OT-In Remembrance...

[gak]

...67 years ago today.


May we never forget.

[gamekeeper]

Lest we forget.

We in Britain can never repay the debt that we owe to those gallant men.

[awp101]

And for those that went before me in the 101st...

[Lobo]

Salute !

[RIHMFIRE]

incredible group of men...

[awp101]

incredible group of men...

Indeed.

I was still at Ft Campbell when Saving Private Ryan came out. They rotated us through one of the local theaters by battalion to view it. For the first few minutes there was the usual grab-assery and cutting up as 18-22 year olds will do when left alone and thinking no one can see them in a dark theater. Especially when they showed the guys puking in the landing craft.

When the ramp went down and the first 2-3 rows of guys went down under MG42 fire, that theater got real quiet.

I think it finally sank in for more than a few of those folks that serving doesn't always mean sitting in garrison until they ETS'd and then going to college.

[old06]

Makes me think of my Dad he landed on the beach and fought to the Battle of the Bulge. A salute to all.

[Rusty]

My dad's unit was going for amphib training when he was pulled out. He was sent for different training since he had one year of premed in college before being drafted. He ended going to Japan at the end of the war and was in the medial unit of the military Gov't.

[bdhold]

The greatest generation.
I don't know if we or the world will ever be able to muster that kind of valor and resolve again.

[pdentrem]

The oldest of my Dad's brothers, got his feet wet today in 1944.

[Grizz]

An uncle died that day. An engineer, his unit was pinned down by a mg. he grabbed some grenades and got them while they got him.

WHERE WAS THE CLOSE AIR SUPPORT THAT DAY? THEY COULD HAVE SAVED THOUSANDS OF LIVES..........

Best Regards Uncles

[Hobie]

Oh, yes, I know... http://shootingwithhobie.blogspot.com/2 ... d-day.html

On Saturday I had the great honor of speaking with a glider pilot veteran of D-Day 1944. He said he thought that he was the 49th glider to land in the assault. I have never had the opportunity to speak with a glider pilot vet before. Amazing!

[Ray Newman]

My God-father landed via the gliders. He never said much of anything about his time in Europe....

[J Miller]

My dad:

Miller Brothers web.JPG

Upper Left in the pic, was crewman on an LST off the French coast. I don't know which beach his ship was at, but he was there.
I wish he'd been more willing to tell his stories but didn't say much about the war.

RIP WW II vets and thanks to those who are still here to receive them.

Joe

[Pitchy]

Salute

[Ysabel Kid]

incredible group of men...

Indeed.

I was still at Ft Campbell when Saving Private Ryan came out. They rotated us through one of the local theaters by battalion to view it. For the first few minutes there was the usual grab-assery and cutting up as 18-22 year olds will do when left alone and thinking no one can see them in a dark theater. Especially when they showed the guys puking in the landing craft.

When the ramp went down and the first 2-3 rows of guys went down under MG42 fire, that theater got real quiet.

I think it finally sank in for more than a few of those folks that serving doesn't always mean sitting in garrison until they ETS'd and then going to college.

I had a similar experience when I saw "Saving Private Ryan". I was traveling on business and saw it in Atlanta. I noticed several elderly gentlemen leave the theater when the movie started, returning after the first 20 minutes. The theater had been full of mostly young people, yapping as always, but they got real quiet after the movie started.

I asked my uncle if he had seen the movie and what he thought about it, as he was in one of the first waves to hit Omaha Beach with the 29th Infantry Division on D-Day. He said it was the closest Hollywood had come to date on "getting it right". The first part anyway; the rest was just "story".

[Hobie]

I know several veterans who couldn't go see Private Ryan... Many will not talk about their experiences at all.

[awp101]

I know several veterans who couldn't go see Private Ryan... Many will not talk about their experiences at all.

My Grandfather was on the USS Nashville in the PTO. I don't know what his rating or job was but he worked in the engine room.

For years he's told me stories of things that went on down there and would mention on occasion the Nashville took one of the first Kamikazes. It's only been within the past couple of years he's started telling me about what he saw and experienced during and after that particular attack.

Recently he's also told a few new to me anecdotes that I think he received second hand about some of the air attacks they took as well.

It's taken 65 years for him to be able to discuss anything other than "he had all the answers", "he whooped someone" or telling me about the Marine SGT they had on board (probably an old China or Central America Marine) who gave them hand to hand pointers in case they were ever put into a landing party of some sort.

[.45colt]

God Bless Them All.

[Blaine]

My beloved Uncle Mac was at the Bulge and other points of interest. When I get a scanner that works, I'll post a ton of WWII pics he took in Europe. He got the Bronze Star at the Bulge.

[Booger Bill]

My uncle, Eldon Bruhn was with the gliders in the 82nd AB. Just he and one more survived the DD crackup of 14 guys in his glider. He was highly decorated. We were very close as he never married and I was his only nephew. The war affected him and I belive was a big part of the reason he committed suicide in 1974. He had two purple hearts, 6 bronze and silver star.

[awp101]

The mentions of The Bulge in this thread fired a dormant synapse last night.

My wife's step-Grandfather was in the ETO and had a part in The Battle of the Bulge. He died long before I came into the family and my MiL rarely spoke about him due to some bad feelings (never knew why and I never asked) so I don't know his MOS or rank but I think he was involved with rear echelon communications somehow.

My wife and SiL have talked about how he "relived" his early life as he got close to death. They said several times he got very agitated and kept talking about tigers. They absolutely could not make heads or tails out of the tiger references.

Recently they were discussing family again and this came back up. Out of nowhere it hit me. I confirmed with them he'd been at the Bulge and explained that in his mind he was back at that battle and there were TIGERS in the area.

Now to most GIs at the time, ANY German armor was a "Tiger" so he may have seen any of the light to medium Panzers or he might have actually seen a Tiger I or Tiger II. It might have just been a rumor passed via comms or troops pulling back, I'll never know.

Either way, I'd totally forgotten about it until this thread.

[Booger Bill]

I still have another uncle liveing that was in the bulge. Art werch, a younger brother of dad`s. He is around 92 or 93 now. I dont know the particulars of the unit he was in but know he was a MP and dog man. He told me he also was assigned to drive General patton a few times. No, he wasnt the driver that caused pattons death. He might have been assigned as he spoke german flunently. I came from a huge family and counting aunts husbands, I think we had 8 or 9 in the war. Also had another two in korea.

[Jeff H]

........I wish he'd been more willing to tell his stories but didn't say much about the war.......Joe

That's a really cool picture, Joe. Glad someone saved it.

One of my Uncles, who served in the South Pacific, NEVER talked about it. I always wondered about him and his service in particular simply because he was the one who never spoke of any of it and was a very practical, sensible and quiet man. I grew up having great respect for him (even during a long period of dealing with it through alcohol), and became great friends with him.

One day, I don't even remember which day or why, he opened up and talked a long time about what he had seen and been a part of - not the grand victories and tales of proud cunning, whit and heroism, the dirty details, the smells, the sounds.... I am not a weak individual, but most of it set my hair on end and and I don't even care to repeat today what he told me some forty years ago.

That was a generation forced into "doing what needed done" and they did it. Some came home - to the home they preserved through their sacrifices and many moved on quietly and continued to be large (quiet) men who gave us not only our freedom, but many other important lessons in life through their actions and their demeanor.

[Booger Bill]

My uncle, who`s picture is in my previous post, did NOT voulinteer. He was drafted into the all american 82nd before they enmass were designated to be air born. Somewhere I have a nice local newspaper writeup on him durring the war, or at the end of it that my mother saved. Seems he was about our highest decorated in our area. Not long after he came home I remember he and I were fishing. I was about seven. I must have asked him if he was "scart". He was pretty salty and broke into a tirade. Told me you would be scared too if the krauts were shooting at ya! Then he told of his LT getting his head blew off pressed next to him in the glider by ground fire before they ever crash landed. He said they were hauling a jeep and he woke up with his head in the radiator of it. Just he and one other lived. It went downhill from there. They spent a few days and nights hideing, both badly wounded. At one point they watched from a haystack they had hid in while some german soliders shot a farmer and his daughter as they suspected they had hid them. Finaly they hooked up with others but in being transported back to england their boat got hit and they almost drowned and had to get rescued again. He once told of getting in a farm house and finding the family sitting at the table with their tounges nailed to it! He also was one of the first to help liberate a death camp they stumbled on. He gave me several pocket watchs he took off a german and a russian solider. I asked him how he ended up with a russian watch? I dont know if he was kidding or not, but he laughed and said, "Hell, the first russians I seen, I thought were japs! They had those strange uniforms I never seen before!"
He also was in north africa before all that. I have a decoration and certificate he got for putting out a fire in a ammo truck that got hit on convoy at night.
My real hero though is this next story: There was another family friend from our same village who was a close friend to my uncle and also my parents best friend. "Joe", not his real name, had already done a hitch in the navy prior to the war. He got out, married, and had two kids I knew that I grew up with too. When the war broke out he re enlisted the same time as my uncle got drafted. They both came home from training the same time before both went oversea`s and partyied together.
Joe left first. Uncle had a little more time left and got "partying" with joe`s wife! Uncle jilted a girl friend. She found out about his misdeed, wrote him that she had wrote joe and ratted him!
Time go`s by. Sometime latter uncle is in a invasion off sicily or italy with the 82nd and are drove back to the ocean by the germans. It was the same time that Mount Vesuvius was erupting nearby. Uncle climbed the ladder on the ship and guess who helped him on! JOE!! Uncle said he considered jumping back in with the sharks and swimming back to the krauts!
Well, joe asked him how his wife and kids were! Uncle says, geeze joe, I dunno, I left right after you did!
Time went by. Uncle told me the story, and dad told me the same story. Several times joe`s and uncles paths crossed at my folks house and even as a boy I reconised the awkwardness before I was told the story. Many years latter uncle died. (suicide). He had lived with me in california the past winter and told me the above in great detail. I flew home and joe came up to my mother and me and asked if we were going to have a military funneral. We didnt know the process. Joe, haveing had been a past commander to the local VFW asked us to let him take care of it. Joe, was a strong christian man now. He and my folks would go to church together and on trips together etc. Joe conducted that part of the funneral. I got a real lump in my throat when joe presented me with the flag. Latter that night we were together and joe asked me if I ever heard the story of him and uncle meeting durring the war. I said I had heard something about it. Joe proceeded to tell me the exact same story I knew, but of course left his wife entirely out of it! To me, joe was a far greater hero than my uncle! That is true forgiveness!!!!

[Ray Newman]

“I know several veterans who couldn't go see Private Ryan... Many will not talk about their experiences at all.”
--Hobie

I know more than a few too and it did matter in what conflict they served. On a personal note, after spending 20 months of another life in Vietnam, I find that the older I become, the more I wish to forget. An uncle served in the 3rd US Army. A few years before he died, we were in kitchen talking about military service in general and comrades in arms. While looking out the window across the pasture he said, “I can still see Joe Sheila get hit.“ He then tapped his chest -- from shoulder to shoulder - four times. He had that look like it was 1945, not 1983. Other than that, he never said much at all, except to once mention that he was at one the concentration camps shortly after liberation. Made me realize that you can never forget.

In reference to Saving Private Ryan, several people in my office told me that I had to see the movie because "that’s the way it is". They just did not seem to understand that after ‘seeing the elephant‘, I had no desire to see the movie.

[gak]

At a conference I attended in Columbus five or six years ago, I sat across the dinner table from an older gent who, long since formally retired, had been but also still appreared to be a major figure in the community goings-on. Somehow the discussion just between us meandered to military service and made its way to D-Day. Turns out he was one of only a handful of US/allied soldiers to be ON the beach to see the D-Day armada coming over the early morning horizon from that perspective--the scene from The Longest Day comes to mind (and we spoke of)--and witness the first volleys of incoming from the battleships and first wave of incoming troops. Armed with .45s and Thompsons, he was a member of a SEAL team--or whatever they were called then--who rubber boated it onto shore at Normandy (south end of Omaha/cliffs IIRC, where our Rangers scaled?) to final-preview gun emplacements and the various defenses, then signal back out to the gun ships the intel gathered-- positions, coordinates, strengths/weaknesses, etc. IIRC, they encountered and "dealt with" a few of the local defenders as part of this action. Wow - I was looking at and listening to history!... and as I say one of a handful in that history to have the "outlook" they did. Now for the life of me, I cannot recall his name and am using every search reference I can think of. Fascinating to hear his amazing account of that day, and I sure hope he lived to record his experiences in some fashion. I don't believe he had at the time of our meeting.

[damienph]

My Dad's older brother Harris was a replacement in Europe arriving sometime in the fall of 1944; he fought through the Battle of the Bulge and survived the war without being wounded. He was in the infantry, although I don't know what unit or what his rank was (he was enlisted). I just know that he had the CIB and a Bronze Star.

I also know that he thought that my Dad was nuts for making a career out of the military.