Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire WW2 Veterans?

My father was an Infantry Squad Leader, SSG, in the 10th Mtn Div. He'll turn 96 in a few months. Two of his brothers also served, and survived, WWII. They've both passed. Couple of uncles and an aunt on my mother's side were in the Army during WWII, two survive the war one didn't. And just to throw it in, my grandfather was an Infantry Private in the 82nd All American Div in WWI. He came out of that one with permanent lung damage from a gas attack.

I was hoping his dad was on the Enola Gay so we could put a face with the man.

The story that accompanied the Photo said that after they saw the devastation the bomb caused they knew that the war was over or soon would be.

Awesome!!

your pa is a real badass, please tell him I said Thanks and give him a big ole Hi-5 for me.

All WW2 gets I knew are gone! Dad was Army, American - New Caledonia division! Spent his war years in the pacific! He didn't talk much about the war! Two things stick in my mind! One is a story he told about burying Japanese in long trenchs, covering with llime, and then mounds of dirt. Then rains came and they moved their tents on the long mounds of dirt to keep dry! The other story was about some gal he knew at (Beaugainville)! I didn't here that one until he was old! He said the Japanese shoulders were tough!

This, from a recent Victor Davis Hanson piece well articulates how fortunate we’ve been to know these men:

“Finally, a recent poll of Americans reveals a veritable abyss between younger and older Americans. Today’s millennials, children of the postwar baby boomers, grew up in the affluence of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. They claim that they will be far less likely to marry, to value religion or to feel patriotic.

In contrast, those who were once children during World War II, or who had parents and grandparents who fought in the war, have a far more realistic appraisal of human nature and the need to find security, stability and transcendence in a dangerous world.”

Like many here, the WWII vets I’ve known have passed away. But I’m very deliberate about ensuring my kids know of them and their sacrifices.

I was born 11 years after WW2 so in my boyhood I knew a LOT of vets. My Dad and my uncle Walt were 2 of them, and I would have had another uncle, Sandy, but he was killed in Germany only 8 days before the war ended.
In my 20s I also met and became friends with one German combat vet and one Japanese air combat vet. Also a member of the Italian resistance, who was a wealth of inspirations information.

I grew up in a remote area and has very few boys of my own age around, so I found myself in the company of many of my dad's friends. Most of my friends were of the WW2 years or the Korean War years.
They has a profound influence on me.

Was my favorite Bomb Group in the 8th Air Force...

When my dad was stationed at RAF Alconbury from 63 to 66, I went to school at Molesworth...

The WW 2 runway was still there, we use to ride bicycles from one end to the other...
our school cafeteria was one of the old WW2 chow halls...
our auditorium was the main briefing room for the missions with a big map of NW Europe on the wall...
The last mission flown from Molesworth in 1945, had all the coordinates on the wall .. It was covered by a huge Velvet curtain
most of the time...

My elementary school grounds and buildings (1963) was the 303rds HQ area...

There were still the remains of a few B 17s on the field, off at one end of the runway... is parts of course...

and the old church was still in use that you see on various pics of B17s taking off belonging to the 303rd, with the Triangle C on the tail and right wing....

A salute of respect for your dad, and let him know, 50 years ago, it was all still there just like they left it in 1945...
The Nissen huts, etc.. all over the base and the old firepools etc.....

I loved Molesworth.. and all the history left over from the war that was still ALL there 20 years later.

I have heard of it and I may actually have seen it in the local library but I have not read it. Gene arrived in England in January of 1945 and flew 29 missions including 2 or 3 Chow Hound missions after the war ended. He later went back to Germany to fly in the Berlin Airlift and flew cargo planes into and out of Korea. He was a wing commander in Viet Nam and prior to that he did some time at the Pentagon helping to design and implement the early ballistic missile defense system. He did a lot of things in his 32 years in the Air Force but he said is time in the 100th was his favorite assignment.

ON one of his missions the B-17 next to him was hit by flak. It went up and over upside down and when it came down it damaged their right wing and almost flipped them over as well. The 10 crew members in the first B-17 all died but he and his PIC kept their bird in the air all the way back to England for a landing they all walked away from.

We sure miss him.

kwg

We have two that are members of our church. One was at Normandy for the D-Day invasion. The other was there several days later. I have the honor of sitting in front of one of these heroes every Sunday. The guys get a kick out of my kids thanking them for their service to our country. As you would expect, they are very humble gentlemen.

I had a great uncle, married to my grandma's youngest sister, who had worked 4 years in the West Virginia coal mines before he went into the army. He served as a medic, went into Normandy a couple of days after D-Day and ended the war without a scratch in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. He enjoyed telling me (when my aunt wasn't around) about the Calvados in Normandy. When they couldn't easily tap the barrels, they put a 5 gallon bucket underneath and shot a hole in the barrel. When they needed a refill, they shot a little lower. He told me how in Pilsen they liberated a warehouse full of schnapps, wine, etc., and said with a smile, "we had a good time in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia".

He had a close call during the Battle of the Bulge when his coat tail got a couple of holes shot in it. He was discharged in November, 1945 and went back to work in the mines the first Monday in December. 5 hours into that first shift, there was an accident with the shuttle cars. His back was broken and he had a compound fracture of his leg. The guy he was working with wanted to get him out, but Uncle Richard told him no, go get help. The doctor told him later that he saved his own life, that he surely would have died right there if the man had moved him. Uncle Richard made a complete recovery and worked another 40 years in the mines.

He was a good man, good natured and easy to get along with. He wouldn't talk about anything specific about the bad stuff he saw until about 5 years before he passed, in 2004.

All of the WW II vets I have known are long passed. My father was a navy vet, serving in the Pacific from 1942-45. He died in 2000 at the age of 83 of lung cancer. Many of my high school teachers and college professors were WW II vets as well as two of my uncles and several of my father's cousins. My ex-wife's father was a sailor in the Atlantic during the war. My wife's father lied about his age and joined the army during the very last days of the war, never going overseas. His older brother (my wife's uncle) was a submariner in the Pacific. All gone now. WW II vets are pretty rare now. For that matter, Korean War vets have gotten quite uncommon now.

I know one. He is a member of our club. He enlisted when he was about 16 or 18. Spent most of his time onboard a sub.
They have one like it in Muskegon, he to me though it one day. I can’t believe how cramped it was.

All of my WWII friends I can think of are gone. Dad, Stepdad, uncles, friends, all gone. I have two Korean Conflict vet friends I can think of, still here. I miss them all. Very few of my Dad's employees were non vets as I grew up. Dad was an Air Force Bombardier Navigator instructor and was given a two week leave prior to going to England. A few days before leaving, VE day happened and he was sent to an airbase in Iowa and discharged. I think I still have a photo of him remarked as the 10,000th discharge after the war. Crazy numbers. I lost the last remaining personal friend, WWII vet, early this summer. It was quite a loss for me as he was equivalent to my Dad for many years, Dad having left us in '74. I have lots of friends from the Viet Nam era but lots from of them have gone also from old injuries and Agent Orange. I have a 103 year old lady friend, took her communion two Sundays ago, She's a breath of fresh air compared to the young punks I work with as officers in corrections. They don't have what I consider American values. But I do have lots of friends I highly value at work who are vets from both sand box affairs. Some great guys. I'm old enough to have had the honor of knowing many great vets. I miss them all. God speed and God Bless all you guys and gals. See you on the other side. Be Well. Rustyzipper

My father, kneeling third from right, was a waist gunner on a B17. Sadly, he's gone now. His brother was a flight engineer who was shot down over Europe and marched to Stalag Luft III. He was there when Patton liberated it. He's 94 now and has some great stories.

LIKE

I get a few in the clinic I work at once in a while. I had a Holocaust survivior yesterday. Could have talked to her for hours. She lost family, friends and neighbors to the SS. Sounds like she survived by her brains, guts, and good luck.

Jeff, now I am reminded of a picture a woman from East Berlin showed me. Her father in his German SS officer's uniform with his wife, and their Jewish friends in front of his black German army car.

At once I realized all the Nazis were not the monsters we have been taught. Just regulator people swept up in the times.

My family doctor, who is Jewish, told me that he had two older male patients (now deceased) who had SS tattoos on their arms. Talk about uncomfortable situations!

Someone asked me to point my Father out in the picture of the Enola Gay crew. He was not on the Enola Gay, he was on the Valiant Lady, although it was not named till after the war. Film taken of the squadron landing shows his B29 with a large "F" on the nose. His B29 was the reconnaissance plane in the mission squadron that took all the photos and film.