Some stories I heard from WW2 vets...What stories do you have?

[Hajo]

I am fortunate.  I still have my father who is 90 years of age.  He lived through a depression and served from 1942 thru 1945 in the 5th Army.
85th division 337th Infantry "Custers division" or Custerman.  They broke through the German divisions to free the 5th Army so that those
stuck on the beach head at Anzio could break out.

He started in North Africa and ended up in the foothills of the Alps in Italy.  He was awarded the Bronze Star and combat medal.
He spoke once to me about his experiences, one in particular.  I remember as a child while sleeping I would sometimes here a scream
coming from my parents bedroom.  I'd run back and my Mother would say, it's ok, you're father was just having a bad dream.

Short and sweet I found out how he won the Bronze Star.  Just the one time he told me and nothing else.  They were being shelled by
German 88s.  He and his good friend were on the bank of a creek trying to shelter themselves from the shelling.  They called the 88s
screaming mimis because of the sound of the 88 as it was coming in.  My father is now 95% deaf because of that war.  Anyway
a shell came in close, to close and went off and buried my father.  The shell however blew his buddy into the creek.  With 88s still coming
in he entered the creek, his buddy screaming and pulled him and himself into some sort of culvert.  While holding his buddy he noticed the bottom
half gone of his good friend.  His best friend died in his arms.  He doesn't have bad dreams anymore thank God.  But the worst thing that was
pressed into his mind that he told me .."Wayne....I couldn't believe the body parts in the trees when I came out after that shelling."

He never uttered a single word about his experiences in WWII after that.

[Fud]

I am fortunate.  I still have my father who is 90 years of age.  He lived through a depression and served from 1942 thru 1945 in the 5th Army.
85th division 337th Infantry "Custers division" or Custerman.  They broke through the German divisions to free the 5th Army so that those
stuck on the beach head at Anzio could break out.

He started in North Africa and ended up in the foothills of the Alps in Italy.  He was awarded the Bronze Star and combat medal.
He spoke once to me about his experiences, one in particular.  I remember as a child while sleeping I would sometimes here a scream
coming from my parents bedroom.  I'd run back and my Mother would say, it's ok, you're father was just having a bad dream.

Short and sweet I found out how he won the Bronze Star.  Just the one time he told me and nothing else.  They were being shelled by
German 88s.  He and his good friend were on the bank of a creek trying to shelter themselves from the shelling.  They called the 88s
screaming mimis because of the sound of the 88 as it was coming in.  My father is now 95% deaf because of that war.  Anyway
a shell came in close, to close and went off and buried my father.  The shell however blew his buddy into the creek.  With 88s still coming
in he entered the creek, his buddy screaming and pulled him and himself into some sort of culvert.  While holding his buddy he noticed the bottom
half gone of his good friend.  His best friend died in his arms.  He doesn't have bad dreams anymore thank God.  But the worst thing that was
pressed into his mind that he told me .."Wayne....I couldn't believe the body parts in the trees when I came out after that shelling."

He never uttered a single word about his experiences in WWII after that.

 

[SKJohn]

I have two freinds at church who are both near 90 yrs old who served in the Army Air Forces.  One was a top turret gunner in B-26's.  He never tells me any stories about combat, but loves to talk about things that took place back at their bases.  One I remember is that in the winter, they were living in big tents on forward bases in Europe (1944-45 winter?).  They had wood burning stoves in the middle of the tent for heat.   Once in a while, someone would throw a small cartridge in the stove during the night to scare the $#!+ out of everybody when it went off for a laugh.  One night, some idiot found what Eldred said was a 30 mm cannon shell and threw it in.  He said it blew the top out of both the stove and the tent, and that they froze their butts off for the rest of the night.

Another was a crewman on a B-25.  He was on the way to Europe when the war ended and never saw combat.  He swears that when they fired the 75mm cannon in the nose of the B-25, the aircraft flew backwards for a few seconds from the recoil.  I told him that I think it might have slowed down some, but if it actually stopped and flew backwards, it would have stalled and fell out of the sky.  He looked at me like I was an idiot and said "who was the one there - you or me?!" and still believes that it flew backwards after firing the big gun . . . 

[Fud]

A short story of a customer of mine who ended up as slave labor for the Germans. He "helped" build 262's in an under ground bunker. When the allies bombed the area, he said the walls rippled from the shock waves.

[Rich46yo]

I cant really remember the storys. The men most mostly reminanced instead of telling storys. But as a young man I drank beer in two places. One was the Amvets my Old Man tended Bar at. Another was a German joint, its owner a WW2 German army vet, where a couple times a month a bunch of German Army vets would gather to toast old comrades. They kind of adopted me when they learned I was fresh out of USAF and was a WW2 enthusiast. I'd even sing their marching songs with them when we got toasted on pints of Schoor Bier. They werent Nazis ; They had just been kids who got a Letter one day and found themselves in a terrible war.

While I dont remember stories I do remember how alike the two groups were. Hell some of the Yank Vets were even of German ancestry.

They were both hard working, law abiding, and had nothing good to say about war or killing. In fact they wouldnt even talk about it. They would only speak of places visited, good times had, and comrades lost. Neither ever bragged or spoke of hate towards their enemy. Neither group much liked Politicians either.

The Yanks knew the war had to be fought. Both sides knew it never should have been. I wish I had some of their storys to tell but I really dont remember them if they even told them in the first place. It was still an interesting chapter for a History enthusiast's life. Boy, back then those guys were all the age Im at now.

[Fud]

Struck up an awesome conversation with an elderly guy at 7-11. We talked about the pollen and sports (I'm not a sports guy but what they hey...) and a bunch of other stuff. He said after all I been through and still have a smile on my face. He was on Okinawa in '44 and he teared up and regained composure as I shook his hand and said thank you. He said out of 33 Marines, he was one of 3 that came back...he teared up again, regained his composure, we shook hands again and he walked to his car as I went back to mine, waved to each other and parted ways....

[Hap]

 

[expat]

My Grandfather was in Burma all through the war , he didnt tell me much , when i asked he allways told me he was the NAAFI tea boy .
One story i did get was he had been wounded (the tea mustve been hot )  and was in a field hospital and a guy in the hospital with him had a bad leg wound that was gangrenous( sorry if splet wrongly) so to cover the smell the rest of the guys had covered this man in cheap aftershave , this was done because Noel Coward was coming to visit ,any way Noel wandered the ward talking to some of the wounded but once he smelt the legg wound he took a very wide berth of the man ..My grandfather hated the Noel Coward for that till the day he died ....
   

[Brooke]

I've met and heard stories from several dozen WWII pilots thanks to The Museum of Flight in Seattle, which has panel discussions of WWII pilots every few months.  I've been lucky enough to meet and hear guys who have flown P-51's, P-47's, P-38's, P-40's, P-39's, F4U's, F6F's, TBM's, SBD's, B-17's, B-24's, B-25's, B-29's, Spitfires, Mosquitoes; guys who flew in ETO, PTO, CBI, MTO, a guy who flew in 303 Sqn at the end of Battle of Britain; guys who survived kamikazee attacks on carriers (such as the USS Bunker Hill); guys who survived getting shot down; guys who shot down an Me 262's; a guy who shot down one of the leading German night-fighter aces; a guy who flew in the Battle of Midway.  From among all of that are many amazing stories, some known to more people because there are books (such as by Bud Anderson), but a lot of stories that are only known to people lucky enough to hear the stories.

I'll tell a couple from the many.

------------------

One is a story from a B-17 pilot, and I apologize that I don't remember his name.  He was on a bombing mission over Germany, near the target, when there was a loud explosion, and his cockpit was instantly filled with condensation vapor thick enough so that he couldn't see.  The vapor cleared after a moment, but the blast (a flak hit) had knocked the bomber up into a steep climb, from which it stalled out (sort of like a hammerhead), and then went into a spin.  He checked the controls, which seemed to be working, and managed to get the plane out of the spin and back into level flight.  The controls and the engines still seemed to be working, so he continued on to target to release bombs, then turned the plane around.

Once on a heading back toward home, he got up to go survey the damage.  A flak round had scored a direct hit on the B-17, exploding in the radio compartment directly behind the cockpit.  There were no personnel in there anymore, and large portions of the fuselage were completely blown out.  There was blood and meat all over in the compartment.  Continuing back, the rest of the plane and crew were OK.

Since the plane amazingly still seemed flyable, they continued on a path back home.  They weren't with the rest of the squadron at that point, as a result of being knocked out of formation, and their airspeed was lower now because of the damage.  On the way back, they got jumped by German fighters and had a running battle with several over a period of about half an hour.  More crew were injured, and some engines were knocked out, but they were able to survive the attacks and make it to the Channel, where they ditched and got picked up by rescue boats.

There were two crew members in the radio compartment at the time of the flak hit, of course assumed to be dead.  However, a month or two later, they got a letter from one of them (the radioman) from a POW camp, and that crewman told his story.  The radioman said that, as the flak was getting heavier, he had been reaching for his parachute to put it on, and the next thing he remembered was waking up falling through the air -- with his parachute pack still grasped in one hand.  He buckled on his parachute, pulled the cord, drifted down into a farmer's field, and was captured.  He had injuries, but none that were life threatening.

-------------------------------

People usually think of the danger of being a fighter pilot as being the aerial combat or getting shot at by flak.  But weather was as deadly (perhaps even more deadly).  A couple weeks ago, I heard Abner Aust tell his stories of flying out of Iwo Jima, flying to Japan, having dogfights over Japan that would take him all the way down to the deck, then back up and fly all the way back to Iwo.

On the way out to Japan, the P-51's would form up on a single B-29 navigation plane, that would lead them to Japan.  These B-29's were especially helpful if there was bad weather on route.  On one occasion, Aust was with about 30 other P-51's formed up on a B-29 when they hit a dense area of thunderclouds that went up to about 40,000 ft.  The conditions were so bad that most of the P-51's lost contact with the B-29.  Of those approx. 30 P-51's, 27 went down, and of those, only 2-3 pilots were retrieved in their rafts from the ocean.  So, here was a squadron of P-51's that suffered horrific losses that day -- almost all of its planes -- as a result of weather.

[shermanjr]

one of my aunts father was a tanker in pattons 3rd army i think (he never really did like to talke about it much) olny thing he ever talked about how they didnt like their m4s becuase none of em could fit in em.

And i met a guy that used to work with my granfather at electric boat that was a prisoner from 36 to 45ish ( think the japanese captured him on okinowa then ) and he saw the  nueclar bombing of hiroshima. hes one of the most peiceful man i have ever met
 both of these men r still alive i believe

[Grayeagle]

My father was a forward radio observer for Patton's 3rd Army.
He useda laugh at 'Rat Patrol' and 'Combat' pointing out all the things they did wrong
You see ...him and his buddies *put* a 50 cal on their jeep.
They found a blowed up Sherman just after D-day, cut a peice of armor plate,
welded it under their jeep. Later they found a crashed P-47 and scrounged a wing gun out of it.
Well .. they thought it would be a great idea to mount it on their jeep.
So they did ..
..problem was, recoil was so bad they could only fire it in forward arc or the jeep would tip over.
Ask him how he knows. -grin-
It was a dream to hunt snipers in town with though,
..he said they would literally chop down a church steeple with it
while the 30 cal on their other jeep would keep the sniper's head down.

They lost the jeep in Germany near VE day ..ran over an anti-tank mine.
It blew all the wheels off, no one was injured except for major back aches
and headaches.. pretty much wasted their 50 cal jeep tho.

I asked him once if VE day ..the day Germany surrendered.. was a good day.
He said he was on the way back to company HQ with some friends in their 30 cal jeep..
..an ME-109 came in and strafed them ..he said bullets went down both sides of the jeep
but hit no one (guess the nose guns were out of ammo) ..
..as the 109 pulled up from his pass a quad 50 just over the next rise shredded it.
Peices of it landed all around them.
On VE day.

One of my Uncle's was on Guadalcanal in the early days ..1st Marines or some such.
He was sent home due to friendly fire incident.
His CO said to enjoy his time in the states before the Japs got there.
No one thought the Allies had a chance back then.

Another Uncle flew B-17's for the 8th AF then txferred to Military Airlift Command after the war,
..was killed in the Berlin Airlift.

They are all gone now.

I would have enjoyed very much offering a day at stallion51 flyin Crazy Horse.
He had enlisted and was assigned to the 56th fighter group when he got his draft notice.
Back then .. draft notice came first and off he went to Patton's 3rd.

He was a crazy bastage .. taught me to shoot and love the 30-06 Springfield ..his favorite rifle.

-Frank aka GE

[camnite]

On August the 16th, was alabama's 70th anniversary of her christening. Since I volunteer at the museum, i got to listen to some of the plank owners of the ship.
 here are three of them.
One of these men talked about how when she was doing her sea trials, she was to go from portsmouth to baltimore and back.  well, turns out, she ran aground on an unknown sandbar in the bay. They tried every which way to get off. full reverse, nothing. full forward, nothing. the brass decided to try to crab the boat off. this is where they get every available man on the main deckto port or starboard, swivel the main gun to same side, then when a whistle is blown, everyone and everything goes to the opposite side. the crew tried this for six hours.didn't move one iota. eventually,they had to call in a tug to get them off the sandbar and on thier way.

second story i heard was as the ship was sailing across the atlantic to scapa flow to help protect the convoys for the fake invasion of norway, the skipper heard stories of how the brits in the med were being attacked by stukas and the ships were being burned and sunk because of the paint in the interior. wouldn't you know it, the skipper told the crew to scrape every speck of paint out of the ship. the crew set to work and scraped and scraped the bulkheads, decks, and overheads. when bb60 arrived in port, her guts were shinier than a brand new stainless steel fridge. turns out that the paint wasn't the biggest worry on a ship packed with explosives, and was quickly repainted much to the crew's dismay.

lastly, as the ship had finally sailed to the pacific, doing escort duty, she sailed into a typhoon. the going got so rough that the bow would bury all the way to the #1 gun turret, raising the props free of the water. then as the ship would rise up, the bow would come free of the wave, burying the stern completely. this went on for 36 HOURS! can you imagine? 140,000 hp just freewheelin' in space, the smell of 2,000+ sailors hurling their guts out, the sound of thousands of tons of water washing over you, hoping that you rise again, the knowledge that vessels smaller than you were floundering in the worst of it and you can't do a thing about it? these men, truly are the greatest generation.

[Fud]

Small story....I did work for an elderly lady whose brother was a B29 pilot and was 3rd in line to drop a nuke on Japan in case the Japs didn't surrender. The war ended, he came home and died of a heart attack at 38 years old.

[cpxxx]

Interesting stories. I just finished re reading a book called 'Mussolini's Island' which decribes that the invasion of Sicily from the point of view of several people who were there, American, German, Italian and British. Some gruesome details which explains why so many men never talked about what they saw in the war.  Only now are some of them opening up.

I'm disappointed to say I never had a chance for a proper talk with a veteran of WW2. Not too surprising as Ireland wasn't officially in the war even though a lot of Irishmen joined the British forces. Maybe it was just as well as my Father was the right age and in one of the warring nations he would have either joined or been conscripted. He was lucky in that way.

 The only veteran I ever knew at all was my friend's Grandad who served in both WW1 and WW2 in the British army. He taught us to stand to attention and 'at ease'. But he died long before I was old enough to appreciate what he did.

So I have to rely on books describing their experiences. Which isn't quite the same.

[Blackwulf]

I make point to go over and speak to the WW2 vets when I see them, and most are willing to talk of their experiences.  I have heard some interesting stories over the years, and info about some battles that I had never even known of until then.  I have met an American survivor of Bataan who escaped the Japanese and stayed to fight on with the Filipino guerrillas and gathering intelligence, a Pearl Harbor survivor, the list just goes on.  Some stories have been funny, some horrendous.  The Bataan survivor told a number of stories of witnessing Japanese atrocities and war crimes, and not being able to do anything about it as he couldn't give himself away.

A supervisor I once had in a machine shop was a P-51 pilot during the war.  He talked mostly in generalities, especially how he liked to shoot up trains, and that late in the war they got to do a lot of ground attacks like that, which he loved to do.  He was a POW in the Balkans of all places.  I asked what happened, and with a laugh, he told me he shot himself down!  He was strafing a train and was fairly low, as he was finishing his pass and starting to pull back up.  The train's engine blew up, and a very large chunk of boiler plate went through his front nose, taking out his prop and his engine.  He had barely enough time and altitude to bail.  Once on the ground, he flagged down what he thought was a group of partisans, but it turned out to be Chetniks, who clubbed him in the head with their rifle butts and left him for dead.  He woke up in a German POW camp's hospital ward.