Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Your family's military history..pics welcomed

Since my parents are gone my younger brother picked up the slack with documenting the family history especially since so many have served..

Our recent find is my great uncle Herman who we affectionately refer to as uncle " Bad Azz " He was an early advisor, three tours, purple heart and brought home his Vietnamese bride..

Can't see in the lower pic what his sidearm carry was but looks like a plow handle SA of some kind maybe Ruger..My grandfather always said he had cowboy genes..

Grandfathers uncle flew bombers in WWII, no pics

Badass for sure!

Looks to me like a Ruger Blackhawk in the last picture. Methinks he was appropriately nicknamed.

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/tumlinson-george-w

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tumlinson-24

MY father was in the Army, was discharged right before Vietnam. 4 Uncles served in Vietnam, my mom's brothers. One of my dad's brothers did some stuff in Vietnam, not military but an alphabet agency.

Don't have any pictures right handy but - bride's 4 brothers were in the Navy, two of my uncles also were Navy, 2 uncles were Air Force, one uncle was Army in Europe in WWII, one of bride's uncles was Army in the Pacific in WWII, my grandfather was Army in WWI in Europe and got mustard gassed, one of my great-great grandfathers was Union in Civil War (from Illinois, not sure where he participated). Several cousins married military, one is a Marine (so are 3 of there children), one married a career Air Force man (his last post before retirement was at the Pentagon). That is all my increasingly feeble mind can recall at this time . . . Salutes to all who served.

My several greats, grandfather was a Union Soldier, he sent money home, my greats, grandmother bought a Seth Thomas clock we still have.

This is a good reminder to go through old family photos now that my dad is gone and my mom is deep into Alzheimer's land. I know my dad kept a ton of pictures and they're all now in a storage unit.

My dad went from being a refugee right before WW2 to being in the US Army as part of the US Army of Occupation in Japan. One uncle, also a refugee, went from being a new American to flying B24s in the China/Burma/India theater and was shot down, to survive in the jungles before being rescued after a few months. His brother flew B25s over Europe, after having just escaped from Germany, and was KIA in a bombing raid. Another uncle was in the Navy during the Korean War and one other was a Marine who was at Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41 (he was a good ole boy non-Jew who my aunt married shortly after arriving in the US). Everyone served back then and I sure do need to gather up all the pictures so the next generation will know.

Dad. April 17, 1970. Germany.

Both Grand Fathers served for Australia & the Allies, during WW2;



They served in the Pacific theatre.

My uncle, USMC, invasions of Guadalcanal, Cape Glouchester, New Britain, New Guinea, Guam. This is a picture of him astraddle a Jap Zero they shot down on Cape Glouchester. He's the Marine, second from left, with his leg beside the "Meat Ball."



L.W.

If not already done so, you all should attempt get all those old pics scanned and digitized.

Wife has been doing that last few Christmas breaks getting thousands onto a few different portable hard drives. I don’t full trust cloud storage so we have a couple back up 1 Terrabyte drives we keep at mother in laws place and one at my old man’s place. Done all their pics too. And any certificates and paper docs, awards at the same time.

Heres one Woody...my dad. Combat Engineer in the 69th Infantry, amongst many other things, built a bridge to cross the river ( Rhine?) for the mechanized stuff...
His outfit was also fighting at the Bridge at Remagen,one of the outfits that liberated Buchenwald and sub-camps, and they are the ones who met the Russians at the River Elbe for VE Day.

Heres another for you Woody...not a military pic but I think one worth mentioning. My mother and her siblings. The handsome lad standing up was my uncle. He was in Singapore as a civilian working on a bombsight for Sperry Rand. Long story short he was captured by the Japanese, and spent the war in a POW camp. Managed somehow to survive and come back. Became a Doctor, and led a good life. He had a wooden leg and while in POW camp managed to scrounge up enough stuff to build a radio receiver in his leg. The news he got on it was a great morale boost to the other prisoners, and needless to say, he did it at great risk...

No pictures

My father served in the Coast Guard during Vietnam.

My father-in-law was a Korean War Veteran.

My grandfather and three great uncles were WWII Veterans and several fought in the Battle of the Bulge. One lost a leg in battle.

Another great uncle was in the merchant marine during WWII and shipped product to Europe.

A cousin (by marriage) was an Air Force pilot and served in the middle east.

I am extremely proud of them all.

One of my GG Grandfathers.



https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/moncure-john-james

No pics that I want to post.
My day was wounded by a Japanese hand grenade on Okinawa in 1945.
After the grenade got him, he woke up in a hospital several days later.
Was very patriotic till his death in 1992.

Dad's family from the days when they lived on a farm just outside of Dover, Tn. Grandad lost his mind one day at Belleau Wood and Gen. Pershing pinned a DSC on his chest. Saved a bunch of his buddies that day, but seldom talked about it afterwards.


Dad joined the Army circa '37 and wound up in the Air Corps. Stationed at Sebring Army Airfield doing maintenance on such relics as the B-10 bomber and not long after becoming an instructor.



When WW2 erupted they decided they needed more instructors and that was his task throughout the war. They did not let him entirely off the hook however and he spent some time at Kadena AFB with a B-29 Squadron that was delivering the mail to Korea.





He retired in early '71 just before I headed over to Nam for the second round. His last duty assignment was In Thailand as Chief of Maintenance for the 355th TFW, aka Wild Weasels. He reported to that job before I came home from the first tour. Apparently he never lost his sense of humor, not even in Thailand.



An uncle from my mother's side of the family was a crewman on B-24s with 8th AF during WW2. Waist gunner IIRC. He took two parachute rides and called it quits. Have no pics.

Dad was in the Army Guard for a long time.


Far as I know....he was the only one.

Grandpa in the Philippines, 1945:



Pics he took of Manilla:





A poem he wrote a few years earlier: