Stories of Our Fathers

[KB_TheDireWolf 700]

[Wildcat111 8]

On 2014-01-30 at 2:03 PM, Andrewman26 said:

I'm quite surprised at ReachForTheSky's one, the fact that your granddad is the most documented soldier in WW1, and in most history books, scares me.

 

Meanwhile, my granddad served in Malaya during the troubles over there. Two years service with the TA of the Royal West Kents.

I only managed to get one story of that before he passed away a year ago; that he forced his entire platoon to be rebased, due to his relationship with a Malaysian woman.

I also have his medal for his service, I get tears when I look at that.

 

My Uncle has some photos of them up on Flickr, I might be able to link them.

My grandfather was in WW2 in Malaya as a guard of the British Government there when the Japanese invaded. He was only about 20 years old at the time. Last year The Malaysian Government awarded a medal to him of his service.

[Zent1s 3]

On 30.1.2014 at 9:38 PM, Ozypedial said:

My grandfather studied at medical university during the week, and as an AA gunner on the weekends...

Thats what i call a vacation-job

[ShinGetsu 1,484]

I'm French.

One of my great-grandfather was captured during the Battle of France as an officer, and got send into prisoner camps in Germany. He managed to evade. He got caught a second time, and was sent further in the east. He evaded again, and decided to directly go toward the east instead.

He eventually joined with the Red Army, and they offered to recruit him with a promotion in grade as they needed officers and a French one was valuable. So he got promoted Captain in the Red Army til the end of the war. And after that he stayed for a while in URSS to help French soldiers rescued by the Red Army to go back to France before returning himself.

For this he got both the Légion d'Honneur and the Order of Stalin.

Edited December 11, 2017 by ShinGetsu

[Hebime 1,637]

My father's dad and his grandfather (my great-grandfather) both lived in Tatabánya when the war reached Hungary. My grandfather was too young to be a soldier as he was born in 1933 and my great-grandfather didn't served in the army during WW2, but they both had to suffer the terrors of the Allied bombing raids in 1944. I managed to find an aerial photo of the bombing run too, it shows "Bánhida". Tatabánya was established by the unification of three villages: Alsógalla, Felsőgalla and Bánhida, but the area around the coal mines (the hills there were rich in coal) were called as Tatabánya at that time too. The Allies targeted the power-plant and the railway station, the later is just about 600 meters away from my current home so it's not really impossible that I'm sitting on an American bomb right now.

Spoiler

 

My mother's mom's father (my great-grandfather) served in the 6th Light Corps of the Hungarian 2nd Army in 1942 and he became a POW in Russia, however he managed to escape. His job was to take care of the horses and one day he saw a familiar horse. Turns out it was one horse from his former unit (I believe he was a hussar). One day he took this one specific horse and went for a walk and when the Russian guards asked him he said that he's taking the horse to water. The guards were too naive and nobody escorted him because he never tried to escape before. But this time he didn't come back. He jumped on the horse's back and rode home. Here, in Hungary he gave the horse back to the army and walked home to my great-grandmother.

 

Also, my mother's father (my grandfather) was a Levente in 1944 and he was forced to depart to Germany on train. There is a journal entry from my great-grandmother where she writes "My dear Ernő was taken as a Levente to Germany. God protect my darling!" However my grandfather and his best friend managed to jump off the train before they reached the border unnoticed and they both ran back home. They "deserted" at the age of 14. 

[uti8 11]

My grandfather was a born american who´s family decided to move back to Austria in the years between the world wars. Serving as a private from the beginning in Poland and then France he was to be sent to the german Africa Korps. However, his commanding officer intervened stating that he cannot leave the unit since he was their cook.

 

Later he served on the southern section of the east front where he lost all four of his brothers at Stalingrad. Being captured himself he returned home in 1946 as one of the first to get released by the Soviets.

[cashmeowsidehbd 1,269]

I've had the incredible good fortune to know my sister-in-laws father for over thirty years now. He is one of the very few US Navy enlisted men to have piloted a landing craft at both Normandy and Anzio just a couple of weeks later. He was transferred to the pacific theatre about a month before the war with Japan ended, and was going to be piloting a landing craft in the planned Japan home island landings that were cancelled when the war ended. The stories he has are incredible and very disarming at times, like the story of returning back to the landing ships after the first landing at Normandy with 3 inches of blood and vomit in the bottom of his boat. And reloading it with more 18 year olds to go back in. He made 4 landings at Normandy under fire and three at Anzio. He just turned 98, and I feel very, very lucky to have known him as long as I have.

[uti8 11]

Well Anzio was in 43, Normandy in 44.

[Mantelman 464]

Thats the problem with using time witnesses and their stories.

[ainz123 0]

hi everyone

I'm not a English native, so if i don't write fine pls excuse me.

 

im from Colombia and my grandfather served in the battalion 19 during the Korean war.  he was an officer ,

He did not enter combat because his frigate was in Korea as support, but he tells me that on one occasion he saw the fight with his eyes.

[FCBfreak85 56]

My grandfather was in the Red Army from 43 - 45 , he joined at the age of 17 or 18.

He was a paratrooper in the 2nd Ukrainian Front.

 

He told me, when he arrived to the training camp, everybody had to give away the personal bags with clothes etc., he never got them back.

 

After training, his unit took part at the Battle for the river Dnjepr , their first Jump out of the plane ended up with all Soldiers landing in the river

 

He later took part at the Battles in Hungary , he remembered being in the City of Szekesfehervar , later also in Vienna.  In Vienna he found a Chess-game-set made of Ivory, left in a Hotel.  He took it back to Moscow and I still have it today.

 

He told me, he saw many destroyed german tanks with camoflage, dead SS-Soldiers with their Black and Gold uniforms, laying on the ground with the arms outspread.

When he was in a fire combat, he was shooting with a PPsH, but more kind of spraying, he didnt see, if he did hit anything.

 

He remained for several more years in the Red Army after the war and left as a Sergeant , i think.

 

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

 

 

I also have a story about my Uncle.

 

He served in the soviet Army during the Invasion of Afghanistan,  from 79 and in the early 80's.

 

He told me, they were so afraid , that during the night, everybody was sleeping under the bed, because the Mujahedin could come during the night and kill them with a Knife.  Before the war, he never touched Alcohol, after the war, he became Alcoholic

 

Edited June 26, 2018 by FCBfreak85

[Rockyly192 15]

So my great granfathers story is a bit different.

In late 44 when Hitler declared the volkssturm (they just gave children a stg44 and a 2-3 week long training and sent them espacially against the americans because he thought they are so menthally weak they couldnt shoot kids, he was prooven wrong) they said to him he has to fight anyways because he is already 17 and they could hang him because of refusing the wehrpflicht (you had to fight from age 16 i think) so they said the waffen SS was so cool (like they told him what a joung man wants to hear) and he accepted the offer and was instantly made regret this desition, as he got thrown to a training camp in poland to learn the basics of a tank commander and gunner (they calculated at least 1-2 crewmembers will die in combat early) to replace them. At this time of year it had this painful winter and he described it as so cold, most of the trainees lost their fingers before they could pull the trigger ;). In the end of dezember he got into a Tiger 1 E tank crew as a radioman (funker) but the gunner died after 3 days on patrol because he was struck by a electricshock produced by the tank (lol). so they were only 4 in the end. the commander was just i think 22 years old, he replaced the gunner, he won a bet, that if he touches the turret ring and doesnt die, as they thought the turret ring had occured the shock, he can take the part as gunner. the driver was a frensh desertuer and already 40 years old, and the loader actually just 16 because he just had to load the gun and nothing more they thought a kid would be a nice choice of trust. I dont know where the location was, but they had to defend a church where the Gruppenführer was stationed so they drove up on a nearby hill ( about 1 mile away) what every strategic thinker would do, and waited another week. What pretty stupid was and in the end will be a bit fatal, the driver pissed in the 7.63 mm box everytime he was drunk, but often also in a full one thats why the commander got a time so angry he said he would shoot him if he does it again. After long time waiting, there was a radiocall, a spotter said he could see a russian armored division coming towards them, so the whole time was on highest alert. Grandfather told me that his father (my great grandfather i didnt know him personally) had the whole day wet pants because he was so terrified he pissed in his pants. So around midnight they were sitting outside the tank when they saw a tracer round flying directly in the curchentrance and the whole inside became outside (probably HE shell). Then there was 1 single dark and very loud siluette on the main road and you could see a lot of people due to the fire of the church surroudning it and using it as cover. (so to bring you the picture closer so you understand the situiation: from the hill the main entrance of the church was facing directly towards them and they could see perfectly into the main road.) As the commander was now highest man around in charge, he shouted to get in the xxxx tank and start it up. When my Greatgrandfather (dont want to type that everytime so lets call him Fritz, as i dont want to say his real name) told the loader frederick to load the koaxial first as the infantry can react faster than the tank, but he couldnt because as i told earlier the driver kept pissing in the mashinegun ammo boxes and so they froze up XD. So the commander slapped fredd, because he didnt know why he couldnt do it he was just so in panic and loaded an HE shell himself and pushed fredd into the side of the mashineroom. as my grandfather targeted the infantry (about 25-30 guys but he said he couldnt see it clearly) the commander, ludwig, told him to range 1200 meters, and then instantly spoke out the shooting order. At first fritz thought he wouldnt even see it so it doesnt matter if he kills someone its better than getting killed so he shot at the area in front of the church where he had last seen the infantry as black siluettes in front of the fire. He still looked thourgh the spotting and not the aiming sights (as they had better magnification) and saw the bullet tracer fly right in the middle and everthing around it catching fire. As he forgot his earplugs he couldnt even hear the next commands by ludwig because he had such loud ringing in the ears. Suddenly a mashinegun burst came at their direction ripping the head of ludwig a second later. As everybody was stunned of the shock the russians searched the tank by shooting bursts on the hill to see if somewhere the bullets deflect or sth. so thats what he thought they made because they were just firing across the whole open field. When the adrenaline kicked in with everybody fredd took a ap shell and loaded it in few seconds and he shot again at the 34, already burning of the HE shell (maybe the engine cought fire) and 20 meter high fire stream came out of the tank, lighting up the whole area. (all this happened within about 2 minutes or less). Then everything went quiet, as it seemed like the soviets still couldnt see the muzzle blast. they opened the commanders and loaders hatch and heard so many men screaming in fire and that even 1 mile away. They slept in the tank for over 2 days before they felt secure to drive to grading tranestation (one of the last still driven trainlanes in very east germany). back in nürnberg where fritz could stay for 1 moth as he recieved the eisernes Kreuz for braveness and the rest of the tank crew too (nothing worth back then as everybody got it just to make them feel like heroes and kepp fighting. Then when he thought the war was over he had to come back as they thought he would be able to destroy another enemy tank (the one he destroyed looked in the opposite direction, not as i wanted to say it was just luck im still proud). This time in january he got to the west front and stationed near the rhine where he stayed till the allies came. The final battle was at hist 18th birthday when they were druck as xxxx in the tank and suddenly a Ap shell hit the lower glacis causing the tank to be stuck. But as they were druck they thought it was a good idea to still stay in the tank because of heroism and such. a cromwell and one churchill came up at higher ground but not thinking it would be smarter to flank a unmanuvrbl tiger tank from the side instead from the front. fritz shouted load panzerbrechend (AP) and so did Frederick (as fritz was now the man in church because wehrmacht didnt want to spare a commander in the tank so the gunner takes chartge naaiisss idea) and he fired in the front plate in 30 degree angle of the churchill and he said he could see the projectile coming out the otherside (8,8 power) causing the tank instantly stop and just nothing happened while the cromwell kept driving to the side of them. Then the cromwell shot at the front upper plate of the tiger, and bounced of but there was still shrappnell at the inside (idk why) which killed the radioman and the driver instantly. fredd already loaded in the second shell but the turret traverse was so bad he nearly couldnt follow the cromwell flanking. as he suddenly reached the rear of the cromwell with his aiming sights, he couldnt wait another second (fear, panic etc i think) and shot right in the engine but no fire there (would be nice gaijin if that whould happen to my tiger sometimes!). thus the cromwell shot back a second later hitting the turret ring, bouncing off but again the whole turret ring turned to the inside and a bick piece of metal shrappnell going right through the right lung of fritz and he instantly fell in a koma. he woke up 2 weeks later in a luckily allied prisoncamp where they told him they had to put off his right arm (again idk wtf why the arm when the lung is it?!?! maybe they thought mehhhhh he killed one of our tanks and he is still sleeping so if took something of us we take something of him and just tell it was necesarry and troll him?) and that fredd got hanged because he stapped a officer in the prisoncamp. He died with the age of 35 because of his injurie getting worse..maybe the inner flesh started rotting or sth? (experts would be great to be seen here if you could tell me what happened?)

 

I hope you guys enjoyed my long story "short"xD. my grandfather, still living in germany, told me this story over a year and i just cutted it into a thousandst because there s love story and soome **** like that wich nobody is interested in in the middle. Tough im still very proud of my Great grandfather. he is a real hero for me. not because he killed someone nor because he was a nazi but because he has proofen more braveness and mens strenth than anybody i know in my entire life.

[PekoBG 3]

    Well , where to start ...

  Two of my great-grandfathers fought in the Balkan Wars and World War 1. One of them got killed in action , the other survived and was highly decorated , including the medal ''For Bravery'', and back then they weren't giving those medals lightly. As a kid i sold the medals , which is something i will never forgive myself for as long as i live. I guess my only excuse is that i was stupid kid that simply didn't know any better...
  My grandfather, after finishing school enrolled in the Officer Academy , and finished it just before the start of World War 2. After finishing he was automatically given the rank of Junior Lieutenant ( or Second Lieutenant ), and given the command of a light mortar company. When Bulgaria entered WW2 , there was not much fighting up until the soviets came and we switched sides... After that he fought with his company in support of the soviets and against the germans in Yugoslavia and all the way up to Austria. After the war he continued service with the Army in now communist Bulgaria and eventually rose to and retired as a Colonel.

  My father chose a career as a brain surgeon, but since those were the cold war times he was given a rank of reserve captain. All experienced surgeons and doctors in general were given relatively high rank since they , in case of a war , would serve at military hospitals , and we don't want them to be ordered around by corporals and privates , now do we?
 I myself could not serve in the army since i had ( and still have ) health problems. Still , if my country is threatened , i will do what i can to protect it... As I use to say : '' As long as i can hold a gun and push the trigger - i'm not completely useless. ''  
  Since my grandfather died when i was young , i sadly couldn't talk to him about his experiences.But recently i found some photos and had them scanned. I'll share some of them :.
  Also , i want to thank all the other guys that shared stories and history... I found them fascinating.
 
 

[DovahFer 3]

I should have entered into this forum before, this thread is gold.

[SgtHanzMullerSW 1]

My grandfather where in some black ops program (swedish soldier in the I19 pluton) he where in norway and finland and blowing up bridges betwene the borders, he delivered weapons explosives (protyl) to the finns and norwegians fighters.

 

1 time he was attacked on swedish land by an russian plane that dived at him wile he was skiing whit some classafied papers to his supperiurs and the plane was a few m abow his head when he dived on the ice and he saw the plane fly towards the finn border and get shot down.

Edited June 25, 2020 by SgtHanzMullerSW
Forgot a thing

[METTATON6662 4]

My grandfather and great grandfather werent something special. The first was a pe 2 gunner who luckily survived the war without his plane being shot down and then quitted the army, while the other was a mechanic at one of the airfields near kursk, where my russian relatives live, and ironically while he was the one not fighting but also he was the onlyone to die in a bombing. Nothing else to tell about my ancestors sadly

Edited November 14, 2020 by METTATON6662

[Rossenbury 0]

Hey I'm new to the forums but been around in warthunder since 2015, I was looking around the forum for things to see and I saw this topic and thread, so I decided to share a story of my pap pap who served in the army stationed in the Philippines during and after world war 2, it's rather short but interesting. After world war 2 he was still stationed at a base in the Philippines to stand guard, after months there they shipped him to an island chain called Enewetok atoll and him and other soldiers sat behind a concrete wall and watched them detonate it. He said that he could see the skeletons glow through the people sitting infront of him when it detonated and that stuck with him. After the nuclear detonation, all that was left on the island was 1 tree. Sadly, he passed when I was really young and the stories I have about him are told to me from my mom.

[TheNexonRegime 429]

Before I say anything, I have never met the man I will talk about as he died long before I was born and he isn't all that well remembered by my grandmother as she was a child when the war was raging, so I do not know how valid this is as we don't know much, but here goes.

 

During WWII I had a relative (German) that was drafted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the Eastern front to fight the Soviets, (If I remember correctly) he would send back letters detailing what happened. I don't know when or what happened but the letters stopped coming, so we can only assume he died or was captured, but either way he was gone. Again, I don't know how valid this is given how young my grandmother was.

[Hobbes___ 45]

o7

[Deirdre_Ambre 4,164]

One day after the 88th birthday of the French air force, the Capitaine H. Wolos, my grand father in law did his last journey to the sky.
I gathered a pack of pictures he had from his training as a pilot in the United States to the airfield in North Africa.

Here is a link (I hope will work).

https://sites.google.com/view/souvenirs-h-wolos/album

There are also some parts of the little book he wrote about his life, comments are in french.

Feel free to browse in all parts of the mini site.

[Ghostmaxi 873]

Well not a story of my Father, but by sadly deceased grand uncle. Günter.

He allways told me storys of his childhood, when the rare times i was at his place (he lived far away) one short story showing the harsh of the war under the civilians was(of course in german)

He was working with his farther on the fields. One day his farther asked him, if he knew what day it was. He answered after a short thought no. His farther answered "its your birthday" 

After that the work continued.

[LeChance 926]

My Father did not serve, a bit too young I believe, youngest in his family, same as my Mother. But every single Uncle I had, on both sides, did serve, in the US Navy, every one of them. They never spoke about the war, and only reason I knew they even served was at one point, rummaging around the farm house my mother grew up in SE Colorado, I found a Japanese helmut and bayonet up on a shelf in a closet. I took them out and asked what they were & who they belonged to and was told a short story how all my uncles were in the war, but that was it. Many years later, we got a letter from one of my aunts out in Fresno, California which contained a newspaper clipping about my Dad's brother, my uncle Merle.  He was there in Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, the article went on to describe in some detail, how he had saved 3 other sailors that day in all that chaos and had later received the Purple Heart for his actions that day. It was quite the story and I was really amazed no one had ever told it to us before. But that's how they were, the "Greatest Generation" . . . they did not brag, or do the "look at me! Look at me!" thing. They just did what needed to be done and went on with their lives. I later found out, as I was older and just asked some of them about their experiences, that all had served in the PTO fighting the Japanese and only about half saw much action. But they did their part, they weren't in it for the glory. There was also a Japanese Interment Camp near my mother's childhood home, literally out in the middle of nowhere and it was never talked about much either. I just remember my Grandmother saying it was a terrible thing to have out there like that. War and the things that people do to each other are not pretty things in many cases and that's too bad. I don't play this game for any "nationalistic" reasons nor am I infatuated with particular war machines. I just just like the game part of it and the pew pew pew . . lol. I do not care where you are from or where you sit when are playing, if you are on my team I will help you if & when I can. If you are on the red team . . ..  Imma shoot you . . .  and that changes every game.

[SnapTite 13]

This is a war story that I want to share about my Dad. Funny thing is, there is no war about it. Okay, my Dad was drafted for the Korean War. After I had one great-uncle get 13 tanks shot out from under him in North Africa before becoming a guest of the Wehrmacht, another great-uncle survived the Bataan Death March and his brother, who joined up the day after the Pearl Harbor attack and is one of only 2 survivors of his entire company of 200 Iowans, he wasn't a volunteer. Anyway, he was the chief baker of the cooks platoon and had a restless reputation. One day, he sees some troops playing baseball and he decides to join the game. Well, when the game was over, he looked at his watch and decided it was about time to start making dinner. On his way to the mess hall, a Major walks up to him and tells him he just made the army baseball team. He didn't even know it was tryouts! His unit shipped off to the Korean Peninsula to fight the Korean War while he spent the war playing baseball.

 

Of course, you can't spend time in the military ONLY playing baseball so his additional duty was MP. Specifically, their job was to go across the country and retrieve AWOLs (Absent Without Official Leave). He and his partner made a reputation for themselves as the ONLY ones who NEVER got in a fight with their charge. He told me his technique was like this. He and his partner would go to the town sheriff or chief of police (they didn't hunt them down, just retrieved them once discovered). They would be told the AWOL was in such and such bar (they were always in a bar). They would go to the bar in civilian clothes and meet the individual, get friendly, buy them drinks, get them snot-slinging drunk. Then, they would go into the restroom, change into uniform, come out and arrest him. They couldn't possibly fight with THEIR BEST BUDS! By the time they were sobered up, they were already depositing them in the brig. Definitely can't get away with that these days!

[xMethuselahx 2]

My Great Grandpa served on board the USS Iowa; I think it was Ill have to ask him about the time he served on it and if he went into battle 

On 12/07/2022 at 07:20, LeChance said:

. If you are on the red team . . ..  Imma shoot you . . .  and that changes every game. LMAO dude that's priceless 

 

[cortbowan@psn 225]

So this is a story from my Dad and it's the only story he ever shared with me on this topic. 

 

This goes back to late 1944, early 1945 in the village of Wansleben am See in Germany. 

My Dad was very young at the time, ~6 years old. 

 

The villages at the time had cobblestone roads and horse drawn carriages, where what the horses dropped would be collected by the kids to dry it and burn it in the oven or were the dirt was eventually washed away by the rain.

He told and showed the location where he was walking down the road on a little hill with his mum and how he witnessed a cart with several barrels of soup crashing over. The people that were pushing the cart hurried to get the barrels upright again and how they were down on their knees scooping the liquid from the side of the cobblestone road into their hands and back into the barrels. The same road the horses dropped on and where the locals would empty their laundry water on. 

 

The people were slave labors from the KZ Buchenwald and were trying to get the little food that was made in the village to the satellite camp. 

 

Over 60 years later the story still moved my father to tears to have witnessed such distress and despair by the people who tried to preserve the little food they were given. 

 

I know this is not a military story, but nevertheless important to remember.

 

Unfortunately there is not a lot of information on the KZ Wansleben, but here is a Wikipedia link, German only though:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZ_Wansleben 

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by cortbowan@psn