crazy to think they're now ~100 years old. Grandfather - wanted to follow in Great-Grandfather's footsteps and joined up but did not serve overseas due to bad eyesight. He served in Cdn. Army at a base near Barrie, Ont. After the war he helped restore an Avro Lancaster.

Dad's side: Grandparents and family spent the war running from the Japanese in southern China. They barely escaped Hong Kong at the end of '41. Dad was born while on the run. Luckily the family home was still there when they got back in '45.

I spend a lot of time working in WW2 battle sites. My office is on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. There are still bullet holes in the buildings all around mine.

My home-buying experience was kind of a shitshow and I recall being rather pissed off at the process - banks, mortgage people, etc. I signed the final paperwork on Dec. 7, 2011 - I joked that it was the Day of Infamy for my bank account. The next day I was in the grocery store and in front of me in the checkout line there was an old guy with a WW2 Veteran hat on. I asked him where he served and he told me he was a radioman on the USS New Orleans CA32. Apparently he joined up the day after Pearl Harbor and chose the Navy because "I didn't want to be one of those guys running up and down the beach". I immediately felt like an asshole because I was all mad that my home-buying experience was "rough" and 70 years ago to the day this guy, who was probably a teenager at the time, was joining the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. I thanked him for his service and bought his groceries for him. If I ever feel like life's unfair, I force myself to think about that 90 second meeting in the checkout line and my options vs. his options and realize I've got it pretty well made. Same reason I keep a Robert Capa photo of Omaha Beach readily available.

[wooley12]

The Ollie North tv series did a Greatest Raids show about the Rangers Gela landing. Pops landed about 300 yards up the beach from the action depicted on the show. His unit was assigned to the most difficult landing task. Cross 200 feet of beach then climb 100 foot cliff. The Germans didn't think anyone would be foolish enough to try that so that cliff was undefended. At first.
His Ranger training required him to go 12 miles with an 80 lb pack in under 3 hours. He weighed 135. I never saw him run a step in my life.

[XXX-er]

My father was 16 in Southhampton during the air raids, him and my uncle would go out at night with garden spades and garbage can lids to put out fire bombs with gravel, if they came home for breakfast in the AM they weren't dead, he briefly worked in the spitfire factory before shipping out with the british merchant marine, uncle bob was KIA, but dad made it thru (obviously) without seeing any action . My mother was born in Singapore grandpa had a good job as an engineer at the opium factory but he was american and too white so when the Japanese occupied they took him and he was never seen again

Lord Mountbatten told them all not to come come home cuz there was nothing left of England so Dad stayed in Singapore, where my parents met after the war while my dad was a guard at the war crimes, he didnt like being a cop or the hot weather so they left for Canada

[billyk]

Dad flew corsairs off aircraft carriers in WWII. He didn't see any actual combat, though. He was so good at it that they picked him to be an instructor. Spent the whole war stateside training pilots.

My great uncle (my grandfathers brother) was a "SeeBee" and drove heavy equipment to build and repair air fields in the Pacific. He was shot at several times by snipers.

They didn't share any stories other than that.

[Beaver]

My grandpa was a machinist in a munitions plant until 1943. When he tried to quit to enlist they said nope not until we have enoigh bullets. Eventually the let him enlist and he became a machinist on the HMCS Prince Rupert.

He died last week at 100yrs & 9days old. RIP

[Mazderati]

Damn. Good run. RIP.

[reckless toboggan]

Many thanks to all of your parents, grandparents, and relatives who served.

Your families liberated my families from German camps and accepted and helped my families as refugees.

Thank you for your service.

[2nd mate]

My grandfather went Navy in WW2 and served on the USS Franklin, an Essex class carrier. He spoke of kamakazis and his job as a 40mm gunner. He was from Boston and said he spent plenty of time in the brig. He told me he would have loved to stay in the navy after the war if they had let him.

Other grandfather was a Seabee. He never talked about it.

Uncle was on the murmansk run and missed his ship once, he said he had made a friend. He jumped onto the next ship. A few months later he found out the ship he missed was torpedoed with no survivors. He sailed in the merchant marine the rest of his career.

[capulin overdrive]

My grandfather went Navy in WW2 and served on the USS Franklin, an Essex class carrier. He spoke of kamakazis and his job as a 40mm gunner. He was from Boston and said he spent plenty of time in the brig. He told me he would have loved to stay in the navy after the war if they had let him.

Other grandfather was a Seabee. He never talked about it.

Uncle was on the murmansk run and missed his ship once, he said he had made a friend. He jumped onto the next ship. A few months later he found out the ship he missed was torpedoed with no survivors. He sailed in the merchant marine the rest of his career.

My great uncle died on the Franklin, or more precisely they don't know what happened to him. He was a fighter pilot on deck when the bombs, they think he was blown up on deck.



If you can find it, there's a more recent documentary on the Franklin revealing how much of a Jackass the ship's Captain was. From not sounding general quarters fast enough during the attack, to trying to Court Marshall the guys who jumped off the ship.

[dtown]

Grandfather was in the Pacific but never talked about it. This stuff always interests me, Stephen E Ambrose books are fascinating if you like a good read, he covers many different subjects of the war.

[skiing-in-jackson]

I just had to put this in. Classic.

Seriously though, just after we got married, Mrs. SIJ's grandmother had a man friend, both were approaching 90 y/o.

He worked driving trucks onto Omaha Beach on June 6th. Things had pretty much "calmed down" at 1 or 2 PM when he got there. The sea was red, bright red he said, and bodies floated in the waves for days.

Most awesome things done: I've been in a nuclear reactor, toured the Capitol all day, all kinds of crazy stuff, ski every day every year...

...and spent an afternoon with a guy who was at D Day.

[hop]

Most awesome things done: I've been in a nuclear reactor, toured the Capitol all day, all kinds of crazy stuff, ski every day every year...

...and spent an afternoon with a guy who was at D Day.

Last summer I was at the Pacific Aviation Museum (conveniently located just across the old runway on Ford Island) and met a former navigator of various medium and heavy bombers. We were standing below the nose of the B-25 and he mentioned it wasn't his favorite; he preferred the B-26, but the B-29 was the best of all.

Another 90 second micro conversation with a vet and it will stick with me for a long time.

[JellyBear]

Stories going away...you don't have to go back to WW2.

Ask a millenial what the Cold War was.

Most say it was Coke vs. Pepsi.

Unfortunately, while we have the entirety of human knowledge in our phones, most are using them to find funny cat memes.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

I'm so glad Coke won that one.

[jono]

My home-buying experience was kind of a shitshow and I recall being rather pissed off at the process - banks, mortgage people, etc. I signed the final paperwork on Dec. 7, 2011 - I joked that it was the Day of Infamy for my bank account. The next day I was in the grocery store and in front of me in the checkout line there was an old guy with a WW2 Veteran hat on. I asked him where he served and he told me he was a radioman on the USS New Orleans CA32. Apparently he joined up the day after Pearl Harbor and chose the Navy because "I didn't want to be one of those guys running up and down the beach". I immediately felt like an asshole because I was all mad that my home-buying experience was "rough" and 70 years ago to the day this guy, who was probably a teenager at the time, was joining the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. I thanked him for his service and bought his groceries for him. If I ever feel like life's unfair, I force myself to think about that 90 second meeting in the checkout line and my options vs. his options and realize I've got it pretty well made. Same reason I keep a Robert Capa photo of Omaha Beach readily available.

I got to attend the 70th anniversary memorial service at Pearl Harbor with my wife's family in 2011. Her grandfather had been the chief of a boiler room on the USS Nevada when the attack happened. As I understand it, they used some very unorthodox methods to get steam up in their boiler as the attack started, ultimately cutting the time it was supposed to take from something like a half hour to mere minutes. The Nevada was the only battleship to get underway, and earned a lot more attention from the Japanese for her trouble. Ultimately, as the ship was being grounded off Hospital Point the electricity went out and with the bulkheads all sealed the guys in his boiler room were trapped in the dark. They managed to get the bulkhead open, only to be flooded from above. My wife's grandfather believed he was the only one to make it out. It took more than a day to swim from air pocket to air pocket in pitch black until he finally found a way out. He was reassigned to other ships throughout the war and ultimately died in 2012.

The scene at the 70th anniversary was crazy--all these really old guys talking over each other to tell their stories and none of them could hear a thing. Pity that we're losing them so fast these days!