HITLER Tried To Get My Dad...

[Eichhörnchen]

(his parents' garden in Pwllheli, 1945)


My old dad was in the Royal Welch Fusiliers in NW Europe in '45. He woke up as he hit the ground having fallen asleep one night on the warm engine of a churchill tank as it rolled into the Reichswald Forest. He just escaped being crushed by the following tank...

Then he dove under a collapsible boat they were carrying down to the river Weser when a mg gunner zeroed in from a nearby church tower; his mates were all killed...

Finally he was blown up by a mortar barrage and came round in the ruins of a monastery, so the story goes, clutching a big wooden crucifix: I HAVE IT STILL...

I know he was exceptionally lucky when so many weren't.

Does any one have just one really memorable story their dad told them about
when he was in the war?

[Wolferz]

My dad was a sailor in the US Navy. Stationed as armed contingent aboard a liberty ship ferrying supplies into North Africa. During one crossing on a particularly dark and moonless night while pop was on watch, one of the ships in the convoy had a nervous captain who feared he might ram the ship in front of him in the closely formed convoy. So, he turned on his lights like an idiot and got a German torpedo amidships for his trouble and sunk.

The fellow on watch with my dad began crying, fearing that he'd never make it home alive.
That was close but, not as close as a little shore leave in Morocco.
Pop and his buddy strayed into the Arab section where they were hounded for cigarettes and money by an Arab kid wearing a pair of British hobnail boots. Clickety clack, clickety clack. Dad's buddy finally got sick of it and punched the kid. Arabs with scimitars started coming out of the woodwork and chased them both all the way back to their sector near the docks. They paused at the top of a flight of stairs just long enough to turn around and kick the lead pursuers back down the stairs, knocking the rest down like bowling pins.

[Eichhörnchen]

Wow! This is what we want!

[Sailor Steve]

My dad was just too young for the war. I had two uncles at Pearl Harbor, but I never managed to get their stories before they died. Decades later I still regret that.

[Eichhörnchen]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

My dad was just too young for the war. I had two uncles at Pearl Harbor, but I never managed to get their stories before they died. Decades later I still regret that.

And believe me I thought long and hard before posing this question, since I knew there would be some sad reflections.

[vanjast]

If I may, My grandpa..
started WW2 in East Africa, the 'trot' back and forth along North African coast, El Alamein, Sicily, and then finished the war in Italy.

He spent 6 years at war, never wanted to talk about it no matter how hard we, as kids, tried to get him to.

I'm not sure what he did in East Africa, but he started as a private, was a tank gunner during the North African campaign, and soon became a tank commander (rank of Captain - field commission) on Sherman tanks, I think in Sicily and Italy.

The closest he came to dying (according to my mom) was one night when a sniper got the guy sitting next to him - this guy had lit up a cigarette

My mother said that the first time she saw her father, was when this guy jumped out of the train window, before the train stopped, and came bounding over to them. She was only 5 years old
I enjoyed being with my grandparents, they were always so funny and happy - 'Pull my finger'

[Eichhörnchen]

Of course you may: grandpas must be included in this.

[Von Tonner]

My grandad, Robert Burns Waterston, back in 1922 formed his own army and with side-drummers and a rag tag of armed miners marched on Johannesburg. Smuts who was the prime minister called up the South African army and airforce and all hell broke loose in Johannesburg.

"Prime Minister Jan Smuts crushed the rebellion with 20,000 troops, artillery, tanks, and bomber aircraft. By this time the rebels had dug trenches across Fordsburg Square and the air force tried to bomb but missed and hit a local church. However the army's bombardment finally overran them"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_Rebellion

He, together with the other leaders of the rebellion were captured put onto a darkened train and sent to Durban where they were put on a ship bound for England.

The supporters of the rebellion got wind of this and hastily commissioned a boat to set sail from Cape Town to try and intercept the England bound vessel. They failed to do so.

My grandfather was an Australian and soon after landing on English soil he daily got onto his little soap box in Hyde Park and told all who would listen that as he was an Australian Smuts had deported him to the wrong country

The long and short of it the British government made Smuts take him back and he not only joined Smuts' goverment as an MP, then later Commissionar of the Railways, and later Escom but had a harbour tug, streets named after him and after retirement became mayor. He just could not leave politics alone.

A very colourful character.

[vanjast]

Originally Posted by Von Tonner

He, together with the other leaders of the rebellion were captured put onto a darkened train and sent to Durban where they were put on a ship bound for England.

Yeah! that's a penal colony up north... that small little island


That was interesting...
What did my father do... Well he just caused trouble wherever he went...

A few friends and him trashed the Gordon's Bay hotel at an office party - The company fired them...

First one to fly under that Transkei bridge, two weeks after it was opened.
There was a police area hunt for him at all aerodromes in the area.. They asked his instructor if that aircraft was registered there.
The instructor wisely said no and said it must have been from EL (+-150Km away), . About 2 hours he landed roaring with laughter
The instructor saw the humour and they went to the local pub - I don't think he trashed that pub

He made many friends in the Police - I think he did that to keep out of jail.

My uncle Doug was a wild one.. about seven feet tall, built like a tank, loud, aggressive and fists to match.
What my aunt saw in him, I don't know but she was just as mad - punched her brother (my father) off a pub chair at the Venture Inn, and broke two of his ribs.
She was about to get married after divorcing Doug, to Andy, a smaller, mild, meek mannered character - a great funny guy, but always drunk.

My old man told me this story.. and we both 'killed ourselves laughing'

Andy and my father were drinking in the Venture Inn pub, as usual. Quiet sloshed old Andy asked for some advice from the old man.
Also sloshed the old man says that he's asking for trouble going ahead with this plan...
The saloon doors fly open, banging against the wall and there stands my aunt, in this man's only territory...
'AAANNNNNDDDYYYYYY.. where have you beeen I've been looking for you all morning', and grabs him by the collar, wrenching him off the bar stool.
Andy.. now pissed as a coot and feeling very brave turns to my aunt... 'You brother says that I'm mad to marry you and I shouldn't'

Of course the old man didn't say that.. Andy was thrown aside and sister got stuck into brother.
The old man wasn't even looking at them and she walloped him, and he flew off the chair - My father's 6 foot something, and ex rugby player - he's not small by no means.
She then jumps on him and starts a punch up...

Andy married my aunt..

[Von Tonner]

[QUOTE=vanjast;2236339]Yeah! that's a penal colony up north... that small little island

[\QUOTE]

yea but the penal colony down South had this to say:

"All the exiles hope to return to South
Africa legally, otherwise Waterston will
press General Botha to send him and his
family to the country of his birth. Possi
bly the other exiles will go to Australia
if they are not regarded as undesirables."

Bit rich coming from them

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/89867909

Originally Posted by vanjast

The saloon doors fly open, banging against the wall ... in this man's only territory...

Ah yes, remember those bars well..those were the days

[Jimbuna]

In Brief:

Grandfather-Infantryman WWI...buried alive during artillery bombardment, rescued but never recovered his hearing.

Father-Merchant Seaman WWII...aboard first ship to be bombed in Spanish Civil War (Barcelona Harbour).

Took part in Dunkirk evacuations.

Last vessel to leave France (Marseille) before it fell, taking off French Admiral.

Sailed on only convoy to Murmansk that went without an armed escort.

Landed first wave of Canadians on Juno Beach (Courseulles-Sur-Mer) and witness sinking of a hospital ship and the consequent straffing of dozens of nurses floating on the surface wearing lifejackets.

[kranz]

My 2 great-grandfathers fought in WW2.

One was a Polish soldier killed on 03.09.1939 at Opatow, Poland. A shrapnel allegedly cut his head off. My great-grandmother received a document from the Red Cross confirming that he was buried somewhere near the battlefield.

The other was a Pole but served in the German army. He started as a mechanic, then became a regular soldier, fought in Africa Korps in 1942, withdrew to Italy where he deserted and joined Polish forces lead by general Anders. Survived the war.

[vienna]

My first ex's father seemed to me to be a rather distant, aloof, almost even, curt man. I barely could get a hint of recognition of my presence when we were in the same room together. I just put this off to just having a bad attitude. One day I mentioned my observations to my ex's mother and she, a bit reluctantly, told me how during the war he had served in bomber crews in combat. Three of the bombers he served on were shot down and he survived the crash landings of all three. One of the crashes, he was the only survivor...

I never again faulted him for having a "bad attitude"...


<O>

[CCIP]

My grandfather (who passed away a year ago) was too young to serve in WWII, but he survived the German occupation as a 14-year-old. His village was smack in the middle of the Demyansk pocket, so that was certainly no walk in the park.

The initial occupation by the Germans was almost peaceful - they just showed up one day. The whole situation was confusing and caught everyone unprepared - no orders to evacuate were given, the village youth didn't get notice to enlist, and when the Wehrmacht arrived, the place was basically in its peacetime state. The villagers found the German soldiers rude and manner-less, but I never heard any stories of abuse or mass executions, rapes, mistreatement, nothing like that - they were just matter-of-fact and acted like they had a job to do. The locals found it both revolting and hilarious that the Germans didn't bother to cover themselves or seek privacy when doing their, um, bathroom business. Apparently the soldiers found the locals' revolted reactions just as amusing.
Otherwise, the German officers would simply show up at a house and state that they were taking it over, or that the residents were to hand over their food or livestock or tools - no other questions asked, not that anybody dared. A couple of weeks later all fit young men were ordered to move out, ostensibly to a work camp. My grandfather's oldest brother, who was 20, was in this category and was marched off - he was never heard from again. Many more were taken away in subsequent weeks, and the village's population shrunk noticeably, but largely without violence.

Worse things might have come later, but as the Soviet counter-offensive began, the area quickly found itself in heavy fighting and there was no time for that. There was no direct battle for the village, but it was an important depot for the Germans. Over the course of the winter, with the Germans surrounded, things were even worse for the locals. A number of people starved.

Finally, one day the Germans just up and left - no notice, no warning. The Soviet troops were nowhere to be seen and the locals cautiously went out of their hiding places. What they found in the surrounding woods were trenches full of abandoned German equipment. Kids quickly made a game of shooting crows with MG-42s. However, the weapons only occupied them for a short bit because everyone was really, really hungry - quickly, the hunt turned to finding German food tins and German bayonets - after all, machineguns aren't so good for opening cans. Fights broke out between groups of kids and teenagers over said tins, and some had to be dissuaded from shooting each other with their trophy weapons.

After the trenches around the village were scoured, my grandfather and his best friend noticed that an old barn in the village, which the Germans took over early in their invasion, remained untouched. Without telling anyone, they decided to go check it out, in hopes that they could find a bit more food that they wouldn't have to fight over. The barn had a heavy wooden door, which took all my grandfather's 14-year-old strength to pull - but he was lucky to be doing the pulling. The entrance was boobytrapped, but the heavy wooden door absorbed most of the blast - only his feet and ankles were hit by the shrapnel, and he miraculously escaped amputation, spending more than a year recovering in hospital afterwards. His friend, standing right in front of the door as it opened, wasn't so fortunate and was killed instantly.

My grandfather didn't actually like to talk about it much. I mostly learned it from his relatives, including family who still live in that same village near Demyansk.

[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.