HITLER Tried To Get My Dad...

[CCIP]

I also know a bit about two of my great-grandfathers in WWII, who were both officers. One of them was an engineer and served north of Leningrad during the siege, facing the relatively quiet Finnish lines. From my understanding, one day he went out to inspect barriers out in no man's land and was shot in the leg by a Finnish sniper - all signs point to this being done on purpose, to draw out other troops to his help. The Russian soldiers knew that trick, it seems, and so he lay there bleeding with his shattered leg until nightfall, just meters away from friendly lines. The leg was amputated and my great-grandfather never recovered from this psychologically - he turned into an abusive alcoholic who eventually lost his family and died alone in his 40s, only a few years after the war.

My other great-grandfather was already an older man when the war started - he was 45, and a well-respected doctor. He served through the war with the rank of Junior Lieutenant, from what I understand largely in the Western part of Russia, Belarus and the Baltics. (Side note, by the way, is that by his ethnicity he was basically Saami). His job was field surgeon - and field surgeon he certainly was; at one point, his "operating room" was caught up in a mortar barrage, and he was heavily wounded, spending the rest of his life with a piece of shrapnel embedded inside the back of his skull. After the war, he was awarded several medals and returned to his life as a doctor. He is remembered by all as a calm, jolly, intelligent guy who liked to smoke his pipe, drink vodka and tell stories - just not about the war - and was always great to his kids and grandkids.

[Oberon]

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...62&postcount=8

Sadly the pictures died with fotopic but I still have them and can put them back up if anyone would like to see them.

Also this thread, from more recently:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...47&postcount=5

[Eichhörnchen]

Originally Posted by August

My Grandfather Johann was an AA gunner on the eastern front. Having managed to survive the entire war he was walking home on the autobahn two days before the armistice and was captured by an American patrol. He spent the next year as a POW.

He was actually lucky though. The American unit that over ran his home town of Altenbuch apparently picked off several of his fellow Altenbuchers returning home from the war as they walked up the road to the town. Their graves along with the rest of the towns dead from that war are in an overgrown little plot located on the opposite hill from the town cemetary. He took me to see it when I was a youngster.

We are ever mindful that Hitler deprived many German people of their relatives too...

[raymond6751]

My Dad was a chief petty officer/stoker aboard the HMCS Ottawa. She was a destroyer escorting convoys.

He was also a scuba diver commando as the need arose.

The Ottawa was stopped to pick up survivors on a cold September night in 1942 when the torpedoes hit. The sub was U-91.

Less than 40 men were rescued, my Dad being one of them. He was saved by an unknown hero, because my Dad was injured severely in the blast. The Captain of the ship went down, but was seen giving his life preserver away.

There were more than two heroes that night, but I think of those two.

The injury ended the war for Dad and he made it home.

[U-15]

A true story my dad told me.

At the end of WW2 he was a Polish soldier attached to the British army.
He required dental treatment and was attended to by an army dentist who was Scottish.
The dentist must have had a rough hand, cos it caused my dad to swear in Polish, and by golly he could swear in Russian and German as well if he wanted to.
The dentist calmly apologised in perfect Polish.

Dad never talked too much about the serious side of war, he was always just grateful he survived.

[Tango589]

My granddad never really spoke much about the war. I know he served in India, and he said he was a sniper. When I was young, my granddad taught me to count from 1 to 5 in Hindi. I always thought he was pulling my leg until I went to India many years later, and bugger me if the old git wasn't telling the truth! I still have his war medals in a drawer upstairs:


1939-45 Star


War Medal


Defence Medal

[HW3]

My dad was in the USAAF in WWII. He was a fighter plane crew chief in the 352FG 487th FS in both Bodney England, and later Asch, Belgium. His squadron was the only 8th Air Force Squadron to be awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation. This award came after a mission flown from the Asch Belgian airfield during Operation Bodenplatte January 1, 1945 when 12 pilots of the 487th, led by Colonel Meyer, shot down 24 attacking German fighters without a loss while under a strafing attack on takeoff. He said the ground crew all watched the action from their trenches.

[Eichhörnchen]

Thanks for that very interesting Post, HW3. I find the "Bodenplatte" episode totally fascinating, and have collected a number of books about it including one in Polish (which I'll have to ask Kranz to help me with for some of the photo captions).

The end of the Reich is a riveting study and this last fling of the Luftwaffe especially so. Oh, to have actually seen it...

[Bilge_Rat]

my Great-Uncle from Toronto served in the RAF as a navigator during the war. His bomber was shot down over Burma and he spent several weeks walking through the jungle back to Allied lines.

I never knew any of this while he was alive. His daughter told me the story at his funeral and even she only knew the bare bones, like a lot of veterans from that generation, he never talked about the war.

[Eichhörnchen]

Hitler didn't get my Dad: after fighting in NW Europe he went on to the Control Commission in Germany, then the Korean War. The peculiar tone of his tie in this photo is due, apparently, to its being red, and worn to denote that he was hospitalised. He said he got spotted by a senior NCO in Lincoln wearing this, who didn't know what it was for, and bawled him out for being improperly dressed; I think of him every time I pass the spot. And along with eddie, a fair few of us must be thinking of our old Dads right now...

[Eichhörnchen]

No-one's yet posted about today being Remembrance Sunday, so...

[Commander Wallace]

I had a number of great uncles who served with the allies during WW2. One in particular had been in the Battle of the Bulge near Bastogne. He was machine gunned in the stomach by the Germans and had a severe head injury. He laid there for a couple days and packed mud into his wounds to stop the bleeding. The allies retook that area and he was discovered alive. He was rushed off to a hospital and survived in spite of the severe infections that resulted from his packing mud into his wounds.

He never fought again and I remember him when I was a child with a steel plate in his head. He never spoke of his war experiences. I also had a great Grandfather who was an electrician who wired up Destroyers, Escorts and LST's and was proud of his work.

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

Hitler didn't get my Dad: after fighting in NW Europe he went on to the Control Commission in Germany, then the Korean War. The peculiar tone of his tie in this photo is due, apparently, to its being red, and worn to denote that he was hospitalised. He said he got spotted by a senior NCO in Lincoln wearing this, who didn't know what it was for, and bawled him out for being improperly dressed; I think of him every time I pass the spot. And along with eddie, a fair few of us must be thinking of our old Dads right now...

Great picture of your Dad

[Eichhörnchen]

Thanks, buddy. They almost got him on a number of occasions but he managed to "come home again to Wales".

[swamprat69er]

Dad was enlisted in the R.C.A.F, he was an armorer (better known as a 'gun plumber') at a secret base in northern Quebec, Bagotville. He made the necessary climb up the ladder to Sargent, only to be busted back down to Corporal and then to LAC.

Between shooting the roof of the hanger, twice, (the first time he got the coal pile to move), [the second time he lost a stripe].

He was busted for being AWOL during a snow storm because the plane he was in couldn't land and he didn't have jump training so he couldn't jump into the base. By the time the bus got him from Mont Jolie, PQ he was AWOL. Lost the other stripe for that one.

He was still an armorer, though and took the crap when one of his mates screwed up.

When he got out of the air force my mother made him promise that he would NEVER teach me about guns, which she hated with a passion. He never did.

I learned from my Uncle, he was in the Army and a good liar. He lied to get into the Army, [he told the truth and the air force turned him down] as he had Scarlet Fever as a kid and was deaf, but he could read lips good. He was in tanks.

My avatar is Dads picture right after he graduated from basic training, just before he went to Bagotville. Regarding the avatar, his arm is over his mothers' shoulder that is why he is not standing square.

The mail from the rest of Canada went overseas to England and then back to Bagotville. The base was 'that' secret.