With their numbers dwindling by the day, this seems like a good time for us to recall stories those who served in WW2 have told us.
I have two of significance to tell.
One year, my now late friend Don (and former Octocon participant) wanted to do some charitable work for Thanksgiving and I agreed to go with him, delivering dinners for the charity Little Brothers of the Elderly. The first two (of three) people we visited did not have much to say, and we didn't linger longer than we were obligated to. The third, however, asked me to retrieve a box from atop a high shelf. In that box were aerial recon photos of bombing targets in France and Germany...she was a nurse, and some of the airmen she treated gave her these photos. It really made my day, the stories she told were fascinating.
The other was someone I knew well. His name was Marian. He was a regular customer at the restaurant I used to run in the early 80's. He was on a highly restrictive diet, that we honored for him. At the time, I was heavily into board wargames and mentioned I was researching the Battle of Leyte Gulf with the intent of creating a scenario for the board game Flattop. While I spent hours in at the university library researching this battle, it turns out my old customer was actually there! He was on a troop transport, entering the gulf under a thick shroud of fog. In the morning, the fog lifted, and he said there was ships as far as they eye could see...so close together it was as if you could walk from one end to the other without getting wet. Leyte Gulf, incidentally, was the largest naval battle in history in terms of number of ships involved. When the fog cleared, the kamikaze's came. He said he was on the deck of his troop transport, with binoculars, watching them. He could still recall seeing the eyes of the pilots as they forfeited their lives, dead on the stick aiming to crash their planes into a ship so they might make a difference. Clearly, the experience still haunted him 40 years later. It was series of miscommunications that ultimately thwarted the Japanese plan, which would have bagged our invasion force as well as numerous baby aircraft carriers supporting the operation.
Some 20 years after the last time I spoke with Marian, I was jogging past the MacArthur Memorial in Palo, Leyte, where MacArthur made good his promise to return and where Marian put ashore. I was staying in an apartment about 2 miles away. The memorial park was dedicated during the Clinton administration, and had commemorative plaques from leaders around the world. Last time I was there, it had fallen into disrepair. If it comes to pass that I live out my final years there (seems likely right now), I might use whatever means at my disposal to rehab that park.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:15 pm
by Daehawk
I had an uncle the was a real card shark. He showed me many card tricks and I learned a few of them. He was in the Battle of the Bulge. The movie was one of my favorites as a kid. In the movie the German commander had a flag he flew on his Tiger tank..yes I know the tanks in the movie are all wrong. Anyways my uncle actually won that flag in a poker game sometime later and kept it his entire life. The real flag not the movie flag.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:48 pm
by YellowKing
My granddad (not blood-related, but I was as close to him as a real grandfather and called him granddaddy) served in WW2. When I got older I found this fascinating and would sometimes ask him about the war. He would rattle off his dogtag number, or tell me about the time he ate dinner with the Queen of England (she visited his company and dined with them). His favorite joke was that he once saved his entire company from certain death - when you asked him how, he'd reply, "I shot the cook."
But he never told me any *real* stories about the war. One Christmas I got him a pictorial history book on WW2. He opened the front cover, once, closed it, thanked me, and never picked it up again.
When he died and we were going through his things I found tons of medals he had earned during the war. Old reports and commendations - by all accounts he was a superb soldier, highly decorated. Why was he so tight-lipped about his service?
Then I found out he was an ambulance driver, and I realized the utter horrors he must have seen. Enough that he would never again speak of them, using silly jokes and an anecdote about the Queen as a replacement. It really made me sad thinking of that baggage he carried nearly 60 years. He never attended an event for veterans, he never regrouped with his former soldiers - in all those years he just kept the entire experience buried. A flag on his coffin and the playing of Taps was really the only recognition he ever got for his service in all those decades after the war.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 12:11 am
by Daehawk
I have my grandad's certificate thanking him for helping build the atomic bomb. Manhattan Division stuff. Not bad for a kid whose family was from the black forest area of Germany.
Heres a pic of it.
My father in law was in intelligence in WW2. He got to speak with the pilot of the Enola Gay after it dropped the bomb. My FiL even knew before the pilot did what he was carrying and what he would do that day. The pilot said something like he's never seen anything like it and hoped to never see it again.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 12:24 am
by Jaymann
Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 12:11 am
I have my grandad's certificate thanking him for helping build the atomic bomb. Manhattan Division stuff. Not bad for a kid whose family was from the black forest area of Germany.
As a kid I asked my dad why he was never in the army. He vaguely mentioned involvement with the Manhattan Project. Hardly his area of expertise, but my guess is if you were a scientist in that era they grabbed you. He never talked about it.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 12:34 am
by LawBeefaroni
My father in law was a Partisan in occupied Europe. He was in his early teens so was mostly a runner. They have him an old WWI rifle and sent him out to deliver messages. His brother was shot and wounded by the SS but being fluent in German he was able to talk his way out of it enough that the German medic left him there to die rather than having him captured/killed. An officer walked up to him before the medic got there and asked, grinning, "How does the SS shoot?" Fortunately he survived. The FIL has a few letters that US pilots sent him after he war, thanking him for getting them out frim behind enemy lines. He has a ton of stories and wrote a book that includes his war experience.
My grandfather was US Navy and was on a carrier during WWII from what I understand but he passed when I was like 7 so I never got any detail.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 12:51 am
by Daehawk
My grandpa and grandma raised me but he died when I was 7 and never told me any stories that I recall.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:19 am
by Scuzz
My father was a Seabee in the Pacific during WW2. He was on Guam and Saipan that I know about. While he never hid the fact he served during the war he also never talked about it. When I was in high school I used to wear his actual WW2Navy Peacoat in the winter.
But the one guy I had the most respect for was a guy who served him n the Vietnam War. I had played golf with him for years when I learned he had flown jets off an aircraft carrier. Having been on the US Hornet (a museum ship) zI can’t imagine flying on and off those type ships.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:33 am
by Daehawk
I cant understand vets not talking about their service but its still s shame that so many stories go untold and passed on.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 3:04 am
by Kraken
My dad was a signalman on an oil tanker, which I used to think was lame until I realized that the tanker was the one with the target on it. He got a purple heart when his knee got wanged by a swinging boom, or something like that that tankers had. That knee bothered him the rest of his life. He never talked about the war except with other vets, and us kids weren't privy to those conversations.
Two of my uncles survived the attack on Pearl.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 3:09 am
by Scuzz
Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:33 am
I cant understand vets not talking about their service but its still s shame that so many stories go untold and passed on.
My father never belonged to or did anything with any WW2 vet group as far as I knew, and I have no idea why. I don’t think either of my parents were big on Vietnam, but I have no idea if that was any of it. He had his conservative side, he was a Mason. But I be know they hated Nixon.
I knew several Vietnam vets who never talked about it.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 4:45 am
by Madmarcus
Interesting to see just how many people here had parents in WW2. Me father and FIL were too young although my FIL did get drafted for Korea although he was a math major and thus sent to Oak Ridge.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 6:07 am
by DOS=HIGH
I wish I could go back and talk to my relatives of that generation. Pretty much all of them died before I realized what they did during the war since they never really talked about it.
My mom's father joined the Navy prior to Pearl Harbor and surprisingly never saw combat. He was an aircraft mechanic and was finally posted to an aircraft carrier in '43, USS Antietam. It wasn't sent into a combat zone until August 45 and the war ended when they were halfway to Japan. He stayed in the Navy until the early 60's but was always land-based, including Guantanamo, after the war. My other grandfather was in the Army but worked in a chemistry lab, never leaving Philadelphia. My grandmother worked at the Frankford Arsenal in Philly during the war making munitions and eventually got a secretarial job with some Army engineer.
My dad had an uncle in the Merchant Marine who fortunately served without incident on a Liberty ship. My mom's uncle's were the ones who saw combat. Two were in the Army, one landed at D-Day, the other a few weeks later. The later earned a Bronze Star, not sure of the details. One worked in the grave's registration unit during the Battle of the Bulge. He got a camera off of a dead german and took some pictures with it. When he brought it back to the state's he couldn't find anyone to develop that type of film from the camera and just forgot about it. Years later a friend found someone to develop it. In one of the pictures he took a photo of his buddies next to a hay cart. And there was also a picture taken by the german soldier of his buddies taken in the same spot next to the same cart! How friggin nuts is that? Unfortunately, my uncle has no idea where the pictures are now, probably gone forever. My mom's other uncle was in the 82nd Airborne and participated in all four combat drops of the war; Sicily, Italy, D-Day, & Market Garden. My cousin went with him to Fort Bragg on a visit and said he was treated like a God. His brother was in the Army and landed in Normandy the first week of July. He was KIA in late September while fighting in Eastern France and is buried in the US Lorraine Cemetery.
Oddly enough I think my little old grandmother was as tough as any of them. Her family was homeless for a time during the depression. Her mother died when my grandmother was only thirteen and had to basically raise her two younger siblings since her father became a serious alcoholic. And then spent 20 years moving my mom and her three siblings around the country while my grandfather was in the Navy. This included driving from Pensacola, FL to Seattle, WA in the early 50's with one of my aunt's only an infant. A lot of people I know couldn't handle that drive today sans children.
RIP, you lived during an incredible period of history.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:17 am
by dbt1949
I've never told my wife much about Vietnam. Her son got a little out of me. I don't even talk about it with fellow vets. The most I've ever talked about it was here. Somehow its easier to talk to semi strangers than to talk about it with family or friends.
Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:33 am
I cant understand vets not talking about their service but its still s shame that so many stories go untold and passed on.
My father never belonged to or did anything with any WW2 vet group as far as I knew, and I have no idea why. I don’t think either of my parents were big on Vietnam, but I have no idea if that was any of it. He had his conservative side, he was a Mason. But I be know they hated Nixon.
I knew several Vietnam vets who never talked about it.
My dad was Army infantry between Korea and Vietnam. He was one of the older guys in basic training when the Korean conflict ended. He says he never plays the lottery because he already won it back then. He doesn't really bring it up much because it was all peacetime and all domestic and he hates if someone calls him a "vet" or thanks him for his service. He drove an M35 truck around the Midwest and his best story is when he got a tank column lost in rural Ohio and they stopped to have Dairy Queen, scaring the crap out of the small town they ended up in.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 10:30 am
by disarm
Daehawk wrote:I have my grandad's certificate thanking him for helping build the atomic bomb. Manhattan Division stuff. Not bad for a kid whose family was from the black forest area of Germany.
Heres a pic of it.
My father in law was in intelligence in WW2. He got to speak with the pilot of the Enola Gay after it dropped the bomb. My FiL even knew before the pilot did what he was carrying and what he would do that day. The pilot said something like he's never seen anything like it and hoped to never see it again.
That certificate is a really cool piece of history, although those who received them undoubtedly had mixed feelings about their work. If you didn't already know, Tennessee Eastman Chemical Company were responsible for managing the uranium enrichment reactors at Oak Ridge lab. They also produced massive quantities of RDX explosive, but that wouldn't have related to the Manhattan Project at all.
By coincidences of timing, I really haven't had any family that served in a war in significant ways. My grandparents were kids during WWII, so their parents weren't old enough to be part of WWI. My dad and a couple uncles reached draft age at the very end of Vietnam and weren't called to service. My dad knew his time was coming if the war didn't end, so he took matters into his own hands and voluntarily enlisted...gave him a slight bit of control over his course through the military. He joined the 101st airborne and learned to jump out of perfectly good planes, but was never deployed...war was over before he finished training. He then switched over to flight school for helicopters at Ft Rucker, AL...made a couple solo flights, then left the military because he married my mom and she got pregnant. My brother was born in the military hospital at Ft Campbell, KY right before he resigned.
I've only had one other uncle who enlisted in the Army Reserve in the late 80s/early 90s. He learned to fly helicopters and was invited to Apache school, but declined because he knew it would lead to combat deployment. After a few years of non-combat flight experience, he resigned and took his skills to the private sector where he's made a good career as a pilot.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 11:42 am
by EvilHomer3k
My uncle wrote this story for the Twin Cities Star Tribune. The link to the full story is below. Site is open and there aren't many ads. He also wrote a book on the Vietnam War which is available on Amazon.
The USS Fitzgerald’s recent collision with the container ship ACX Crystal and the extraordinary seamanship of her crew to keep their ship afloat recalls another disaster at sea off the coast of Japan that unfolded 72 years ago this month.
In June 1945, Allied Forces were preparing for an invasion of the Japanese mainland to bring World War II to a close. Already the Japanese islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa had been secured by Allied forces. But the forces of nature would prove to be an even more formidable opponent than the Japanese. That month a typhoon struck the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet about 350 miles southeast of Okinawa. No ship had a greater battle against the typhoon than the heavy cruiser USS Pittsburgh (CA72).
My father, shipfitter third class Russell W. Barr, was aboard the ship when the typhoon struck. No doubt he and his shipmates faced the storm with apprehension. Just six months earlier a different typhoon had struck the fleet. In that storm, three destroyers (like the Fitzgerald) capsized and sank. More than 800 sailors were lost.
Through the night of June 4-5, the seas grew heavier and the winds intensified. At 0625 (6:25 a.m.) on June 5, Capt. John E. Gingrich ordered the ship to Condition Zebra — the highest level of preparation for danger. Gingrich kept Pittsburgh’s bow pointed into the waves. If a wave caught the ship broadside, she could capsize.
Think of a ship as a long series of rooms connected by steel doors (hatches) in the walls (bulkheads) that spanned the ribs (frames) of the ship. Condition Zebra called for each hatch to be sealed to help make the ship watertight. My father was in one of several three-man crews sent to the lower decks to close hatches beginning at the bow and working toward the stern. At frame 26, my father and another crew member had just stepped through the hatch when the ship began to crack on the bow side of the frame. They yanked the third man through the hatch, sealed it and continued their way toward the stern.
Behind them, 104 feet of ship — 15 percent of the Pittsburgh’s length — separated completely from the rest of ship and floated free. Had my father and his shipmates been seconds later, they would have been swept out to sea.
dbt1949 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:17 am
I've never told my wife much about Vietnam. Her son got a little out of me. I don't even talk about it with fellow vets. The most I've ever talked about it was here. Somehow its easier to talk to semi strangers than to talk about it with family or friends.
This is my dad. For many years all he would say is "when we got back we couldn't wait to give all of our stuff to the hippies" He's opened up a little to is children in law, which in turn, opened him up a little to us but not too much. He worked very hard to make sure is children didn't serve. He failed. Two of his children joined. And a third one (me) tried but was medically unfit. He's tried to keep his grandchildren out and that hasn't worked either.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:16 pm
by Isgrimnur
Her bow, nicknamed "McKeesport" (a suburb of Pittsburgh), was later salvaged by the tugboat USS Munsee and brought into Guam. The 104-foot section of bow broke off owing to poor plate welds at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Co. at the Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts. The typhoon damage also earned her the nickname "Longest Ship in the World" as thousands of miles separated the bow and stern.
I felt like I was watching a Monty Python skit....
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:28 pm
by disarm
dbt1949 wrote:I've never told my wife much about Vietnam. Her son got a little out of me. I don't even talk about it with fellow vets. The most I've ever talked about it was here. Somehow its easier to talk to semi strangers than to talk about it with family or friends.
One of my now-retired coworkers was a Navy Seal in Vietnam. He never talked about it much, but did share bits and pieces that made it clear he did quite a few very unpleasant things during his time. He took no pride in the stories he told, saying only that he was often put in a situation of "kill or be killed," and his priority was always to make it back home. After the war, he became very devoutly religious, went back to school to eventually become an RN and nurse anesthetist, and gained enough weight that the military could never put him back in the field. He went from being a Seal to weighing close to 400# by the time I met him.
While I was a medical student in Indianapolis, one of my patients in the hospital was an 80-something man who served as a marine in WW2. One morning while making rounds, out of curiosity, I asked him where he served. He then proceeded to tell me about his experience as a young Marine standing on the beach at Iwo Jima, watching as a group of men raised the American flag on the top of a hill after a hard-fought victory that took away a lot of his friends.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:33 pm
by Isgrimnur
TheMix wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:28 pm
I felt like I was watching a Monty Python skit....
Ahhh. So I basically was. That's why it seem so surreal.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:09 pm
by Jeff V
I can only guess that experiencing such horrors and then reintegrating into civilized society almost requires such memories be buried. When Marian told me his story, he was very careful choosing his words, it did not come easily.
This would be especially so for people who carried out orders they weren't morally comfortable with. Like the time dbt impregnated an entire village in Vietnam because his CO told him that was the only way to make sure the women wouldn't blow them all up. If he talked about it, he might have a shit ton of retroactive child support to pony up.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 10:25 pm
by dfs
My father in law got the mumps a couple of days before d-day and missed it. He came ashore on D+3 and fought his way west across France to the submarine pens and then east to Germany. On V-E day he had bartered for a bull that he was leading back to his unit when he heard the news. He did not kiss the bull.
Prior to WW II my f-i-l pretty much led Opie Taylor's life except in the Kentucky hollers instead of North Carolina and where Opie was at least an average student my f-i-l had what we would call dyslexia. While he was technically literate, reading anything took a great effort of will.
He signed up to fight over his father's objections and the army was in a way an education for him. He was failing as a marksman until his Appalachian pride made him convince his sarge that he should shoot the way he had always shot instead of following "army form." When he made that change he became a bit of a marksman and was made his company's BAR (Browning Automatic Riffle) man. Most BAR men lasted a few weeks because the BAR was a high value target putting out a lot of firepower. F-I+L lasted the whole war in the position. He lost several friends, was wounded, was lost to his unit and the army told his folks he was dead. Of course, that was a bit premature. He caught up with his unit eventually and learned to not make friends with new guys because then you didn't care quite so much when they were lost.
He came home a changed man. For the rest of his life he suffered from what we called PTSD. He had a sweetie before he left, but ....stay with me here....her brother had flat feet and could not fight and she was too ashamed of that to see F-I-L after he came back. Appalachian pride is a funny thing and hard to describe to outsiders. Spurned by his original sweetie he married my m-i-l in what can only be described as a very, very, very poor choice. These days she would be described as a sociopathic toxic narcissist.
Since this is about him and not her, I'll just skip over a few years. There was blood. Children were born. Some survived the household and got old enough to leave. Nothing F-I-L could do would make this woman happy. Eventually the left the agrarian life in the hills for a factory job in a northern city. While dyslexic, he had some talents as a machinist and could make things He became the union rep and management balked at him maxing out his pay grade. He was a cent per hour below max grade which worked out to a couple of bucks a month. He threatened to quit if they wouldn't give it to him. They toed the line and he (Appalachian pride) quit and set up shop as an independent machinist. It turned out the company didn't have another machinist who could execute what the engineers wanted so they had to subcontract prime production back to him and they paid through the nose for it. Money was not a problem in the household.
On the other hand the sociopathic toxic narcissist was a problem. After 29 years he eventually divorced her (The stories I could tell, but this is about him) He spent some time in biker culture although he never actually joined a gang. Through the grapevine he hooked back up with his pre-war sweetie whose brother had flat feet. This second marriage lasted 30 years. They were delightful together.
During the 30's In the hollers of Kentucky nothing was more powerful than a church leader and in his old age that's what he became. His church was a schism from a schism from an obscure sect, but those around him loved him and in his defense his years with the army and the union and the bikers left him with some positions that we would consider decidedly liberal. \
He lasted long enough to see his great grandson. He received his granddaughter's ceremonial first salute. In his 90's he was driving when he had a stroke that fractured his vision. He never really lost the PTSD in the hospital he attacked his orderly who as a (much younger) former paratrooper know the routine and blocked everything F-I-L threw at him. A few years after the stroke he broke a hip and was gone.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 10:35 pm
by Jeff V
Quite a story, dfs, thanks for sharing.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:01 am
by Hipolito
One of my best friend's grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. Though his immediate family escaped capture and detention, he, his relatives, and his friends did not, and only he survived. When he was liberated, the American soldiers were gentle and kind to him, but the Russian ones were bullies. After WWII, he faced the prospect of being trapped in the Soviet Union for the rest of his life, but he defected after several escape attempts. He and his wife emigrated to USA when she was pregnant with my friend's dad. He lived to the age of 90, and was a great person, full of joy and curiosity about the world. He had a scientific background and a large library he was proud of. He loved the operas of Wagner. Despite all the horrors that anti-Semites have committed, he couldn't find it in his heart to hate them back.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:12 pm
by Jeff V
I'm surprised that he had such love for Wagner, who was an infamous anti-semite and had he lived in Hitler's time likely would have been his cabana boy. Having not lived through the ordeal he did, I'm more inclined to tolerate the artist Richard Wagner while rejecting his ideology (which, by and large, was not reflected in his music). I've seen the Ring cycle, Der Meistersinger, Lohengrin, and Parsifal -- all brilliant operas. But I saw most of those before knowing about his prejudices.
This is not a new paradox, though. Many famous Jewish artists and conductors have been taken to task for performing Wagner and shrugged it off.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:00 pm
by Holman
My Dad's father was drafted in 1942 and was very conflicted about it. He was a devout Christian, and (although this is almost impossible to understand today) up until WW2 many Southern evangelical leaders preached that war and even politics should be avoided by true Christians. A significant number of evangelical preachers--the direct religious forbears of today's Christian Right--had been jailed for recommending draft resistance in the First World War. Some of these preached that even voting was inappropriate.
All of this changed with Pearl Harbor, but it took a while to trickle down. An option was available to serve in uniform as a non-combatant (as distinct from a conscientious objector), and my grandfather took it. He was trained as a medical orderly and served in Corps-level hospitals behind the front lines. By war's end he had seen Tunisia, France, Belgium, and Germany.
His unit was stationed in Nuremberg at the time of the war-crime trials (hence my sig), and soldiers could get tickets to be in the gallery. He saw quite a bit of the trials and verdicts.
--
My wife's uncle was just old enough to join the Army in 1941, and he became a mechanic in the Army Air Corps (before it was the Air Force). He was lead mechanic on one of the bombers of the Doolittle Raid. This didn't mean being part of the flight crew, but he was proud that "his" plane made it to China and the crew survived.
He hated war. After WW2 he became a peace activist and was involved in all kinds of protest activity around the world. He lived into his 90s.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:15 pm
by AWS260
Slate just published this extraordinary account of a Jewish Frenchman who served in the Resistance, was captured and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and survived. Written by his grand-nephew.
We have come to think of Holocaust survivors as quasi-saints, pure and innocent, heroic victims who, after the war, did not dwell on hatred or revenge but rather dedicated themselves to building a better, “never again” world. I’m sure the dream of a better world appealed to them, but I wonder if we came to expect this attitude from them and did not make space for more difficult, perhaps uglier, emotions that they quite naturally may have felt. In desiring their pure victimhood and heroism, have we refused to see and understand the full horror of what it means to be thrown into a totalitarian universe designed to destroy any shred of humanity one possesses? Have we forgotten that totalitarian regimes thrive precisely on the ability to turn everyone, even their victims, into accomplices?
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:42 pm
by Daehawk
My dad barely missed out on WW2. He was 18 when it ended. But he did serve in Germany right after the war in 45 as a MP. Got some pics of him there. My grandpa on dads side fought WW1. Had a great something grandpa who fought in the civil war. Seems my family was in the military in some fashion on both sides of the family.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:11 pm
by Holman
My wife's other uncle fought as an infantryman in the Battle of the Bulge. (I want to say he was in the 30th Infantry Division, but I'm not entirely sure.)
He said it was cold and scary. Plus, as a Jew, he was keenly aware of what would happen if he were captured. He described the absolute fury that took over the soldiers when they heard about the slaughter of US prisoners at Malmedy and elsewhere.
Both of her uncles (this one and the Doolittle flight mechanic I mentioned above) passed away in the 2000s.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:45 pm
by dbt1949
My dad was pretty young so he didn't get in til later. He trained to be a pilot but got washed out as they had too many pilots. Ended up a company clerk in Guadalcanal. They had Japanese isolated in the hills and not much of a danger. He did like to tell of one of a guy getting taken by an alligator. Gator took him under the river banks somewhere so a bunch of guys got some hand grenades and threw them into the river around where the gator got him. Eventually they got the gator and found the guy's body.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 5:59 pm
by Holman
My second grandfather was born in 1900. He lied about his age and joined the Navy at 16, after which he spent the second half of WW1 floating up and down the East Coast looking for U-Boats. I don't think he ever found one.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:01 pm
by RM2
My father was in the army in the pacific for WWII. Also never talked much about it but a few stories. He was on a boat sunk by a kamikaze pilot and was one of two men in his platoon to survive a particular mission. Guess luck was with him on both occasions.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:11 pm
by Smoove_B
My grandfather was part of a mortar team in WW2 during the Battle of the Bulge. I'd give anything to know the details, but he died when my dad was ~15 from unrelated illness.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 8:09 pm
by Kraken
My mom told stories about growing up in the Great Depression. Hoboes would come to the door looking for work - any work that would pay them enough for a meal. If my grandmother had any small chores that needed doing she'd assign one so they could keep some dignity, but she never sent anybody away hungry. Mom's family didn't suffer directly from unemployment, being farming folk, but everybody was in it together. My dad's family were poor hillbillies who didn't participate much in the mainstream economy, so the Depression didn't make much difference in their lives.
The Depression affected my parents throughout their lives. Even when they had enough money and comfortable lives, it always felt fragile. One could lose everything without warning. Mom especially was frugal, and that rubbed off on me. I still wash out and reuse plastic gallon bags, for example, and keep a small stockpile of nonperishable goods because one never knows when one's income might dry up. (That habit was reinforced when Wife and I went through a few years of chronic unemployment, and again when pandemic supply chain disruptions led to rolling shortages of seemingly random goods like toilet paper and cat food).
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 9:17 pm
by Holman
Kraken wrote: ↑Tue Nov 29, 2022 8:09 pm
My mom told stories about growing up in the Great Depression. Hoboes would come to the door looking for work - any work that would pay them enough for a meal. If my grandmother had any small chores that needed doing she'd assign one so they could keep some dignity, but she never sent anybody away hungry. Mom's family didn't suffer directly from unemployment, being farming folk, but everybody was in it together. My dad's family were poor hillbillies who didn't participate much in the mainstream economy, so the Depression didn't make much difference in their lives.
The Depression affected my parents throughout their lives. Even when they had enough money and comfortable lives, it always felt fragile. One could lose everything without warning. Mom especially was frugal, and that rubbed off on me. I still wash out and reuse plastic gallon bags, for example, and keep a small stockpile of nonperishable goods because one never knows when one's income might dry up. (That habit was reinforced when Wife and I went through a few years of chronic unemployment, and again when pandemic supply chain disruptions led to rolling shortages of seemingly random goods like toilet paper and cat food).
My mom's mother told similar stories. They had a small Mississippi farm, and Depression drifters would come through and ask to do chores for food.
It became known that anyone who knew how to kill, pluck, and dress a chicken would be able to leave with the drumsticks if they did a good job preparing and cleaning the rest of the meat. They'd also have access to the well for water and sometimes some vegetables.
Part of the effect of this was to eliminate chicken theft. Most of the homeless didn't want to be thieves; they just wanted to have an opportunity to maintain themselves.
Re: The Greatest Generation - Stories
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 9:42 pm
by Isgrimnur
Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:11 pm
My grandfather was part of a mortar team in WW2 during the Battle of the Bulge. I'd give anything to know the details, but he died when my dad was ~15 from unrelated illness.
