quote:
Wife's grandfather was machine gunned through his legs. He was captured and went to a German hospital. His family, though, was notified that he was killed in action. They held a memorial service and found out three weeks later that he was actually alive and a POW. He was known as "Ghost" after that.
Same thing happened to my grandfather save he was shot down. My grandmother got the western union telegraph and started laughing (delivery guy thought she had cracked). She had in fact gotten either a telegraph or letter from my grandfather who had managed to get to Switzerland. for years we thought he bailed out but in fact his bomber was badly damaged and made it to Swiss air space where it was esorted to an airfield.
All of this is second hand as he died in 1945 in a car accident going to pick up his foot locker from Ellington field. He was a bomb run photographer.
Wife's grandfather led a squadron of bombers and had a crew get blown up...tail gunner made it out but nobody knew. His wife thought he was dead and ended up remarried. Guy showed up at a bomb group reunion in the 70s like a ghost.
There's brave and there is Brave...soldiers who have fought in any war are the latter and I stand in awe of them all.
