Not only were bullets a problem, but also shell fragments from flak bursts and of course bits of crashing aircraft.
digger
Hello, y’all!
Very interesting topic… it’s fascinating reading these little snippets of history, more so when its family.
Here is my families involvement with WWII. My dad, his 2 older brothers, and their mother were still in Poland on September 1st, 1939. On hearing of the invasion, the two older brothers headed east towards the Polish / Soviet border, leaving my dad, who was only 11, and babka at home. They traveled on foot for a week until they heard that the Soviets were also invading, then they headed back home. Dad tells me that the Germans were actually very nice and polite.
As the war progressed, things changed. Middle brother, wujek Stash, got involved with the Polish Home Army. He was involved in some pretty heavy stuff. My dad was still too young to “play with the older boys” so he ran messages between villages, going as far as Krakow. Germans came to arrest Stash, he and my dad were out, so they arrested the eldest, who was tending the farm. This was sometime in late 1943. He disappeared, everyone thinking he had been shot. He came walking up the path to the house in late 1945, having walked back from Germany where he had been released from a concentration camp by the allies. They sold the farm and imigrated to the US shortly afterwards.
Dad didn’t really get involved with any “wet work” tho’ he didn’t really talk about what he had done during the war. We (myself and my brother and sister) didn’t really know any of this part of our family history until wujek Stash was out from Chicago visiting one summer. We were sitting in the livingroom watching a war flick on TV when Stash cryptically says, “Ah, the MG42. A very fine weapon”. I also learned that night that a common tactic for the partisans was to sew a loop inside the collar of their coats, where they would put a small pistol. Stash said that the Germans always made them put their hands on top of their heads when they stopped them, and that the pistol and come in handy several times.
Dad was fascinated with WWII history and fiction. He didn’t hate the Germans, didn’t hate the Soviets (tho’ wasn’t very fond of them), but very much hated communists. He was drafted into the US Army in 1950, while still a resident alien. Because he spoke a Eastern European language, he was sent to Europe rather than Korea. Got granted his citizenship while on leave, and married my mom on leave.
On my mothers side, I had a grand uncle who was a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, operating radars in PV-2’s and PBY’s out of Recife in squadron VPB-126. He got out in early 1946, and later ended up being one of the early employees of the Federal Aviation Agency.
Russ
Proud son of Rose and wes
My grandfather was a Tech.Sergant at Cherry Point Airbase in N.C. during WWII.
Yes, thank you, we got the point. It would be enough to post this information just once.
My father was called up in 1942 in the Royal Engineers. I left school at fourteen and was a Naval Messenger on the Grimsby naval base HMS Beaver. One day I was stood outside the Fleet Mail Office and a sloop was coming out through the lock gates, there was alot of signalling going on between the sloop and the Captains Bridge and I asked a petty officer what was being said, he replied, “There was an air raid last night and Kittywake is asking if jerry laid any mines in the river and the bridge answered, we’ll soon know, your first out!” I did my share of service after the war, National Service in 1948 and in 1951, I joined the Royal Air Force, was with 617 squadron working on Lincolns and then Canberra’s
Ken
My paternal grandfather (John Lagoe) was a member of Merrils Marauders. Grandpa was Professional Army and was stationed somewhere in/around the IO on Dec 7, 1941. Before he died he gave me his combat knife he had carried all those years in the pacific. Leather handle had rotted but the knife was still just as sharp as when he carried it. I had the handle restacked with leather washers and shaped. When I asked about the history of his knife he said “Michael, This Knife is no virgin”. I carried it in Combat during Desert Storm, and my youngest carried it in the initial combat as a Combat Medic with the 3rd BCT, 4th ID in the vacation spots of Samarra and Taji Iraq.
My maternal GF was 4F in WW2, legs damaged as a teenager in a farming accident in Danbury, Iowa. His father, my GGF, Peter Flammang, was German Army and a senior member of Kaiser Wilhelm’s staff. GGF left abruptly and escaped Germany prior to WW1 with his family. The story as I remember hearing it was through France and Portugal and on the the US. The type of story movies are made of. My Mom remembers her GF being afraid that the German Secret Police were going to come looking for him.
My father was in the USN during the Korean war and was on a seaplane tender off the Korean coast.
My wifes father was a US Army Radioman and was in Korea.
My mother was still at school when the war ended, but my maternal grandfather volunteered for the RAF in 1939 as soon as war broke out, and served as ground crew until he was invalided out 1943.
My maternal grandmother worked in a munitions factory for most of the war.
My father was conscripted into the British Army from 1944 until 1947 (in the RAMC).
His eldest brother volunteered for the Royal Navy but was killed in 1942 when his destroyer HMS Matabele was sunk on a convoy to Murmansk. The next brother then volunteered and rather carelessly had two destroyers sunk under him but survived the war.
My paternal grandfather was too old for service in WW2, but was in the Home Guard. He had been a ‘regular’ throughout the Boer War and WW1, in the Royal Horse Artillery. His brother, an infantryman (Kings Royal Rifles), died at Paschaendale, and the body was never recovered.
My Japanese father in law was always a little vague about his war service. He and his mother returned to Japan from Shanghai in late 1945 (they had been ‘colonists’ since the later thirties I believe). He was around 15 or 16, so old enough to perhaps have been pressed into some kind of military service, but I don’t know, and he would not say.
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I presume my father in law returned from Shanghai wth his mum, but not his dad, because his dad was dead, or stayed over there, or something. I know the family had hard times back in Japan after 1945 as he was still at school and they depended on his mother alone for financial support. Apart from saying how hard things were, the would never discuss it with me. And whenever I ask my wife, she says she doesn’t know anything about her paternal grandfather and never met him.
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My mother in law still has the rather nasty-looking and crudely made spear she was issued as a 10 year old girl. I remember her telling me some years ago that her unit of small children was meant to advance to the landing craft as soon as the Americans landed on the beach (she never named the beach where this was supposed to happen), stab someone and take their rifle and ammo belts back to the waiting adults who would then shoot the next waves of US toops with the American weapons.
Even as the sweet frail old grandma of my children, she was still adamant that ths plan would have worked because, as she pointed out, the Americans would have been shocked at being attacked by children and would not have fought back.
While my father in law was always hesitant about discussing Japan’s role in the war, my mother in law seemed to think that Japan was the innocent victim of Western aggresion, and that an Allied attack on mainland Japan would have led to annihilation of the invasion force, and a complete Japanese victory.
I may be telling you something you already know, but there was a substantial Japanese civil administration in China supporting the IJA and Japanese interests, so it was possible to serve Japan in China without being in the IJA.
I have a vague recollection that in at least one of the occupied areas (Singapore? Philippines?) some civil administrators wore a military type uniform which locals confused with military uniforms. Perhaps the same was true in China.
I also have a recollection that colonists, civil administrators and Japanese nationals were pressed into IJA service and military support labour in the dying days of the war in China.
So there were probably plenty of opportunities for your father in law to have been employed in some war-related tasks without actually being in the IJA.
That would have changed after the first few Yanks were stabbed and killed, as it did in Vietnam when children were used by the VC.
That fairly widespread view is testament to the insularity of many wartime Japanese and to the success of internal wartime propaganda and, perhaps, to post war distortions by the Japanese leadership.
My maternal GF was in the Western Desert with the 8th Army, and later in Italy.
My maternal GM was bringing up the kids and making the occasional trip to the air raid shelter.
My paternal GF was too old for active service so in WW2, was a Fire Warden during the war. He was in the RMLI during WW1 serving on board HMS Iron Duke.
One of my Great Uncles was with Slim’s Forgottten Army in Burma and had the misfortune to be in Kohima at the wrong time. He was in Burma for 4 years. In the 1970s he still wouldn’t allow anything Japanese in the house.
Hi everyone…my grandfather served in the army during WWII…He was stationed in the Phillipines…He never really talked that much about it…I found a copy of his military papers after he had passed away…He received a Purple Heart during his service there…My other grandfather was a farmer and didn’t serve in the military…Take Care everyone and have a safe holiday weekend…remember our fallen soldiers tomorrow for without them we would not have the freedom that we have today.
regards,
Robbielynne Mcalister
My father was a senior in high school just before the war ended. The seniors wanted permission to graduate early so they could enlist. The school finally gave in and told them that if they could finish their senior year in 6 months time they could graduate so they could enlist. They did but not in time to actually see combat. Dad joined the navy and by the time he was out of training the war had ended. He was then sent out with Task Force 1 and went to the Marshal islands and participated in the Able and Baker atomic test shots. He is still alive at 82 and all seven of us kids are alive and doing fine. Even in the peacetime navy he still saw some things he didn’t want to talk about. He told us about some funny things that happened but was very quiet about others. Mom was a registered nurse in Los Angeles. Grandpa Wagner was too old to reenlist so they gave him a truck-driving job delivering war surplus after it was collected for recycling. Grandma Wagner was a homemaker. My dad’s parents were living in Missouri at the time. Sorry about writing a book.
Paternal GF was in Poland during WW-II and had a taxi company before the war. All I can get out of my dad is that he drove German trucks that were converted to run on wood. Several times that saved his life since when they were running out of fuel on a winter night , they just jumped out of the truck found some trees and cut enough wood to get to his destination.
Maternal GF was in the trenches of WW-I and took some German shrapnel from a mortar. It was too close to his spine so he spent the rest of WW-I and WW-II on home duties. Still smoked a pipe and rode a bike well into his eighties.
Mother was a teenager in Glasgow during the war so they were on the outside.
My dad had the most interesting war experience and didn’t reveal much until a few years ago despite me pressing him on many occasions.
Turns out he was a young teen when the Germans invaded western Poland in 1939 and spent the first few years just occupied. During that period he said he was helping smuggle bread to POW camps filled with starving Russian soldiers .
He remembers being shocked in 1941 when the German engineer battalion built a road through his town eastward. It took no time at all and they couldn’t figure out why on earth they would be going east.
In 1943 the Germans came to his school and declared them all to now be Germans and as such they had to choose between work in a labor camp or join the German army. To him labor camp was like the starvation camps he’d seen in 1939/40, but the army meant the eastern front. :shock:.
However he was told that if they were in the German army they would be posted to the west. Hitler had some idea that if they were posted to the eastern front they would defect to the soviets while if they were posted to the west they would fight. 
So they went to France and were in a German infantry division that only lasted a couple of months before Patton’s army smashed it and he was able to surrender to the Americans. He wanted to join the Free Polish army but was prevented from doing so because he took hundreds of photos while in the German army. Instead he was sent to some Allied Intel center for debriefing and basically he’s not allowed to speak much about the rest!
All I can get out of him is that he ended up some signals intercept unit because he was fluent in Polish, Russian, German, French and English and was familiar with some aspects of German military operations. He did let up once that he worked with some guy who intercepted the Bismarck’s radio transmissions that lead to its sinking.
Being brought up in the west, this was always awkward when we would watch some war movie or history show. He would always point out the other side of the history. But it did instill in me the understanding that there are always different sides to any historical event, and these really depend on your POV.
My grandad was in Normandy with an engineering unit. I forget which, I wrote it down but I can’t find it right now. They built fuel pipelines to follow the advance. Had some problems with, believe it or not, French partisans, both nazi sympathysers and nationalists who didn’t want ANYONE in thier country. Couldn’t keep up with the advance, so they choked 3 lines down into 1. Got orders one day. The Germans broke through at the Ardennes, they were goin to the front lines. The squad he was with tied one on that night but good. Went to work the next day hungover from hell, terrible stomach ache! Was told to report to an aid station at noon or so. Next thing he remembers, he woke up in a hospital in England. Appendix burst! Served the rest of the war in good health. His wife was a “Rosie the Riveter”, she installed seats in aircraft. Don’t know what type. His older brother flew bombers up Italy.
My father served under Brigadier General Zygmunt Piasecki of brigade Karkowska during the September Campaign. He died on 4 September.
Both grandfathers were farmers and grandma’s were housewives - father, however, refurbished Douglas B-26’s in Tulsa, OK. during Korean war,
The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire. Murphy’s 24th law of
combat
I had multiple family members who served in the war, but I am still trying to get full information on all of them.
My Grandfather R was in the 3458th Ord Division where he worked on tanks, and fought in North Africa, and the Po Valley. Before he left the states, he was part of the 4th Army in San Francisco. He hadn’t married yet, but my grandmother was still in high school.
My Grandfather J’s main job was to take the orders to the front lines in Italy, Germany and France. His division was only 12 men, so I haven’t been able to find much more on him, but I do know he was taking orders to the front line and ended up getting stuck during the Battle of the Bulge. His 17 year old bride was at home with a baby.
I had two Uncles on ships in the Pacific, but haven’t started looking into which ones yet.
My Aunt was a nurse stationed in England. She met her husband when he was injured after his plane crashed. They married 4 days later, and he was a rear gunner off of the USS Enterprise.
and more that I don’t know anything about yet
Paternal Grandfather served pre-war with the Royal West Kents. Served in France 1940, rearguard to Dunkirk and evacuated from the beach. Hospitalised with severe shellshock for three years, released and went on to serve in Normandy until he was shot and paralysed from the waist down.
Maternal Grandfather served in the Royal West Kents from late '44 till end, then as part of the occupation forces in Berlin. Took part in several boxing competitions in Berlin, including one against a Russian boxer.
During the First World War the family served all over the place, from the Western Front to Mesopotamia.
That is profoundly sad and distressing.
It encapsulates the stupidity and wastefulness of war.
Yup… Thats the way it goes.
He was a very bitter man after the war. Effected him very badly. We took him back to Dunkirk on the 40th Anniversary. Was an unpleasent experience for all concerned. Found out alot of things that were, at the end of the day, very disturbing.
That said though he never lost the fire and his temper! Was a bear of a man… I could easily imagine him having done half of what he told us. He was quite a scary person when old and confined to a wheelschair… Lord knows what he was like when he was able bodied. He was the only person I ever saw my father have any defference to.
Spoke to us on the day at Dunkirk, then never mentioned it again. Long dead now sadly.
As does war affect so many people in so many ways, almost none of them good for the betterment of mankind and the planet.
Spike Milligan (of ‘Hitler: My part in his downfall’ fame) spent the rest of his life trying to overcome his ‘failure’ or ‘cowardice’ in Italy rather than celebrating his long service before.
A man should be defined by all he does, not just his last momentary act.
Unless, of course, he’s a complete ****, in which case it’s a different issue.