D-Day +28 124

mcgruff10 said:

@mrussel1   My grandfathers canteen cover that I found twenty years after he passed.  Shows exactly where he was from training to VE Day. 

mcgruff10 said:

mrussel1 said:

cp3iverson said:

WW2 vets are the most fascinating people to me.  Brave and humble.  

In May i happened to be at the airport in NOLA (home of the National WW2 Museum).  That day about 100 or so WW2 vets were flown in for an event at the museum.  As they were wheeled/walked down the concourse it was mass applause from everyone in the airport.  Chills man!!!!  They are superheroes to me. 

I mentioned this many moons ago but I think it's worth repeating.  My father died in 93.  He was a Korea vet.  Two of his brothers were still alive and were at the after funeral gathering.  Mike was Army, Battle of the Bulge and captured there by the Germans.  George was a marine and an island hopper.  The neighbor across the street was Polish resistance.  The three of them spent the entire afternoon arguing about who had it worse, recounting their experiences.  I wish I would have recorded it because it was utterly fascinating.  

I think in order of having it worst I would go:
George
Polish resistance
Mike

brianlux said:

OK, so here are a few brief stories about my father in WWII

One of the most interesting things about my Pop's involvement is that it was somewhat ironic.  My father was full blooded Amish but went to great lengths to be accepted into service.  Amish people are generally pacifistic, but my Pop felt strongly about serving in WWII.  He volunteered, but was initially reject due to having flat feet.   So every day for a few weeks he rubbed dirt around the edges of his feet to give them color such that they looked normal and then went to a different recruiting station in a different town and was accepted into the U.S. Navy. 

The other ironic thing is that Amish people generally avoid technology and yet my father trained to become an aviation machinists mate and was shipped of to the Soloman Islands where he served on a small landing strip on one of the islands.  I asked him what part of the planes did he work on and he said, "Everything from the propeller to the tail."  After the war he went on to become, first, a draftsman for Ampex (they made great reel to reel tape recorders), and after that became an aeronautical engineer for United Air Lines.

His outfit was bombed by Japanese planes from time to time, sending him and his buddies diving into fox holes.  Somehow, they all managed to survive.  He told me though, that one night he had been dreaming that a "Jap" had cut his arm off.  He woke up and couldn't feel his arm and thought it really had been cut off.  But it turns out he slept on it and it went numb.  So he made it through those years unscathed.

Guys weren't supposed to take photographs over there but one of my Pop's buddies had a camera and film and managed to acquire the chemicals needed to develop the photos.  Here is one of those photographs (my father is the man on the far left):

brianlux said:

OK, so here are a few brief stories about my father in WWII

One of the most interesting things about my Pop's involvement is that it was somewhat ironic.  My father was full blooded Amish but went to great lengths to be accepted into service.  Amish people are generally pacifistic, but my Pop felt strongly about serving in WWII.  He volunteered, but was initially reject due to having flat feet.   So every day for a few weeks he rubbed dirt around the edges of his feet to give them color such that they looked normal and then went to a different recruiting station in a different town and was accepted into the U.S. Navy. 

The other ironic thing is that Amish people generally avoid technology and yet my father trained to become an aviation machinists mate and was shipped of to the Soloman Islands where he served on a small landing strip on one of the islands.  I asked him what part of the planes did he work on and he said, "Everything from the propeller to the tail."  After the war he went on to become, first, a draftsman for Ampex (they made great reel to reel tape recorders), and after that became an aeronautical engineer for United Air Lines.

His outfit was bombed by Japanese planes from time to time, sending him and his buddies diving into fox holes.  Somehow, they all managed to survive.  He told me though, that one night he had been dreaming that a "Jap" had cut his arm off.  He woke up and couldn't feel his arm and thought it really had been cut off.  But it turns out he slept on it and it went numb.  So he made it through those years unscathed.

Guys weren't supposed to take photographs over there but one of my Pop's buddies had a camera and film and managed to acquire the chemicals needed to develop the photos.  Here is one of those photographs (my father is the man on the far left):