Your Grandfathers War Stories

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Build It
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AG
My earliest memory I was five or so and was sitting on my grandfathers lap while we "read the paper". It was one of my favorite things. He was fond of wearing a tank top t-shirt. I saw the bullet hole scar in his shoulder and asked how he got that.

He replied "that's where that German shot me in the war".

I simply asked if he shot him back.

He replied "I shot his stinking head off"

You can imagine the words my grandmother had for him next. Quite hilarious. He was plain spoken man and told it like it was.
Rabid Cougar
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AG
On the banks of the Rhine River after the capture of the Remagen Bridge. His unit was sleeping in a field and German planes tried to bomb it at night. He jumped up and put on boots and ran to a nearby ditch. As he was sitting in the ditch he noticed something very strange. He was looking at two left feet... He had put on his left boot and his tent mate left boot. Also told of seeing jets for the first time as they tried to bomb the bridge..

When my brother and I would spend several weeks with the grandparents during the summer we would always lay in bed and listen to his stories... War stories, fishing stories, baseball stories ( he was a minor league ball play before he got married) stories of his childhood in Muskogee,Oklahoma.... He was a great story teller.

I got his unit's war book at some point after he passed. He never told the stories about finding the extermination camps...
one safe place
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My paternal grandfather died about nine years before I was born. He had been gassed in the Meuse Argonne Offensive and his lungs were damaged such that he died at the age of 44.

My dad fought in the Pacific (Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa (but his division was in the floating reserve at Okinawa). He never spoke about the war to me or my brothers, not about the fighting. I might come home from A&M and mention I had met someone from Knoxville and he would say he had a guy in his platoon from Knoxville, ask him or her if they knew So and So, lol.

The war stories I heard him talk about is when he would be talking with another WWII veteran. I'd hide under the pool table if they were in the house or hang around pretending to be doing something if they were outside and listen to them swap stories. This happened with 4 or 5 other veterans so I had most of the stories several times. Most of what I know about his time in the Marines and the fighting was from those he served with. Only five of the platoon he landed with survived the war, the others died on one of the three islands. I met one of them in person, corresponded with and spoke on the phone to the others as well as those who replacements that he served with as they replaced those who had died. I have probably 20 letters from his guys, including one from his company commander, Michael P. Ryan (retired as a major general but was a major when my dad served under him).

Wish I had gotten to spend time with my grandfather. Never had any contact with but an aunt on my mom's side of the family.
JABQ04
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AG
Never got to meet my dad's dad. He passed when my old man was 8 or 9. I do have just about every letter he wrote to my grandmother, plus his CIB, a few pictures he sent home and stuff from Iwo Jima.

My mom's dad passed when I was in 3rd grade, so I never got to really hear him talk about the war. He was in Europe in an AA Battalion. Apparently he never really talked about it according to my older relatives. I do know he was busted down to private for something or other. Apparently he was a wild man in his younger days. He was a legit cowboy though, before and after the war and that's what his occupation says on his draft card.
Cinco Ranch Aggie
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AG
One of my life's biggest regrets is that I never took much of an opportunity to talk about the war with either of my grandfathers.

The only time I really brought it up, I was just out of A&M visiting with my mother and maternal grandparents. I was sitting on the porch swing with my Papa. This was after he had "chewed" me out for parking my new Toyota in his driveway. I had always known that he had been in the Pacific during the war, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that he would view that new Toyota as anything other than just a new car. So once that calmed down after I moved my car to the street, I asked him if he had been sent to Europe and fought Germans - and I had parked a BMW in his driveway - would he have responded similarly. He thought he probably would have, and this in spite of our family's German heritage. Not really a war story, true, but it is the one and only time that I ever spoke to him about the war.

It was only after both passed that I found out a good bit more about their war years. Papa had served aboard a ship that was sunk by a Jap torpedo - twice. He had survived both. Now there was some disagreement between his daughters, my mom and my aunt, about the accuracy of this story, with one maintaining that wasn't what had happened and the other adamant that it was his experience. My uncle was born in the mid-50s, so he is of no help in adding to this story, and both Papa and Mema and my mom have passed on. It's likely I will never get an actual answer to this question, so I choose to believe what I was told at his funeral that he'd survived those sinkings. It's a better story than saying something akin to Patton's "he shoveled **** in Louisiana".

My dad's dad passed a few years later. It was at his funeral that I learned he had been a tail gunner aboard a TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. I've never been able to reconcile that with one of my own life's biggest interests - WWII aviation, that my grandfather was very much aware of. This man took me on a flight on a civilian airplane when I was maybe 4 years old (not his plane, but he apparently knew the pilot). I also got to spend a weekend with him when I was about that same age where we spent a weekend in a fancy hotel in the Galleria area; when my mom dropped me off at the hotel to meet Grandpa, he had brought me a plastic P-38 toy that I cherished for a long time (and still remember when I first saw it sitting on the table in that hotel room, some 50+ years later). Despite all this, he never volunteered anything about his time in the US Navy, and like my mom's side of the family, any who might know about his time in the war are gone now.

Stringfellow Hawke
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AG

These are emails written by my Dad about his Dad. Included are some history of the family. Grandpa passed in 1980. Only my older brother and I "met" him. Like most Veterans, war was not spoken of often and as a result, when Dad retired, researching his family history was one of his hobbies in addition to spoiling his 10 Grandchildren. I encourage all of you reading this to record the personal history of your family. Dad passed away 11 months ago to the day and He is missed everyday. Take advantage of every opportunity to spend time with your loved ones.




I receive emails from a Christian historian named Bill Federer on a weekly basis and his email today focused on the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium that began on December 15, 1944, 77 years ago. My Dad, your grandfather, H.O. Schumacher, fought in this battle as part of the 30th Infantry Division, 531st Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion near Malmady, Belgium. I have a book that is a reproduction from the 30th Infantry Division museum of the History of the 531st AAA Battalion, and dad's name is listed under the Battalion Roster for Battery A of the 531st on page 62. As I think I previously told you all his main duty was liaison to Army Intelligence (G2) due to his German speaking skills and interrogated German prisoners and pilots that were captured during combat operations. The nickel plated German luger that I have was given to dad based on the information he gathered after his Battery shot down a German aircraft and he accompanied soldiers from his unit to find and capture the German officer/pilot. He was awarded the pistol as part of his role in the capture. This is the best I can recollect based on bits and pieces of what he said over the years to my brothers and me.

Attached is a map of the Battle of the Bulge (officially the Ardennes campaign) and you can see the 30th Infantry Division patch near Malmady on the map. The Battle of the Bulge document is a copy of what the 531st history book describes of that battle, as they appear to have redeployed to Malmady from the Aachen Netherlands when the battle started on December 15th. The Combat Route document is the actual route of the 531st from landing on Omaha beach on June 15, 1944, 9 days after D-Day, to the end of the war in April 1945. It shows that they were near Aachen, Netherlands, and went back south to Malmady area of Belgium to set up a defensive line right after the Battle started on December 17th, 1944.

It is ironic to me that the Combat route shows the 531st went through Magdeburg and Strassfurt. When Dow Chemical purchased the historic German chemical plants in this area in the late 1990's, after the fall of the Berlin wall, I stayed in Magdeburg when I traveled to Europe in my role as global supply manager for chemical plant hardware and services as Dow rebuilt what was left of the chemical industry in the old communist east Germany. I would have spent more time investigating the history of this area had I known my father fought there in WWII. Dad is listed on page 62 of the Battery A Battalion roster.

I hesitated to send this out due to it being Christmas, but to me this is a reminder that the birth of Christ means hope for us today with socialist politicians trying to destroy our Christian values and freedom just like it meant hope to my parents generation as they rose to stop horror and darkness of the German Nazi's socialist movement 77 years ago in this dark period of history.



Today is the 77th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Allied Troops on the Normandy coast of France on June 6, 1944. My dad landed at Omaha Beach around June 15, as part of Battery A, 531stAnti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion (unit name read Battery A, 531st AAA (AW) Bn) and was attached to the 30th Infantry Division when they arrived in England on February 23rd1944. From landing on Omaha Beach on June 15 they joined the 30th Inf Div on June 16 near Isigny, France, crossed the Vire River/Canal in one of the toughest river crossings the Infantry had during the European campaign, and went on fighting in the hedgerows through Northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. On Dec 18 they moved into the Malmedy and Stavelot area and fought the Battle of the Ardennes Forest (Battle of the Bulge) and fought through Central Germany ending up in Forschheim just north of Nuremburg in early July 1945.

Dad had a purple heart and I remember mom picking shrapnel out of his back when I was young even into the early 1960's. He also was awarded a bronze star with V cluster along with several other medals recognizing the theater of operations and significant battles he participated in. I have more detailed information that I received from the 30th ID museum concerning the exact history throughout Europe that I need to go through and develop a synopsis of. Dad went to a special school in Chicago to polish his German speaking skills and was a primary liaison with military intelligence including dressing in German infantry uniforms and pretending to be a POW to get information on troop movements, etc. from German POW's.

The article below is from a Christian history website that provides a short synopsis that I think is very good detailing what lead up to WW II and how the Christian nation of the US saved the world from the German/Japanese/Italian totalitarian regimes. This is probably not even mentioned in history courses anymore except to be misquoted and lied about by AOC and other democrat socialists. Hope you parents can teach your children about what our grandfathers did to help free the world from atheist socialists in the past.

Also attached a picture of dad that my grandmother Schumacher always hung in her house. I think this was after his basic training in Ft. Bliss, Texas in the fall of 1942.







AtlAg05
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AG
Didn't get to ask much, but one grandfather was a Merchant Mariner. Only story I remember was during one of his leaves at port in the US he was jumped by 3 men and was able to fight them off.

Build It
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That grandfather died young at 56 when I was 13 so I didn't get to ask any serious questions.

He did tell a story of getting captured. He and a few others were held in an old barn. That night that knocked out some boards and slipped away.
Build It
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AG
My great uncle was only 18 when he went over. The war was largely won by the time he went. He said he was scared to death the whole time. He'd never really been out of maybe a 3 county area in Oklahoma.

He had a funny story of trying not to get busted in Germany violating the no fraternization clause. Apparently the young German women were very friendly to the American hero's.
Who?mikejones!
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I also had a merchant mariner grandfather

He told me about multiple ships being torpedoed in the straight of Gibraltar and thinking they were next and as well as a strange cargo of African tribesmen who wouldn't stop playing drums throughout the transit.

He also had an 8" scar across his forehead from the ships cook hitting him with the dinner bell when he asked for ice cream.
spud1910
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AG
My grandfather was 30 with two children at the start of the war. He spent it building ships. But one of his brothers was a heavy equipment operator in WWII. He was standoffish to the rest of the family (10 brothers and sisters) after the war. And always pretty harsh to us kids, so I never spent a lot of time with him. But I became a veterinarian and in his later years someone dumped two dogs on his farm. He took them in and brought them to me for their care. In 1991 the 50th anniversary of us entering the war was recognized and there was a lot of discussion. One day my great uncle brought his dogs in and started talking to me about his service. Those dogs did a lot to bring us together. He told me of the salvage efforts he was involved in bringing things up in the English Channel. And bringing up aircraft/ships with the bodies of so many. I wish I had asked more quesitons, but at the time it seemed more important to listen. He was in tears the whole time and from talking to other family members later, I don't think he had ever told anyone else that story.

aggiejim70
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AG
Next Monday is Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day.
106 years ago my grandfather, my mother's dad, and some of his buddies, went to draw ammunition for the day. Some captain told them to forget about it as the Great War was going to be over at 11am and they weren't going to kill anyone that morning.
The person that is not willing to fight and die, if need be, for his country has no right to life.

James Earl Rudder '32
January 31, 1945
Cinco Ranch Aggie
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I love your story.

I wonder if it was his horrible experiences bringing up all those bodies that caused that friction between him and the rest of the family.
Gunny456
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My grandfather was in France in WWI. Was shot in the hip and laid in a mud filled trench for 2days before getting rescued. He limped his whole life.
My dad was in the Army Air Corp in Guam. Was a crew chief in a B-25. He used to say that around 5:00 am the base would be rumbling and shaking the ground from the engines of the 100 or so B-29's that would be getting ready to take off and heading to bombing missions over Japan. He was in the war for the duration and made it home alive.
His brother was captured in the Philippines. Survived the Bataan Death March but was a POW in Japan the entire war but also made it home alive.
His oldest brother was also in the AAC and was in the Aleutian Islands. He made it home alive.
His youngest brother was in the 3rd Army and was a tank crewman. Fought in Bastogne. Made it home alive.
Amazing all four made it home. They were all orphans before the war started.
Build It
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Another great uncle told a story about Iwo Jima. They were in a fire fight running and ducking behind whatever they could. His buddies kept yelling at him asking if he could make it. He was confused and didn't know why they thought he couldn't and replied why hell yes, I've made it this far haven't I with a bit of anger. Then he realized he was shot in the ankle and didn't know it. Adrenaline keeps you running! He made it!
AgRyan04
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One of few life regrets was not asking my maternal grandfather about his service in WWII - he was in the British Royal Navy

He died when I was a self absorbed teenager in high school. I always remember him sitting in their kitchen watching old WWII documentaries but just wasn't interested at the time.

When my grandmother passed many years after him, my mother gave me all of his service records, medals, and war photos.

The service records aren't super, duper helpful but he was either a radio or radar man on cadillac ships that as part of the convoy protected transport ships.....based on his photos he was all over the place - Mediterranean, Pacific, Arctic, Atlantic.

My grandmother's father served in WWI in the British Army but suffered a spinal injury and was wheelchair bound post-war.

My paternal grandfather was too young to serve in WWI and probably too old to serve in WWII but he was a pharmacist and considered essential to the community and was exempted.
Spore Ag
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Totally wished I knew the questions to ask my grandfather as he seemed to want to talk about it just before he died.
He went to Berea college and spoke French. Signed up as a translator for US forces in WW1 but failed due to incorrectly pronouncing Rue. Became an ambulance driver with their brand new US made ambulances stolen replaced with overly high profiled Brit made ones that kept falling over if attention not paid.
He did describe picking up gas victims guess phosphene with nothing to grab but bone.
He was a Methodist preachers son but there were some missing moments of time after the war and suspect he had fun traveling France.
Russ Dalrymple
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AG
My grandfather served with the 96th Infantry Division as a Sergeant and fought at Leyte and Okinawa.

I still have the Nambu that he took off a Japanese officer. He saw one of his commanding officers, Brigadier General Claudius Easley get shot and killed at Okinawa.

Needless to say, he hated the Japanese guts til the day he died.
one safe place
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Most of the stories of my dad in the Pacific came from some who served with him that I got in touch with after he died. As I mentioned, others came from him swapping stories with others who fought in that war that I heard them talking about it. A very few happened late in his life after he had a stroke. I suppose the stroke damaged some part of his brain that made him able to talk about it, or want to talk about it. One story he told involved a pretty much instantaneous killing of an entire Japanese platoon and retelling it caused him to cry. No one should ever have to witness their father crying.

One story I overheard him tell was his landing on Tarawa. Those who have done much reading on that battle know that there were so many miscalculations and errors and stupid mistakes and our Marines and Navy personnel paid the price. On the night before they landed, they cleaned their weapons and coated them with cosmoline. As soon as they hit the beach, the sand stuck to their weapons. Dad was a BAR man and once he got fully to the coconut log seawall he had to clean his BAR.

He saw a Japanese soldier raise up and fire his rifle at the Marines coming ashore. It happened three or four times as he got his BAR ready to fire. Once he did, the Japanese soldier raised back up and dad shot at him. But missed. He talked of being so scared he "couldn't grab his ass with both hands and a ten to one swage." Dad was 23 1/2 years old, so older than most, he had run away from home when he was 11, had lived in a tent for a couple of years during the depression with slightly older uncle. So he knew hardship, he knew struggle and hunger and had, by necessity, grown up faster than many and become a man early in life. And yet all this, the fighting and killing, was beyond his (and likely anyone's) ability to cope with.

Again the Japanese raised up and dad missed him again. The third time he missed dad felt that the Japanese then knew someone was seeing him, actually targeting him, and the shots were not just random fire coming from the beach or the LVT and Higgins boats. Dad figured the Japanese would come up somewhere else and sure enough he did. Dad said to himself that he had to kill this man, either calm down enough to kill him or most likely he would be dead himself before the sun set. When the Japanese raised back up he shot him in the forehead and his helmet (or hat) and what was in his head went out the back of it. He said after that, though still scared, he was more able to function.

As you delve into things, there are so many things that come up, questions that can't be answered since those who were there are now dead. I had figured that in this situation, he had set his BAR to fire semi-automatic since he had a single, fixed target. But pictures I have show him with an M1918A2 which had two rates of fire, slow automatic and fast automatic. I suppose he chose slow automatic but can never know.

Much of our documentation showed dad as a member of L/3/2 which were in Higgins boats and the Higgins boats could not get across the coral reef so the Marines had to wade in, wading 400 to 800 yards and being shot at the entire wade. (After my first trip to Tarawa, I learned he was in K/3/2 so came in on an alligator.) I wanted to recreate his wade in. I walked out what I guess was 400 yards or so and turned to look at the beach. (One of the Marines who was in my dad's squad had borrowed one of my books and had written in it and marked where they came ashore.) I lined up on where he came in and began my walk. Wearing flip flops, shorts, a fishing shirt and carrying only a phone and a camera, I thought about him in boots, those much thicker cloth uniforms of the day, a helmet, trenching tool, Ka-Bar, (possibly a grenade or two), that 20 or so pound BAR, bandolier with ten 20 round magazines of 30.06 ammo, etc. and I couldn't wrap my head around it all. All on a frame of 145 or so pounds.

After the wade in, I walked the entire length of Red Beach 1, so that I know my feet crossed where his did in 1943. I don't ever say "walk in his footsteps" though. Not worthy of saying that. Though I could recreate where he came ashore, I could not recreate the sound, the smell, the fury of that day.

I had hoped my children would one day visit Tarawa. I was glad none were there that day. No child should ever witness their father crying.

Sorry for the long post.
HarleySpoon
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AG
Posted this about five years ago on the 75th anniversary of DDay:

Felt like I owed this to my dad on the 75th anniversary of D-day. What could I post that wasn't just another....let's not forget their heroism? Instead, I decided to post something that gives a little more insight into the psyche of those very young boys who were seeing horrific things expecting to day on any given day. This one probably won't make any History Channel documentaries:

Quick background: My dad didn't talk much about the combat he saw in WWII. He was in the 505th parachute infantry regiment of the 82nd Airborne, Company I, 3rd battalion. Eisenhower once stated that the 505th was technically the most decorated unit of the European theatre having been awarded four presidential unit citations. He jumped at Normandy and liberated the first French town, Ste. Mere Eglise. He jumped in Holland at the second bridge, saw heavy combat in the battle of the bulge, and fought his way on into Germany. The 505th then occupied the American sector of Berlin. He marched in the 82nd airborne victory parade in NYC on January 12, 1946 upon his return and was discharged through San Antonio the following month. He was awarded a silver star, two bronze stars and two purple hearts during his service. He never talked about the combat he saw....just with a sentence or two here or there. He did say a couple of times that my uncle who was killed during the breakout from Normandy and buried in France was a hero. (He was the first 19 year old to volunteer from Beaumont, Texas.)

He did not volunteer to serve. He was a very poor farm boy living in Vidor, Texas, and working at the shipyard in Port Arthur when he was drafted into the army at the age of 20 in 1943. He was sent to Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells, Texas for basic training. Toward the completion of basic, they asked for volunteers for the airborne. He said he figured he was going to die anyway and since it paid twice as much as the regular infantry and you got to wear really cool boots that the young girls liked....he volunteered and went to jump school at Fort Benning. He completed jump school and was immediately shipped to the UK as a replacement in the 82nd Airborne prior to D-day.

While he did not talk about the combat, he did talk about the women. He did not care for the British women but was very enamored with the French and German women. I think he was injured too quickly in Holland to ever form an opinion of the Dutch women. Although I never saw him set foot in a church, he was straight as an arrow once he was married. I can't remember him ever once not being either at work or with his family. In his spare time he never met friends....just constantly took us wilderness camping. (hard core, two weeks without seeing anyone and using buried ice blocks in a canvas tarp for a fridge kind of camping). Would drink one beer a year when we were on vacation camping and encouraged us to never gamble.

Well, he had a box of his war souvenirs that included stolen German materials, Nazi coins, Gestapo armband, pieces of one of his parachutes, old rations, tools etc. But he also had a letter among the souvenirs that he always kind of bragged about. He said the letter was from his French girlfriend, Gossette. Was the only letter amongst his souvenirs. According to the letter, she sent it to him on August 11, 1945 while he was occupying Berlin. (It's interesting she sent it on this date as it would have then been clear he wouldn't have to go to die in Japan as was expected). But it was in French and he said he never was able to read it. Now, I always felt sure he must have had it interpreted....but clearly he did not. After he had been dead for about a dozen years, I had a French colleague interpret it for me. My French colleagues eyes lit up with a spark as he silently read it. Here are the contents of the letter from his French "girlfriend" revealed publicly for the first time on this 75th anniversary of the night he first set foot in France as interpreted by my colleague back around 1993:

"As promised, I am writing to you. Today being Saturday and having been in bed for several days because of a toothache. I am coming to write you.

Douglas, this letter is not a love letter but simply a reflection of your conduct towards me. When I met you for the first time, it was at the door of the establishment. You then accompanied me to this place where we agreed to meet. A few, calm days went by and I felt that you loved me. One night that it was raining real hard you absolutely wanted to go walking to the place where we first met. When you realized that I wasn't going to give in and go for a walk, you left with a simple "good night."

A few days later you came back to the house where once again we "got together." One night I introduced you to an adjoining room which was my personal bedroom so that I could stay longer with you and we would be more comfortable together. This lasted quite a long time and I won't hide myself from telling you that I was really happy to be there alone with you.

It may have been otherwise for you, I don't doubt that you were happy, but I don't think you were in love. I am not an idiot. I felt it when you told me "I love you Gossette." You didn't understand me. But I would answer, "why tell me lies?" I despise that because there was really no truth in what you were saying.

If you had loved me as you so often said, you wouldn't have acted as you so often did. When you came with your dear Antoinette....if I hadn't been there then, I would have understood that you would have passed you free time as you felt. Again if you had loved me, you wouldn't have told me about your relationships with Denise, Dellile, as well as our mutual friend, Jacqueline.

One day that I remember very well which reflect your lack of honesty.....sometimes you told me you could not have any children. You told me one story about the American nurse and one famous evening you told me that our mutual friend Jacqueline was pregnant. Thus I was disappointed by all of this.

If I had found myself pregnant from you, I wouldn't have wanted to have the child. If you had loved me, would you have shown my letter to another lady who was your intimate friend. The lady friend told me that was a cowardly act. If you had loved me, would you have gone after me as you did Antoinnette? Would you have bad-mouthed me with the tall blonde by telling her I did not kiss well?

Let me remind you that I paid you to come spend five minutes with me and to remind you of the moments that we spent together and not with a simple kiss. As for myself, if I had not loved you...would I have given you money? You think I would have spent my time admiring you liked I used to do when I could have had a customer that would give me 400-500 francs? No Douglas, don't believe that. Now don't be angry with me because I was writing you, I should have told you face to face since I have the reputation of being very straight-forward. People have always admired me for my honesty.

Do not believe that all French girls are the same. If today I am a *****, it is not to enrich myself but because of the moment I spent with you. I don't need to do it to make a living. With these words I am leaving you with no ill feelings and I send all my affection. Here is my address in case you felt the need to answer me; which I doubt cause you have not been honest with me in the past.

Name and address which I am not going to include in this post."


My commentary: BSC certainly doesn't appear to be a new thing.

Well, my mom and dad met about four years later when my dad was working on an oil tanker running between Port Arthur and New Jersey. They got married after two months and left that area of Texas as quickly as they could. They didn't have kids for four years, and I came along late in their lives. They remained married until the day he died. Very much a straight and narrow guy as I mentioned. Never talked about the heavy combat but only smiled as he said the women were very nice.
B52
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AG
My paternal grandfather was in the 11th armored division in Patton's 3rd army. He didn't talk about his experiences in the war much until I was about 12. He told me some stories while we were on a fishing trip most about his buddies he met during the war. My grandmother told me that there weren't many people he had ever told about his service besides me which made me feel pretty important for a 12 year old kid.

Over the years he told me various stories as I asked him questions, never trying to pry too much. The story that stands out the most is when they were in the Ardennes right as the Battle of the Bulge was beginning. They were marching to the front and as they made camp, their CO told them to dig their foxholes quick and get a good night's sleep because for some of them it would be their last. Not long after their foxhole was dug and they were bedded down, the German artillery started lighting up the forest around them. He said it was the the most terrifying thing he had ever experienced. When the firing stopped and dawn broke, he and his buddy left their foxhole and found the two guys in the next foxhole over dead.

After the war he lived and worked in Houston before moving to Wichita Falls and retiring there. In his retirement, all the way up until he passed at the age of 94, he spent a lot of time sitting in his backyard staring off into the horizon with a cold drink in his hand and a far off look in his eye. I'm convinced that a lot that time was spent wrestling with those memories.
Rex Racer
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AG
Granddad (a surgical technician in the 7th Armored Division) told me the story of a young man who begged him not to let him die because he had a wife and baby at home. He did his best to patch the young man up, but he never knew the young man's ultimate fate. That clearly bothered him, as he had a tear in his eye telling that story to me when he was 90 years old. He had left my Granny and my mother (who was born a few months before he went over to Europe aboard the Queen Mary) behind, so it hit close to home.

He had some other stories, but that one hit me in the gut.

Gunny456
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AG
As I said in my post my dad's brother was captured in the Philippines and survived the Bataan Death March and was a POW in Japan for the duration of the war.
I worked for him many summers and he talked with me a little about what he went through.
I figured he would hate the Japanese but quite to the contrary he said that had it not been for the Japanese people getting them food and medicines secretly he never would have made it.
He said the average Japanese soldier did not want to be in that war anymore than we did.
He traveled back to the Philippines for reunions and even met some of his captors and became friends.
He said the Japanese war lords were the ones that got them into that war and treated Americans so bad.
Even what he lived through he had no remorse toward Japanese people.
HarleySpoon
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Gunny:

Was he from around the Decatur/Jacksboro area by chance?
Gunny456
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No sir. He lived in San Antonio till he retired then lived in Llano till he passed.
HarleySpoon
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Gunny456 said:

No sir. He lived in San Antonio till he retired then lived in Llano till he passed.
Was just wondering because there was a museum that burned a couple of years ago in Decatur that housed a large number of artifacts from the Bataan experience as a large number of those prisoners were from a national guard unit around Jacksboro. The entire museum and its contents were lost. It was amazing to see the hundreds of items the prisoners had made while in the prison camp.
Gunny456
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Holy cow. Did not know that. What a loss. I never knew it was there. Thanks for sharing.
agfan2013
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Here are a few I have:

My grandfather on my dad's side served in the 4th armored division under Patton in WWII. He didn't land at Normandy on D-Day, but a few weeks later and talked about the sand and water were still stained red when they went ashore. He passed away when I was in middle school, but I had already started showing an interest in history and WWII, so I did ask him a few things about his service. He didnt talk much, but I did get a few stories out of him and my Dad told me a few more he passed on throughout the years, but overall he wasnt exactly an "open book" about his war experiences.

One of the most standout stories is when they had to clear a small town out in France I think. He had gotten away from the tank/armor column working with infantry, when all of a sudden on the side of a church he runs into a German. The guy tries to shoot him with his Luger but it jams and so he throws it at my grandfather in desperation. My grandfather being the guy he is, figures it's his lucky gun now and ships it home, and we still have it to this day. I usually try to shoot it once a year. Since I was younger and didn't know any better, I asked my grandfather what happened to that German after he threw the pistol.... never got an answer, grandpa just sat there real quiet.

Another story is they're sitting outside of some town getting shelled by mortars, my grandfather and a buddy are laying in the foxhole hugging the earth as much as they can. All of a sudden a loud thudding sound right on the edge of their foxhole. They look over and a mortal shell buried itself about 8 feet away in the side of their foxhole, a direct hit, but didn't go off. After the shelling subsided and they secured the area, they went back and hooked a really long rope around the shell and pulled it out and drug it along the ground with a jeep to try and get it to explode. When it didn't, they finally had an explosives/ordinance guy come over and take it apart removing the priming charge and the main explosive. Just like the Luger, my grandfather wasn't one to leave anything not nailed down behind, so he shipped it back to the states and we still have that mortal shell to this day. I did a report on it back when I was in middle school for history class, brought it to school and everything.

Last is not a story he told me or my Dad specifically, but surprisingly sent some correspondence back that made it into the local newspaper. This post is already long enough so rather than copy and pasting the whole thing, i'll just provide a link to a post I made on the Outdoors Board about it last year. Check it out if you have time to read through it, it's a pretty incredible story. I have a few pictures of some of the stuff he sent back as well in the thread.

The Battle of Hill 318
Rex Racer
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My Grandad also had a shell land near his foxhole that didn't go off.
wangus12
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My parents had kids later in life so by the time I was in middle school most of my relatives that fought in WW2 were gone. My maternal grandfather served in the Navy in the Pacific and I've been able to find very little of his time of service. My paternal grandfather was already in his mid 30s with multiple kids. He was a welder and working in Houston in the shipyards and refineries.

His brother-in-law (my great Uncle) however was one of the few US Army men who served in both theaters. A poor farmer, he was initially stationed in the Aleutian Islands at Dutch Harbor. He was there when the Japanese bombed them in June 1942 as part of their diversion prior to Midway. He island hopped the Aleutians helping build air bases on Adak and Amchitka and was on Attu island during the final week of the battle. He was involved in repelling the final banzai charge that the Japanese threw at the Americans on Attu (my dad and uncle said this was the only part of the war he wouldn't talk about).

Things get weird after his service on Attu and I have never been able to nail down exactly what happened or how he ended up in Europe. He was in the Aleutians until June of 1944, had a 30 day furlough back home, was sent to Camp Atterbury, Ind. and then onto Europe in November 1944. He was sent to the 106th ID. They moved into the line on the German-Belgium border in December 1944 and less than a week later the Bulge happened. A large part of that division was captured in the first few days. His regiment fell back to St. Vith and fought there for several days with other units before being pushed further back to Vielsalm were they latched onto the 7th Armored. They continued fighting in Manhay, Belgium when my great uncle and several others were overrun and captured by the Germans on December 30th.

He spent the last 5 months of the war moving around several POW camps. I have the list of camps he was in as he was moved around, but I don't know how long his duration was in each camp.

  • He was initially sent to Stalag XIIA in Limburg, Germany near Frankfurt
  • Then he went to Stalag IV-B with most of the other Americans captured in the Bulge near Mhlberg in eastern Germany
  • He was then moved to Stalag III-B in Furstenberg, Germany towards the southeast of Berlin
  • He was then moved to Stalag III-A in Luckenwalde, just 30 miles south of Berlin.

His POW camp was eventually liberated by the Red Army in late April 1945. American prisoners were returned to American hands in early May. He did use to say that the treatment in the POW camp was in his opinion, actually worse during the week or 2 that the Russians were in charge.

He returned to the US in June of 1945.
HarleySpoon
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Wow….my dad was gut shot at St Vith….505th PIR.
Rex Racer
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HarleySpoon said:

Wow….my dad was gut shot at St Vith….505th PIR.
My Grandad was also at St Vith. He sent home to my Granny a print of Da Vinci's The Last Supper that he took off the only standing wall of a house that had been destroyed.
HarleySpoon
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Rex Racer said:

HarleySpoon said:

Wow….my dad was gut shot at St Vith….505th PIR.
My Grandad was also at St Vith. He sent home to my Granny a print of Da Vinci's The Last Supper that he took off the only standing wall of a house that had been destroyed.
What are the odds that three of of us on this thread (two with grandfathers and one with a father) that fought at St. Vith? Of course I understand that the action around St Vith began on December 16th and the airborne units did not arrive until a few days later to defend.

I will say it always kind of irked my dad that the "puking buzzards" were given so many accolades for Bastogne when there were many other units (like his division, the 82nd) that were on the outermost rings of Bastogne in towns like St Vith that were preventing the full on attack onto Bastogne. But in the end the 82nd was the airborne division was rewarded with being the USA occupying unit of the American sector of Berlin and received the ticker tape parade in NYC in January of 1946 upon their return. Sorry, I digress.

wangus12
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I wish I knew more. He died in 2003 when I was still young enough not to know to sit and listen to his stories that he'd tell my dad and uncle. The only thing I really remember was how much he talked about being cold because he spent 2 years in Alaska and then the insane European winter of '44-'45. I really need to sit down with my dad and uncle to get as much from them as possible.

HarleySpoon
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Yeah…..my dad got pretty good frost bite in the Bulge and could never seem to be able to keep his feet warm in winter.
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