War Stories

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Just thought it would be an interesting thread.

 

We've (possibly) all heard little stories from our Father's/Grandfathers about their experiences of Wartime. Here's a couple of short tales I remember my Dad telling me:

(sorry about the text size..I copied and pasted from my facebook page)

 

Never forget some of the stories my Dad told me. He was in SOE during the War... on one occasion he was in the back seat of a Jeep, going through a Valley in Italy, when two German Bf109 fighters came flying down the Valley. My Dad jumped on the rear mounted machine gun, and opened fire on them...the Jeep was bouncing around so much, he couldn't aim properly. The Germans for their part, were busy trying to avoid the sides of the cliffs, so their aim wasn't too good either. They swooped overhead, and one turned for home...the other circled back, and came round for another pass...as he flew down the Valley, my dad noticed he didn't open fire...but instead, tilted his wings, and waved goodbye to my dad... my dad stuck two fingers up at him!... three days later, the War ended...my dad always hoped that the pilot survived to see the end of it 

 

On another occasion, again in a Jeep, he was offered a lift by an American Soldier (again, in Italy)... They had driven for a couple of miles, past a small convoy of American Trucks, and came to a deserted village. The enemy had pulled out, and were retreating. My dad asked if they could pull over, as he needed a leak. He spotted a Barn with some Chickens, and said to the American, "Hang on, I'll see if there's any Eggs in that Barn, to which the GI Replied, "It's ok, you take a leak, I'll check the Barn" Whilst my dad went to take a leak, the GI went over to a barn There was an explosion as he opened the Barn door. He was killed instantly by the Booby-trap device left by the retreating Germans......

There but for the Grace of God go I

:(

Edited March 29, 2014 by UK_Widowmaker

[von Baur 54]

My dad only told me about two incidents that he had during WWII.

 

He flew B-17's and B-24's in a unit that trained bombardiers to bomb using airborne radar. Part of their duties had them flying over potential targets in Germany, all alone, to get radar images to be used during a future raid. He said after one such mission that he went to the club where Lord Haw-Haw was playing on the radio. Within an hour Haw-Haw called him out by name, "We saw you up there Lt. Bower. I hope you enjoyed your sightseeing." or something like that. He also identified other members of the crew. My dad said that that scared him more than the flight.

 

The second had to do with a ripcord and caterpillar pin that was in our attic with most of the other Army gear that he kept. It seems that shortly after takeoff one snowy winter's day one of the engines quit on his B-17. "No problem," he thought, "we can fly the mission on three." After a short time another engine stopped. At that point he decided it was time to pack it in and turned the aircraft around and headed home. Unfortunately, the Fortress had other ideas because the third quit, too. Being aircraft commander he ordered everyone to bail out. Once everyone was clear my dad shut down the fourth engine and feathered the prop, shot a glance at the altimeter (right around 1000ft, as he recalled), dropped through the hatch just behind the cockpit, hung there for a second to make sure all four props were stopped, and dropped into basically zero visibility. He went in for the ripcord with both hands and pulled and...nothing!!! The only time, he said, that he hadn't checked his 'chute before takeoff and it turns out the bottom pin was bent (which I remember). He went in with both hands and finally pulled it and almost immediately after opening hit the ground.

 

He told me that story after I'd been skydiving for quite some time. My only response was, "You have no idea how lucky I am to be here."

[+JonathanRL 974]

I am 25% Austrian. My mothers granddad fought on the Eastern Front and was awarded with an Iron Cross. When he died, we each got a letter from him explaining why we got a certain item. I got the Iron Cross and in the letter was the story of why he got it. I have never told anybody why. And I never will. Suffice to say, I find it a little disturbing to have in my house but its a reminder that sometimes, we do things we are not proud of and that we have to live with the consequences. 

[Emp_Palpatine 501]

My paternal grand-father fought like all frenchmen in WW2. As most men, he was captured somewhere in Burgundy when the army collapsed in June 1940. He spent the remaining five years in a P.O.W camp in Germany. 

I've never met him as he died in the late 1960's, but my grand mother and my father talked about me. We do have some relics about that time: a lot of pictures, some drawings and even german things he managed to steal in the camp. 

 

His brother wasn't as lucky. He was killed in the fierce fightings in early june 1940, on the Somme front. Or "why I hate the ignorance about 1940 fightings and the whole "surrendering monkeys thing". They beat the crap out of us, but man, we fought and they bleed. 

 

 

My maternal grand-father was from Algeria -which was French at the time-. He volunteered for the army in 1936 and joined the 1st Algerian Tirailleur regiment. His unit was in Algeria in 1939-1940, protecting the borders against Italy. They went back in the fray after Torch Operation and he participated, among other things, in the Provence landing and the subsequent campaigns.

Never wanted to talk much about it, though. 

When my late grand-mother died, she gave me all the memories that was left, that is his military book as I am the only boy in the whole familly that have some interest in things other than TV and football. 

Oh, and my godfather volunteered to fight against the insurgency in Algeria back then, but that's a family thing indeed.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Emp_Palpatine

[macelena 1,070]

I have a few of our Civil War. Most, if not all of my ancestors were on the Republican side:

 

One of my great-grandparents was a flight mechanic with Tupolev SBs and flew against the Nationalist Navy flagship, "Baleares", in the action that sunk it, and bombed the German pocket-battleship "Deustchland". After the war, he was the projectionist on the best theater in Cartagena "Cine Central"

 

Another of my great-grandfathers was a senior civil engineer int the port of Alicante, wich was a common target of the Italian Sparvieros. He was haunted by the memory of a man standing by him who didn´t duck fast enough, whose brains were sprayed against the wall by the shockwave of an air dropped bomb. When he was about to be drafted, he was deemd to be more valuable in his post, in wich he remained after the war until his retirement.

 

Another one fought defending the Madrid University, was captured and, like most of his unit, "executed" but survived the firing squad and got rich as a contrabandist in the post war. He lived long enough to show me the scars of his execution.

 

The last one was a veteran Cavalry Sargeant. Having fought in Morocco and being decorated several times, he was questioned by the Republicans first as a suspected sympathizer of the Nationalists, and later by the Nationalist for having not been executed by the Republicans after being questioned. In both occasions, his neighbors and friends gave their word of being committed to wichever cause he was meant to be.

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

Very interesting thread! Keep on !!

 

My father was born in 1941, too young to even understand what a war is, yet his mother told him that at the age of 2, he saved her life. In Summer 1944, the German armies were retreating across the plains of Champagne, demoralized, exhausted, permanently strafed by Allied warplanes. In my parents' village, a lonely German soldier bursted into my grandmother's home. He seemed either drunk, nervously exhausted, or mentally shocked, but anyway, he was about to shoot her. The noisy intrusion had my father cry, and my grandma embraced him, even while threatened. The beast may have been a father too, for he bursted into tears and fled. I have no direct account from my grandma, deceased before my own birth, and my father's version itself is a second-hand account. But I find the story quite moving.

[Derk 265]

My father was captured by the Japs in 1942 at Java and quite soon  he was transported to Singapore and from there to the Burma Railway for slave labour. He narrowly survived the Imperial Japanes Army's "hospitality". Never told very much about the hardships he had to endure, but one story  stands out, as he considered it more or less funny..

While at work at a stretch of the railroad, there was a quite unexpected air raid by Allied medium bombers.... There wasn't much warning and when te bombs started to explode the whole working gang sprinted away from the track into what turned out to be  a freshly mown grain field.......... . The point was that they ran bare footed, WITHOUT SHOES.....   Anyone ever tried out that one ?  

[Dave63 13]

My grandfather was caught in Halsey's typhoon at the end of the war. He spent several days braced against the bulkhead of an attack transport (USS Hydrus). His main memory of it was the pitching and rolling and the way everyone was seasick. They didn't know about the damage to the fleet until after it was all over. My uncle Ted served in the Pacific and my uncle Jim served in Europe and went in on Utah beach. Both were wounded within days of each other by grenade fragments that hit both in the ... buttocks region. My father in law was a Marine and served in China at the end of WWII. He never spoke about what happened, but after reading what little I could scrape up about their mission and what happened with the Chinese and Chinese Communists in their area of operation, I can see that it wasn't a "good time".