(09-03-2020 02:10 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  My grandpa was a pilot in the war. He spent 9 week flying C-47 transport planes over the hump into China. One plane in his unit got credit for killing a Japanese Zero when the Zero clipped his wing tip and got its propeller destroyed.

He started out as a 17-year old flight instructor. He lied about his age to get in, and did so well on the tests that they kept him stateside as a fighter pilot instructor. That ticked him off, and he got into so much trouble that they eventually transferred him to transport duty in C-47s. After a few months in India/China/Burma, he participated in the invasion of Southern France and towed 2 gliders and 1 flight of paratroopers. He test-flew a captured German ME-109 and an A-36, and by the end of the war he was assigned to a P-51 in Italy.

Funny story: he was actually in the air in Northern Italy when he heard of the German surrender. The bold SOB actually decided to land at a German air base to test if the surrender was real. The German Lt. General at the base, terrified of the local Italian population, surrendered to him and asked him what action he should take. My grandpa told him to stack all guns, knives, & ammo in the gymnasium and wait until Americans of equal rank could come to accept the surrender. Before taking off, my grandpa and his squad loaded up their planes with as many German weapons as they could, picking the nicest and rarest ones as souvenirs. He was soon reassigned to C-47s in Operation Green to ferry troops from the Italian theater back to the USA, and on each trip he'd take 2-3 guns with him and leave them with a girlfriend in Miami. He ended up with a nice collection of about 40 German firearms and a few knives.

My grandfather's story isn't nearly as good, but I like to tell it because I loved him very much and he probably is responsible for my love of history. He was a callup in one of the last draft classes and was 30 when he was in basic at Fort Jackson, SC. He was assigned to the Century (100th) Division, 399th Regiment, Company K. After a visit to Fort Bragg they shipped out from New York Harbor. He missed D-Day by 2 months, thank God!

He stayed with the 399th through the end of the war and was transferred to the 12th Armored Division, 66th AIB, HQ Company for his brief stent in the Occupation. Because of his age and that he already had 4 kids, once the war in the Pacific ended he was one of the first sent home.

His oldest child, my Uncle Henry, died from an abscessed tooth infection in October of 45, he was 10 years old. He basically died because the new wonder drug penicillin was in short supply in North America because it had been stockpiled for the casualty surge expected for Operation Olympic Coronet (aka the invasions of Japan).

My grandfather didn't know until he was back in the US in late November. The War Department censored my grandmother's letters between then so much that he mostly got black line letters from her for nearly two month. My grandmother couldn't understand why his letters back (that weren't equally black lined) made no mention at all of his son dying.

My mother, who never knew her brother, has his knitted sweater and leather football helmet that she recovered when my grandmother passed back in '96. My sister is working on preserving them.

I can't even imagine how he felt. War is Hell, but to lose your child and not even find out for nearly two months had to be one of the worst homecoming possible.

My grandpa doesn't talk about his service much. He was a navy gunner's mate on 4 different Liberty ships. I think he said there were about a half dozen naval personnel on board along with the merchant marines. A lot of his time was spent running between New Orleans and Brazil bringing coffee back to the states. Ironically he said more ships in their convoys were torpedoed on his trips back and forth carrying coffee than in his time in the Pacific.
On his last trip in the Pacific before the war ended they laid at anchor for 3 weeks hiding in the Philippine Islands loaded with kerosene and bombs. He said not a soul spent more than 5 minutes below deck unless they absolutely had to and they all slept topside every night.
The captain gave them the option of stopping in Hawaii after the war had ended to resupply, knowing they would run out of food about a day out of San Francisco. After a unanimous vote they sailed straight past Hawaii and into San Francisco having run out of food (powdered eggs) the day before.

(09-03-2020 03:41 PM)200yrs2late Wrote:  My grandpa doesn't talk about his service much. He was a navy gunner's mate on 4 different Liberty ships. I think he said there were about a half dozen naval personnel on board along with the merchant marines. A lot of his time was spent running between New Orleans and Brazil bringing coffee back to the states. Ironically he said more ships in their convoys were torpedoed on his trips back and forth carrying coffee than in his time in the Pacific.
On his last trip in the Pacific before the war ended they laid at anchor for 3 weeks hiding in the Philippine Islands loaded with kerosene and bombs. He said not a soul spent more than 5 minutes below deck unless they absolutely had to and they all slept topside every night.
The captain gave them the option of stopping in Hawaii after the war had ended to resupply, knowing they would run out of food about a day out of San Francisco. After a unanimous vote they sailed straight past Hawaii and into San Francisco having run out of food (powdered eggs) the day before.

Sounds like by the time he made it to the Pacific the Navy had cleared out a lot of the Japanese I-boats. The Germans liked "hunting" around South America and the Caribbean because most of the US Atlantic Fleet and the Royal Navy were busy in the North Atlantic. Could have been a lot worse on that route had they had more long range Type IX U-boats instead of the Type VII's.

(09-03-2020 02:47 PM)JRsec Wrote:  Your dad probably knew an old friend of mine (about 16 years passed) he was a navigator on B-24's that flew the raids over Ploesti. Different breed! I miss them.
For the ignorant putzes among us who hate America I have one question for them. If America is so bad how come the Japanese and Germans are now such good friends as are the English? We fought Germany twice, the English twice, and the Japanese and all of them are now allies. Even Viet Nam prefers our company to that of China. Seems to me that our former enemies like us. Taiwan is still cordial and we've betrayed them a couple of times. The only real enemy we have is China and the Dems love China. I think that says more about the Left in America than it does our great country.

My dad is gone too, so no way to ask him. And in his last few years, he couldn't remember much. One great story, there was a restored B-24 that visited Maxwell Field a few years ago, and my dad's old golfing partners rousted him out and took him. Painted on the side below the cockpit was a list of all the pilots who had ever flown that particular airplane, and turns out my dad was one of them.

As for today, we are in Cold War II and the enemy is China. If we don't wake up, we will lose this one.

I love reading these stories. Truly was the Greatest Generation. My grandfather served in the 79th Infantry Division, 315th Regiment and landed in France just a few days after D-Day and helped liberate Cherbourg. Unfortunately he died when I was only 4 years old so all the stories I get from his service are second hand stories my Dad has told me. He was in a heavy weapons platoon and manned a .30 cal machine gun and was wounded twice. Every time I see athletes kneel during our national anthem I always think of my grandfather and his generation that gave so much for this country and what they would think of this entitled country today. I hope as a nation we wise up and realize how fortunate we are.

Yep my father in law served in the Pacific on a salvage ship. If a sunken ship could be raised they did it. If it had cargo that could be salvaged they did it. If it was an enemy vessel with things we needed to know about they brought it up. Truly a different angle to the war.

My uncle was in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and the 3rd wave at Omaha Beach. I worked side by side with him from the time I was twelve until I graduated high school, and again my Sr year of college when my Grandfather was ill and the two of us ran the mills. On the 50th anniversary of D-Day my aunt asked him if they were going to France. It was the first time he ever mentioned D-Day. I knew he had served but didn't know much about it because he never spoke of it. He just looked and my aunt and said, "I crawled over so many of the bodies of buddies that day I don't give a damn if I ever see France again!" That ended the discussion about the war that evening.