The Subsim Veterans/Active Duty Thread

[Texas Red]

Hi all,

I'm sure that I have stated this in another post somewhere, but my future choice for my career is the Navy. And I have to thank my family members who served in the military for driving my passion for the military. Why do I have to thank my military familymembers for my future career choice? Well, let me explain.

When I was 2, was when I started to really, and I mean really start to show big interest and love for boats. My parents say that 'for some inexplicable reason, you were drawn to boats.' I even told my schooling peers that I wanted to be a sailor. In fact, I remember going to air shows and the like since I was a little kid. And the first ship I was drawn to was the Titanic. Up until I was 8 or 9 (which was when I started to move on to submarines and other ships), my entire world REVOLVED around the Titanic. It was that ship that kickstarted a deeper passion for boats. Reading a document that a therapist wrote for about me when I was in the 1st grade, on the first page alone the word 'Titanic' popped up at least five times or more.
And when I got a little older I started to show more interest in different ships and started to move away from the Titanic to submarines, which was what brought me to the Silent Hunter series and the Subsim genre.

When I was 10 or 11, I really decided what I wanted to do in life, which was to serve in the Navy as an officer on board a submarine. What also made me decide to do that was hearing stories of my great-grandfathers who served in World War II. They are my heroes and I wish I could have met them, and their stories of the war and such have shaped me into who I am today.

And so, I am here to tell you about these people. Feel free to share stories of your own family folks too! Or something about yourself if you are on active duty or you have a part in something military-related. Anyone is welcome here

[Texas Red]

I think the first post here should go to the veteran of my family who inspired me to gain knowledge on WWII.

His name was Gilbert DeVries, born in Indiana in 1913, he grew up near the Kankakee River and went hunting there regularly.
He served in the US Army from 1941-1946(?) as an artilleryman for the 603rd Tank Destroyer Battalion. We (my family and I) do not know a lot about his war service since most of his war items were permanently destroyed by Gilbert's mentally ill son. Recently, my great aunt discovered some of his old war stuff in a wooden box in her attic, some of the items in there gave me a general idea of the unit he served in. Included was a Camp Hood tank destroyer patch, and his 603rd TDB patch. He also had two Marksmanship medals, one Expert Sharpshooter in the Carbine, and another regular Sharpshooter medal. The latter, however, was missing the clasp that would tell us what weapon he was a marksman in.

He also had the rank patch of a Luftwaffe Lieutenant Colonel too, something that surprised me, because I do not know how he got it, nor does my grandpa.

We also have some pictures too.

This one is a picture of Gilbert and his brother fishing together in Belgium. Gilbert is the one on the left.



This one was of him probably from sometime during the war, after he had finished training maybe.



The 603rd TDB's war service also matches the stories of Gilbert from the war. Gilbert said he fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and liberated Buchenwald (which my grandpa remembered, falsely, as Bergen-Belsen), he also had some pretty gnarly stories of war that I could share here if prompted, this thread is about your guy's stories mainly.

Gilbert also had some pictures taken from when he liberated Buchenwald, these were of the hundreds of dead bodies stacked on top of each other. Those, unfortunately, were destroyed by Gil's son.

Gilbert said that they forced the remaining German soldiers who were at the camp to dig graves for the corpses lying around the camp. And every once in a while they would hear the sound of a machine gun firing and a CO yelling,
"Don't shoot the Germans!" That is some pretty grisly stuff.

I have to thank Gilbert for inspiring me to learn about WWII and gain all the knowledge I have on the subject.

[Texas Red]

Reserved

[Platapus]

Rats, I could not get a reservation.

[vienna]

Ya gotta know somebody...




<O>

[derstosstrupp]

Former Marine here, 0313 LAV crewman, 2002 to 2006. Did one tour in Iraq, 2004-2005, participated in the 2nd Battle of Fallujah in November 2004.

Great idea for a thread Red! And I can’t commend you enough for doing this cadet training now, I know you will do great.