Remembrance Day

[mog]

Originally Posted by diver

Lest We Forget.

I was in an exam, so whilst I was silent I am dissapointed that I could not specifically convey my respects at exactly 11AM.

I was in an exam too, and I'm quite annoyed that they scheduled it for that time. Hang your heads in shame, Sydney Uni bureaucrats.

[P_Funk]

My grandfather served in the Canadian Army in the Second World War and became part of the Special Forces. When he was with them he saw some terrible things. He watched Dieppe from a cliff top, completely unable to save his comnrades. He was part of a small team that blew up a huge ammo dump at St. Nazaire. He once mouthed off to Patton. He even once met Intrepid (it was his job to collect intel from him).

He was retuned to his usual unit just before D-day and he commanded a tank on Juno beach. He later helped to liberate Holland.

I have come to appreciate war for what it really is to the best that an unexperienced person can because of him and the stories he tells me. No book can really impart the true emotion that I can feel in his voice every time he tells me a story of some kid that didn't make it. In his own words "The real shame of it all was the beautiful young men that never came home, that never got to live."

He remembers names, places, how people died, and all the silly **** that they did together. The happy stories and the sad stories really make me appreciate the human cost of a war. When he dies I want to make sure that his experience and his wisdom aren't lost. Like they say.

Lest We Forget

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

I remember my Grandfathers. May they rest in peace.

Raymond, 36th Infantry Division from Texas- North Africa Landings, The Battle for Kesserine Pass, 2nd wave Salerno Sicily Landings, The Battle for San Pietro, The Battle for Monte Cassino... receiving wounds that ended the war for him near Lyons France late 1944.

Frank, 106th Transport Battallion- Enduring the buzz bombs with the English, later fighting alongside General Patton's men to relieve the 101st Airborne at Bastogne, crossing the bridge at Remagen, and on into the Rhineland. When he was called to return home in 1946, he had spent a year coordinating the influx of humanitarian aid to those that he just couldn't see as enemies anymore.

.... and thas is only the tiniest piece of the story.

All suffered on all sides.

I honor their memory.

I salute your grandfathers and would like to know more.

[Kapitan]

great great uncle:

was on board submarine K13 during world war one she never saw action instead she sank on her final dive trials and he was one of the unlucky ones.
submarine K13 sank with the loss of over 30 crew on january 29th 1917 in the gerelock scotland.


Another family member:

was on the canadian belived to be a stores ship HMCS stradacona (stradconia?) i am unsure wether its a base establishment or ship but it was during world war one.

grandfather:

was a royal engineer through out the second world war and was one of the lucky last people evacuated from dunkirk, he later went on to build all sorts of millatery establishments including the piers at scapa flow which now hold the nuclear missile submarines.


had other family in the millatery during both wars one such part of my family a lady cant remember much about her cant even remember her connection but, in one month a member of my family lost all three of her sons in combat in the short space of 4 weeks.

my nans brother was lost while on convoy duty on a possibly corvette or another type of escort ship during WW2 ship name is unknown.

grandad mums side

was a sapper dropped behind enamy lines targeted to blow up german ammunition dumps and fuel storage depots one such depot he blew up towards the end of the war if not the last knockings of it, he blew up this ammunition store and took out every window in the village with the force of the blast,

he was later demoted and put to work in the salt mines.

have more family in the millatery but these wre the one i could think of