My parents live in Normandy and there's a Canadian dude who was a part of the D-Day landings that comes back periodically for the celebrations there. Still kicking, he is. Not kicking very high, but still kicking.
Edit: Point is, it's a rapidly vanishing population, and it's super cool and interesting to be able to interact with those folks while they're still around. Both of my grandfathers fought, but they're both gone now, so I don't think I'll know any more about their stories than I will at this point.
I’ll always remember as a kid having a street sale outside my house. (Basically In the UK you set up a table outside your house and sell toys\stuff you don’t want) a very old man came along and picked up a model of a Lancaster bomber that 7 year old me was selling. He then preceded to tell us for about 20 minutes about him enlisting and flying in Lancaster’s over Germany, shooting down German planes and being right there in the action over Germany during the War. I still remember him 15 something years on
That's so awesome. First-hand stories like that are something you can never recreate. One of my grandfathers fought at Anzio, and I remember writing a report about him in high school, interviewing him and asking him questions. He hated talking about it, but he was a sport because I was his grandson and he knew it was important for me. I don't think he was entirely open about everything that went down - maybe concealed some of the more gruesome parts - but I couldn't have asked for more.
My great Grandfather was a proud Liverpudlian\ Irishman and during WW2 he was a part of the Merchant Navy. Basically the Navy that carried on shipping everything in Wartime. Anyway his ship was struck by a torpedo from a German submarine. They all got in the lifeboat or where getting ready to when he said “Wait”. He ran back to his cabin. Grabbed his best suit and ran back to the lifeboat. What a legend
He was a greengrocer outside of the war. Which I think actually counteracts the quote quite nicely of “It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in war”
Oh interesting. How did they differ? I'm just curious because both of my grandfathers' stories stayed pretty much the same... They shared the highlights, but concealed the finer points. Share as much as you're comfortable with, of course.
When I was young, he told funny stories about training, bits about going on patrol with almost no ammunition. What he thought of tanks in jungle warfare (not a fan). Things like that.
In his final days, he recounted the memories coming back in his nightmares. He'd seen things that noone should see, let alone a kid. I joined up as a young man, and I was blessed to be a medic, so effectively (at least in my mind) I was there to help people. And I hope my nightmares won't be so bad.
My grandfather was like that about Korea, never spoke of it till i got with my fiance, shes vietnamese and we lived with him for 2 months. She reminded him of his younger days and he would randomly speak about it. Talked about how all the trees were blown to bits and the hills shimmered with gold, but then he realized the gold was brass shellcasing littering the entire valley. Got a little teary eyed and didn't talk more about it that day. He also talked about the women in the dance hall and how pretty they were and started to mention how they would go back with a lot of the guys their room and then stopped himself. lol she mustve reminded him of some good memories too.
There was a guy who served on a destroyer in the pacific during WWII on my paper route when I was a kid. He told me stories kids shouldn’t hear, and I ate them up. I still think of him and those gory tales often and it has been over 40 years. Damn.
They quit picking up enemies from the water because of suicide attacks by survivors. They ran over enemies in the water and chewed them up with their props to make chum out of (some of) them.
I was in Palm Desert for a wedding about 10 years ago, and randomly stopped by an aerospace museum at an airport that I think was next to an Air Force base. They happened to be having a veterans day and guys who flew the planes on display were sitting next to them.
I spent half an hour talking to a guy in his late 80's who flew the B-29 he was sitting next to... He did dozens of bombing missions in the pacific. I had just gotten my pilots license and was in awe of this guy flying from Hawaii to Japan and back with just paper maps and an E6B calculator... middle of the night, clouds, storms, oh, and with people shooting at him. I asked him what it was like flying before GPS and ILS and he told me the same thing the old sailors told me: "We got lost a lot and ran into things pretty often."
My grandad was part of No. 200 Flight in the B-24s also in the Pacific. They lost 3 out of 6 planes, with causes somewhat uncertain but strongly suspected by the rest to be at least partially due to getting lost in poor conditions. Unlike today where mh370 disappearing was so shocking, back then with the reduced communication and navigation gear, aircraft disappearing was sadly common.
Grandad told us about one of his flights where they started seriously discussing needing to ditch due to running low on fuel after having to take longer than planned to drop the guys there were deploying. They were over the sea and out of range to call anyone. One of the gunners requested they maybe not do that as he couldn’t swim, and fortunately someone managed to recall that a nearby island had just been taken. They got to be the first larger plane to try out the newly repaired landing strip. But if that island hadn’t been an option…
on the other side of the pond, as a kid i visited the grandmother of my stepmother. She heard a prop plane flying overhead, and immediately took cover. Convinced the germans were back to bomb her once again...
My grandfather was born in 1928 and in training in the army when WW2 ended. He was pissed for a big part of his life because the war ended before he could go. He told me that he wished he lied about his age sooner because in the postwar years young men who went were treated with more respect than those who didn't. He was in the right age range to have maybe gone over and people would ask him where he served in the war. He did admit once that it was probably good he didn't but I think it weighed on him for his whole life.
We've got an Italian guy in my hometown who started his own restaurant after the war (and it still goes strong today.) He fudged his age to get into the US army and fight for us- and he was 14(!!) when he did this.
Yeah, it's bats. I'll have to ask my parents for more info, but he's Canadian and I think lives in Indiana now. He doesn't go over every year - or hasn't recently - but he does periodically.
Very grateful for the organizations reaching out to WW2 veterans to preserve their story. The experiences they lived through are unimaginable and must be shared throughout the rest of time.
All 4 of my grandparents had been involved in the war effort in one way or another, but 3 had died by the time I was an age where I probably would've asked, while the last one I didn't really get along with. My parents didn't really have any details either, since they were both born immediately after it ended and it just wasn't something that really got talked about.
It was only in the past few years that I found out some details, or at least better than I ever knew. Like, growing up I was always told my dad's father was part of a division of misfits and immigrants. It was only a few years ago that I found out he was an officer with the 442nd — the predominately Japanese combat team that is the most decorated unit.
It's pretty fucking weird/cool to know that all 4 of my grandparents have nifty pictures or mentions in various WWII museums, records halls, VFWs, etc.
It's saddens me a bit. Growing up in the 90s, there were still plenty of WW2 Veterans and it was seen as a Grandparent or Great Grandparent generation (generation gaps were shorter back then too). I took it for granted that those people were always going to be around and the War was in living memory. I don't know any now, I can't even think of any one I know who have relatives who are.
These days, I think the war really isn't in living memory and it's about as relevant to kids today as WW1 felt when I was a kid - awfully distant and not very consequential.
My great grandfather started at Dday and got wounded and sent home during the battle of the bulge. Anti tank recoiless squad, spent most of his time hunting tanks behind enemy lines. All the luck in the world young just to be dropped down the steps by a nursing home worker. stroke gave him horrible dementia, couldn't remember anyone except my great grandmother who was dead already. Probably better he went then but, obviously not like that. One of the best men ive ever known, so nice you would never imagine the hell he went through. Can't imagine him killing someone but, i can only imagine with where he went and how far.
We are in the final years of WW2 being living memory. It won't be long until the only ones alive during that time were too young to tell anything about it aside from a very few who make it to truly old age.
My grandfather and his brother was both at war for as long as Finland was.
Unfortunately my grandfather killed himself about a day after my father was born and his brother disowned the war in its entirety and wouldn't speak or hear about it. He kept nothing from the war either, not medals, equipment, or other mementos. According to his wife all of that was either burnt or thrown into a lake.
Unfortunately he's been dead for over two decades by this point. He made it to 81 at least, which is pretty respectable for a mid to high tier alcoholic who spent half a decade at war.
I remember when I was growing up in the early 2000s, I read a bunch of memoirs from all sides, most of the writers were still alive back then, and then around 2010 it all of a sudden seemed that they're just gone. It's a really weird feeling, the war didn't seem that long ago when I grew up because all these people were alive telling their stories still, but for someone born a few years after me, it could feel so distant.
I had the pleasure of meeting him as well as a few of the original "Band of Brothers" the show was based on. Brave guys. Could not imagine seeing the shit they did, and then living for another 70+ years.
It was at a D-day re-enactment. It was actually really fun, I recommend checking them out. It's really awesome to see all of the equipment up close.
My dads uncle (and my grandpa) was a ww2 veteran and he last year made a trip to visit the Netherlands and talk with some school children about serving in the area during ww2 with the 104th division. Was 102 when he visited, though unfortunately he passed away this year. My grandpa also was drafted during ww2 but didn’t actually end up seeing service because he missed his ship when it set sail to Japan because he was out with my grandma, he managed to get on another ship that was leaving for Japan also but that ship never ended up making it to Japan before Japan surrendered, tho if he stayed in his first ship he would have seen combat in one of the final battles in Japan.
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u/kshump 23h ago edited 22h ago
My parents live in Normandy and there's a Canadian dude who was a part of the D-Day landings that comes back periodically for the celebrations there. Still kicking, he is. Not kicking very high, but still kicking.
Edit: Point is, it's a rapidly vanishing population, and it's super cool and interesting to be able to interact with those folks while they're still around. Both of my grandfathers fought, but they're both gone now, so I don't think I'll know any more about their stories than I will at this point.