WW II --- Memories from those you know or knew.

I didn't want to hijack another thread. Most of those who served are long gone but many of them told their stories to us.  Those stories may or may not have happened as told or retold by us but they are what is left of their experience. 


I was about 7 years old and recall at the kitchen table. My father telling my uncles about the crap that Hawaiian ladies were charging $5.00 for a "dance."  The whole concept was strange to me. 


My father-in-law was in Normandy on the second wave invasion. He got through whatever and made it to April. One day, he was riding alone in his jeep when it stalled. He was under the jeep when it when several pair of black boots were on the passenger side of the jeep. Our boots were brown.


He hoped to get out from under the jeep and maybe get his rifle and ---. No such luck. The rifle was on the passenger side of the jeep and out of reach.


The Germans reacted by raising their hands in surrender. He took them back to the post. He was rewarded for capturing a couple of German officers. He got a medal and a pass to Paris for R. & R.



Three of my uncles fought.  One, a radioman/gunner in B-24s was shot down twice and suffered frozen feet, a real problem in an unpressurized plane at 20000 feet.  He kept it all inside until the 1980's, when he got involved with airshow groups.  Then we found out that he watched  his buddies drown in the Adriatic one at a time after  the second crash.  The amazing thing is that he met my aunt in the hospital, where she was a nurse, and they were married for 70 years until he passed last year  at 94.  She is still going strong.  They raised 6 children, and their house was always full of fun and music.  In contrast my other uncles stayed quiet and withdrawn about what they went through. We need to remember this when we send 19 year olds into combat.  We owe them a lifetime debt.



My father (who passed away 30 years ago) served on the ship seen here, -the "USS Corregidor" escort carrier, in the Pacific. He was a Chief Petty Officer and “Aviation metalsmith” (he put the planes back together). He referred to the plane landings on deck as “more like a planned crash”.

His younger brother, my Uncle John was a fighter pilot on a different ship and remained a career fighter pilot through Korea and up until retirement. My family went to Uncle John’s full honors burial service at Arlington just two years ago. They had a full military band and his casket was carried on a caisson pulled by a team of horses. Our whole Irish tribe walked behind that thing like the freakin’ Kennedys. It was quite something which I wasn’t expecting. During the graveside service, I looked down and noticed that one of his new “neighbors” was one of the Tuskegee airman. Considering that Uncle John was just a wee bit of a racist, I had to smile at that.

Dad said that during the entire war he was never so afraid as the night of the typhoon during which he wrapped his leg around his cot pole and “held on for dear life”. A destroyer went down that night with all hands after the keel cracked. Dad also saw his “sister ship”, -the “USS Liscome Bay” torpedoed and explode so violently that it went down hissing into the sea in seventeen minutes. I have a lot of pictures from his navy days. He looks incredibly impossibly young. I also have his uniform and his ID card and some of his metalsmith tools.

After returning home with 5 battle stars, Dad built our first house single handedly in Red Bank at the age of 27. When it came to automobile purchases, he often declared that he would never buy what he referred to as “A Nip car” adding that “When I look at them, all I see is a Kamikaze coming at me”. He had no trouble however buying the early Volkswagens since apparently he held no grudge against the Germans. 

He seemed somewhat appalled or at least confused when my wife and I visited Japan in the 80's. I brought him back a 100 year old Japanese carpenter's tool which I hoped he might appreciate. He managed to accept it politely without enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, I also have my Grandfather’s (my Mom’s Dad) World War I diary (simply titled "World War Diary" ) from the trenches of France. He has one entry from almost exactly 100 years ago that describes “Water wagon shot to pieces. Horses shot from the hands of their drivers. Men and horses shot down in flocks”.

I was sitting in the cafe of the IKEA the other day, watching jet planes take off from the airport on the other side of the Turnpike and had the random thought that a mere 100 years ago my Grandfather, - a man I knew well, was watching biplane fighter aircraft fly overhead in France.


Thanks for sharing your stories. My own father served as a signalman in the navy in WWII. He didn't see battle, so got none of those stories. I know my mother's sister's husband was very anxious flying because apparently those miraculously quickly put together planes often had many mechanical or structural problems. My mother's boyfriend had been a gunner in the navy air whatever it was called. He was shot down twice. And on board of ship that was hit.  He, too, said the landings on aircraft carriers were diasterous. He had a friend, I only met at his funeral. She flew practice planes under the radar to make sure they weren't detectable. She would only drive a Cadillac. Said she would never ever consider buying a Japanese car. 


gerryl said:
 She would only drive a Cadillac. Said she would never ever consider buying a Japanese car. 

 Hot Dog Johnny's, Rt. 46 in Buttstown, was established as a small stand after WW II. They do no sell sauerkraut. Scully asked for "kraut" on a dog. 

"We don't have sauerkraut and we never will."


Scully proceeds to ask for kraut every time we go there so she can here the employees refuse her request.


steel said:
My family went to Uncle John’s full honors burial service at Arlington just two years ago. They had a full military band and his casket was carried on a caisson pulled by a team of horses. Our whole Irish tribe walked behind that thing like the freakin’ Kennedys.

 That's a thing that still bothers me - about my father's funeral. He was a combat veteran on a L.T.C. (Landing troop carrier? at Iwo Jima. He died on Christmas day and the funeral was during the week between Christmas and New Year. 

He received no military recognition. Even the local American Legion post could not get it together to send a couple of guys to read their ceremonial passage.




from Bob Roe:   My Dad hardly ever mentioned his war experiences until he was into his 80s.  I guess he realized that he was getting older and wanted us to know his war experiences.  The same happened with my wife's father and I think this was common to many WWII vets.   They just wanted to get back from the war and get on with their lives.  

I was totally astounded at some of the stories.  The one that strikes me the most is that he was in the Signal Corp. and flew secretly into occupied France to help the Resistance set up a radio system.  He said he only saw German soldiers when they came to a farmhouse to get a good meal and he and his partner hid in the barn.   He was flown out after a few weeks.  He said he could never tell this story when my Mom was alive since she would have been mad at him for unnecessarily risking his life.  They were indeed the "Greatess Generation." 

My dad's brother was captured at Battan and spent the war a a prisoner working at a factory in Japan.  He had many stab wounds and malaria, but somehow survived and lived till age 90.  



My uncle, still alive and going reasonably strong in his 90s, was and is an extremely tough (and difficult), up from the streets man.  He was in the Army in Europe post D Day and was involved in liberating camps.  My father said the one and only time he ever saw my uncle cry was when he walked in the door of their apartment at the end of the war.    


My dad was originally an airplane mechanic in the Army Air Corps, but was transferred into the Quartermasters Corps once the Army figured out he had had experience working in laundries. So, off they sent him to New Guinea (he hated leaving the AAC!). He would tell me stories about how, when they received food packages from home, they would tie them to ropes strung across the tops of their tents to keep the rats away from the food. He said the rats would try to climb on the ropes, but it slowed them down a bit so the guys could have a chance at enjoying some of their food.

He would also tell me how they couldn't keep ants and spiders out of the sugar, so they would spoon it into their coffee and wait for the critters to drown and then scoop them out and drink the coffee.

He also had some interesting stories about interactions with some of the native peoples of New Guinea - they would converse in pidgin English. Dad remembered how once when some of the soldiers were stung by a swarm of bees, the natives made some sort of paste with mud and leaves to put on the stings as a poultice and it took the pain away immediately. 

Dad did contract malaria while in the South Pacific, and would still have relapses when I was very little. 

Being in a laundry platoon, Dad didn't see combat, so his stories weren't stories of battles or heroism, just the slogging day-to-day bits and pieces of WWII.


My Grandfather was a combat medic in the Army, first in New Guinea and later in the Philippines.  He was entitled to a grave stone that noted his service but he wrote in his will that anyone who participated in ordering such a tombstone would be disinherited.  He never really spoke of his experience but he HATED the Army.



GoSlugs said:
My Grandfather was a combat medic in the Army, first in New Guinea and later in the Philippines.  He was entitled to a grave stone that noted his service but he wrote in his will that anyone who participated in ordering such a tombstone would be disinherited.  He never really spoke of his experience but he HATED the Army.


 My own father was too young for the war, but knew of his brothers' experiences that I wrote about above.  He was drafted after law school, in 1950.  He told the draft board that he was an attorney, so they made him a clerk/typist for two years in El Paso.  He, too, refused all military involvement in his funeral.  


My parents were invited to and went to the unveiling of the Iwo Jima memorial. He was in both the Army before the war and the Navy during the war. He hated the Army.


Formerlyjerseyjack said:


steel said:
My family went to Uncle John’s full honors burial service at Arlington just two years ago. They had a full military band and his casket was carried on a caisson pulled by a team of horses. Our whole Irish tribe walked behind that thing like the freakin’ Kennedys.
 That's a thing that still bothers me - about my father's funeral. He was a combat veteran on a L.T.C. (Landing troop carrier? at Iwo Jima. He died on Christmas day and the funeral was during the week between Christmas and New Year. 
He received no military recognition. Even the local American Legion post could not get it together to send a couple of guys to read their ceremonial passage.



 He was on LCI 880.  I only know that because I have his military records.  The only stories he ever told me were about non-combat antics.  Drunken fights, tattoos he got, more drunken fights, the sake incident, and the drunken fight that ended with a six month sentence  question 

He did have that picture of the Japanese prisoner they took.  The only thing  he would say about him was "he seemed like a nice guy."  He wasn't one to talk much about the actual war.

My other grandfather, jerseyjack's FIL, is less of a mystery.  

The following is from my mom's cousin's research and compiling of family history

Herbert was a radio sergeant in the Third Army.  He was involved in the campaigns in North Africa, Normandy (first day), France, and Germany.  His role was reconnaissance for the armored units, a very dangerous job.  He, a driver, and a guard would drive out in advance of the armor column looking for the enemy.  When they found them, Herbert's job was to radio the position and strength back to headquarters.  He came through the whole war without a scratch.

He had many very scary war stories of narrow escapes.  One night in France, Herbert was separated from his unit and had to spend the night in the forest with Germans nearby.  He could not go back to his lines because the sentries would shoot anyone coming in at night.  In another incident, a lieutenant ordered Herbert to sleep in a slit trench.  Herbert decided to sleep in the radio van.  That night a German mortar shell landed directly in the slit trench killing the lieutenant.  During the final days of the war in Germany, he was riding in the back seat of a jeep tending his radio when a burst of machine gun fire killed the two soldiers riding in the front seat.*  When the Americans would take a German town, the citizens would put out white sheets.  If the Americans had to retreat, they would throw stones at them.  

* My grandmother told us about this, and how he was physically unharmed, but covered in the blood of his buddies.  She recalls him suffering from what we would now call PTSD for years from this incident.  



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