Author Topic: Old photos...... (Read 338 times)

hazed- · « **on:** February 05, 2002, 08:35:55 PM »

My mother was helping my grandmother clear out some old stuff from her house and chanced upon an old photo of what appears to be a group of soldiers posing for a photo dated 1935 at Andover army camp

She went on to explain that it was a picture of one of her mums brothers who died in the war. At dunkirk he was recommended for bravery for his helping of the trapped soldiers during the evacuation.
Basically he held a rope in the freezing waters and helped guide injured soldiers to the boats and ships under fire constantly.He then went with several others to help collect more of the seriously wounded inshore and was shot and killed by a sniper.

What was truelly strange was how similar to me he looked! I can honestly say it gave me quite a shock looking at him.

The thing is, this was one story my nan had never recounted to me or my mother before and it made both my Mother and I think it was really terrible that we know so little of what our family had given and sacrificed to the war (and it made me want to grill my Nan like the police in the movies over our family history!!

).
Im now the owner of the picture which i will treasure and keep for the future.
I'll get my friend to scan it so i can show you their old uniforms and the 'look' of the bunch of friends at a time when the war was just beginning.

Dont know why i posted, just thought id tell you all.

If my grandmother survives the interrogation (hehe) on our family history and anything more comes up on WW2 ill fill you all in

~Caligula~ · « **Reply #1 on:** February 05, 2002, 09:14:59 PM »

very nice

funkedup · « **Reply #2 on:** February 05, 2002, 11:48:26 PM »

Wow Hazed that is amazing.
to your great-uncle. Your family should be proud to be related to a man like that.

I had a similar experience. My dad's father didn't do anything so heroic but he fought in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. After he passed away my dad and my uncles found a lot of photos of him which hadn't been seen for 40 years or so. It was weird to see him as such a young man, and everybody pointed out that I looked a lot like him when he was my age. It's pretty eerie to see an old military picture and basically see yourself staring back at you.

Dead Man Flying · « **Reply #3 on:** February 06, 2002, 01:17:35 AM »

My grandfather looked almost exactly like me when he was young... stocky build, 5'9" or so. Looking at pictures of him when he was in the Marines during WW2 is like looking at me being there.

Thankfully, he's still around today, probably a mirror image of what I'll look like when I'm 76 years old. I'm proud of what he's done, moreso than he is, and to honor him my wife and I have decided to name our first child (arriving around April 29th, 2002) after him. I honestly have never seen him happier than when I told him that news.

-- Todd/Leviathn

bikekil · « **Reply #4 on:** February 06, 2002, 01:28:01 AM »

funkedup · « **Reply #5 on:** February 06, 2002, 02:20:21 AM »

That's awesome Todd.

Sandman · « **Reply #6 on:** February 06, 2002, 09:12:57 AM »

Same sort of deal with me... I could see other family members in my brothers and sisters, but I went through the earliest part of my life wondering who it was in my family that I resembled.

That is, until I joined the Navy and they cut off all of my hair. Then, it was much clearer.

My bootcamp photos look strikingly similar to my grandfathers army pics. He was a parachuter during WWII.

qts · « **Reply #7 on:** February 06, 2002, 03:05:33 PM »

Funnily enough, I've just been reading about Dunkirk. Goering wanted to give the Luftwaffe the glory of finishing off the Allies so Hitler held back the tanks. Had he not done so, the Allies would not have escaped.

miko2d · « **Reply #8 on:** February 06, 2002, 03:45:39 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by qts
Funnily enough, I've just been reading about Dunkirk. Goering wanted to give the Luftwaffe the glory of finishing off the Allies so Hitler held back the tanks. Had he not done so, the Allies would not have escaped.

This is just about the most stupid explanation I've ever heard, no offence to qts. What idiot came up with it?

How was luftwaffe supposed to finish allies off? By shooting each one personally from an airplane? How about in trenches and bunkers, at night? How do you take someone prisoner from an airplane?
What happened to their notorious doctrine of using aviation as a flying artillery support for ground troops that served them so well?
Luftwaffe itched to sink the evacuating vessels but how would the tanks prevented that?

Some claim that the tanks were held of for tactical consideration and what happened to LW is left to guesses.

Since Hitler never wanted to have a war with England in the first place, the most reasonable explanation is that he expected England to sign peace after the France did. So he let brits evacuate in order not to anger them.
If he knew that they would persist in war, he would have destroyed their troops and according to Liddel Hart (the most notorious british strategist/historian), he could have mounted an invasion with no troops available to repel it.

miko

Saurdaukar · « **Reply #9 on:** February 07, 2002, 11:42:48 PM »

My grandfather passed away about a year ago - bout a year and 3 months actually - anyway... when I went back "home" to Chicago for the funeral we found ALL SORTS OF stuff from his days with an Engineering unit in Europe during the war! Dogtags, a DoD 1944 English/German traslation dictionary and more pictures than you can imagine! Great one of him and a buddy holding up a Nazi flag with their M1's on the bridge his unit built over the Rhine! (the first bridge across Rhine - forget the unit number) =D Wanna know the kicker? He had given a bunch of WWII stuff away to my cousin years ago (Sergeant stripes, pay stubs, etc, and reportedly... ::gasp:: A LUGER!!! NOOOO!!!!!!!!).

Mazz/Mike
<-TFC->

Saurdaukar · « **Reply #10 on:** February 07, 2002, 11:43:48 PM »

Oh, and QTS is right.

Mazz/Mike
<-TFC->