War Films : Any family history in WW2?

Any family history in WW2?

Any posters here want to share their ancestors history serving in WW2? I have an interest in this era, my grandfather served in Burma as did my great uncle. You got any items left to you from their service and if so what?

Re: Any family history in WW2?

I grew up in a household where someone RAAF New Guinea SW PAcific...so stories about that were never in short supply, and it probably led to or fed into my ongoing interest in anything Pacific War/Japanese..

Or Burma too, gone into that a bit..the old Commando Comic stories which were not either ETO or North Africa, were usually re Burma..
I've read Slim's book, I think, or I have it..and 'the Johnnies"...and 'Tank tracks to Rangoon" I think it was..re tanks in Burma.

the old 70s history series narrated by Laurence Olivier, one of it's best ever episodes was the one about Burma..and the Japanese 33rd division vet describing how he used to curry rats..

Re: Any family history in WW2?

I read those commando books when I was a kid and still have a load in a box somewhere. Also got a book on the Chindits to read when I get round to it. The best of all I got my grandfathers war diaries to read through, interesting enough he was a movie buff and states which ones he saw with a rating to them.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

yeah, there are a few on Burma..'the Long and the short and the Tall " a lot of people think is Burma, but may be a little hard to pin down exactly when and where in setting..

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Great Grandfather in the Boer War and WW one. Both Grandfathers in WW Two with an even ten uncles etc in WW2. 3 in the RCN, 3 in the RCAF, 1 in RAF, 2 in Canadian Tank outfits and I in the Infantry. Two of them, RCAF, Lancaster crewmen, never came back. One tanker was captured in Italy. My dad and two of his cousins were in Korea during that conflict. One cousin served in Afghanistan.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

"Yesterdays Enemy" with Stanley Baker set in Burma.

My Great-Great Uncle was in the Royal Marines Chatham Light Infantry and landed at Anzac Cove.He was listed as missing in April 1915 just two days after landing and his name (Neale) is on the memorial at Cape Helles.

WW2-My English Grandfather was a Captain in the Royal Engineers and served in Italy from 1944.My Italian Grandfather was too old to fight in the Army and was sent to work in Germany as a warehouse foreman.He came back to Italy 3 months before the Allies landed at Salerno whereas many of his workmates remained in Germany and were never seen again.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

that was the one I was trying to think of!

Re: Any family history in WW2?

and "Purple Plain" of course, even though it is not really an attempt at a movie about the ground war in Burma itself.

Re: Any family history in WW2?


My Great-Great Uncle was in the Royal Marines Chatham Light Infantry and landed at Anzac Cove.He was listed as missing in April 1915 just two days after landing and his name (Neale) is on the memorial at Cape Helles.



were they the ones who landed on the coal barges converted to LCIs, they might have been named after Arthurian knights, Tristram or Galahad or something?

I think some were also, like, Lancashire Fusiliers, or something?

that landing if particular episode I'm thinking of, was pretty disastrous initially, so was the French one...the casualties were far higher than the Australians suffered in their initial landing, was impression I had..

Re: Any family history in WW2?

na, I've got that all jumbled up a bit,
"River Clyde" was the coal-barge/modified two-bob landing ship, (needed another boat to moor between it and beach to act as stepping sone anyway ) , Hampshires, Munster Fusiliers and Dublin Fusiliers at V-beach,
Lancashire Fusiliers at W-beach,
Hunter-Weston the overall commander,
all a bloody shambles anyway, lol..

Re: Any family history in WW2?

We`re trying to find out some more information and must admit I didn`t realise that small British forces landed at Anzac Cove as well;I thought perhaps he might have been on one of the initial raiding parties sent to check damage on some of the Turkish coastal forts after the naval bombardment but details are sketchy.I`ve always wondered that if the Naval assault had coincided with the landings rather than preceding it(providing ample warning to the Turks)a different result might have occurred.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

no, they made proper landings and had a proper campaign, as did the French..although the French probably showed the least inclination to actual dynamic movement, once ashore and encamped.

I'd seen things long back describing in detail the non-ANZAC landings V and W beach for example, but it is fairly complex and long back and thus I had the individual stories mingling.

See the Australians and New Zealanders between them were actually only about 15-20% of total allied casualties for the duration..which I think were in the 80000s total, and thought to be about same on Turkish side.

Like a lot of other things in Ww1 and WW2 campaigns, there is a lot of mythologising..

Re: Any family history in WW2?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_at_Cape_Helles

Someone wrote a rather good essay about Helles....

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Yesterday's enemy is on my watch list. A fan of Stanley baker, have you seen it?

Re: Any family history in WW2?

A great military history in your family. The Canadians played a vital part in ww2. Worked with many nationalities in my time, I had many good time with the people of Canada.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

One Uncle joined the army in 1936 to avoid destitution, after he was blacklisted from the coal industry for being a communist and was in the 7th Armoured Division and then 1 Squadron RAF Regt before he came back in 1946. One uncle died on the Barham, one in Bomber Command and I gained an uncle from Poland (minus some fingers), when he married one of the rellies.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

Since you asked

My father was one of the first Allied troops to cross the Rhine River, serving in that area from 1945 March 6 to the 22nd*, when he was shot in the arm.

https://www.wwiimemorial.com/Registry/plaque.aspx?honoreeID=1773943

BTW, these "plaques," included the one linked above, are all user-submitted. If an ancestor of yours served in ANY capacity in the U.S. during The War, civilian or military, the World War II Memorial wants to hear about it.

* His army papers are detailed to the point where I know the exact date he arrived at and left from which base.

.
Mr Smith: Like the rose trampled on the ground, you took the fall

Re: Since you asked

Interesting story, thanks for sharing it with us. I'm currently reading a book on the U.S. Military at the battle of the bulge. It's called the Ardennes by Antony beevor. Gives my the shivers reading about the cold engagement at Bastogne with poorly equipped troops holding out.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

My paternal grandfather was a Sherman tank commander on Iwo Jima. He started telling me his war stories when I was about 5. After a while I realized that, as I grew up, he was going into more detail on stories he'd told me before.

The tank he came ashore in was second in a single-file line of tanks moving inland on a lane cleared through a minefield. The tank in front got hit by artillery, and his C.O. ordered him to go around it. He said the tank's tread no more than crossed the edge of the cleared lane when they struck a buried bomb that basically tore the front end off the tank, killing two of the crew.

He fought in five different tanks, including the one that struck a mine: three standard Shermans, one flamethrower, and a corpsman tank. The latter had a steel plate hinged to the front glacis; a corpsman would ride in the tank and direct them to a wounded soldier. They would drive over and straddle the soldier, lower the steel plate to protect him and the corpsman from enemy fire, and bring the wounded man in, through the belly hatch.

He told me the corpsman tank was pretty much a desperation measure, because Japanese snipers were picking off the corpsmen when they tried to approach the wounded.

The only Japanese tanks he saw were buried hull-down and being used as artillery. Japanese infantry would swarm the tanks, climbing all over them in and trying to pry open crew hatches or the engine deck, even pouring gasoline down the tanks' fresh air intakes.

Tank crews were issued with short-barreled 12-guage shotguns; when one tank needed the Japanese infantry cleared off of them, their commander would radio a nearby tank and say 'Scratch my back;' the crew of the tank who received the radio call would either rake the Japanese off the other tank with the co-axial .30 caliber, or open the small weapon port on the side of the turret and blast away with the 12-guage.

For use mainly in emergencies, their tanks had 'shotgun starters.' A blank shotgun shell was loaded into the starter port, the port was closed, and the blank shell was fired. The force of the explosion would spin the engine and start the tank instantly.

The tanks had been fitted with tall breather stacks at the rear, to allow them to operate in deeper water than normal (in case the landing craft dropped them too far from the beach, or they drove into a shell hole, etc). He said that one night, he was exhausted from three days of non-stop fighting, and crawled under the tank, to sleep. The next morning, he awoke to find that the breather stacks on the tank he was sleeping under had been blown off by a mortar during the night, and it hadn't even woken him up.

Their unit commander, a Lieutenant, was particularly despised. Grandpa said
the Lt. was well-aware of that, so when he went up to recon the lines, he'd never take anybody but Grandpa with him. He knew that my grandfather was probably the only man in the company who wouldn't take the opportunity to shoot him in the back.

The Lt didn't get off Iwo; somebody booby-trapped the latrine with a hand grenade, and, according to my grandfather, 'blew him out through the roof.'
- You may have come on no bicycle, but that does not say that you know everything.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Thanks for that great reply. I never knew about the tanks deployed to retrieve wounded soldiers in that way.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

It was on-the-spot improvisation.

Can you imagine being the wounded soldier, though? You're lying on the sand, you can't move, and here comes this tank, bearing down on you!

- You may have come on no bicycle, but that does not say that you know everything.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Yeh I know, you would hope he was a good driver! Anything would be better than being left helpless in the open like that.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

I think the corpsman tank might have been a one-off deal, and he just happened to be handy when they were looking for a tank commander to try it out. I've been reading about WWII tanks since I learned how to read, and I've never seen or heard of it anywhere else.

I've course, I never heard any tanker but Grandpa talk about the term 'scratch my back' until a recent doco series, 'The Color of War,' did an episode on tanks called 'Man and Machine,' so maybe the engineers put together several of them. I'm sure it was a field modification that was solely part of the Pacific war. In the European theatre, even the SS usually respected medics. According to my grandfather, anybody on Iwo who had a medic's cross painted on their helmet might as well have had a target hanging around their neck.

Trying to remember how he described the results of the corpsman tank experiment; basically, they determined that it just wasn't workable. They could only haul back one Marine at a time - MAYBE two, but there's very little room inside a Sherman - and they could do more good for the wounded by using the tanks in their primary roles to drive the enemy back so the medical personnel could move up without taking fire.

As for the flamethrower tank, he said it made him nervous to ride in it. The fuel for the flamethrower was stored in the thinly-armored belly of the tank, and he didn't like having all that napalm sloshing around under his feet. He said he was 'glad to get out of that one.'

His outfit spent the last two weeks on the island shelling the cave entrances on Mt. Suribachi to seal them up.

- You may have come on no bicycle, but that does not say that you know everything.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Both of my grandfathers fought in WW2, but I don't know much about the specifics.

My paternal grandfather was in the US Navy. He met my grandmother in England and they both eventually came back to the US. Unfortunately, he died before I was born so I didn't get to hear any awesome first hand accounts.

Mt maternal grandfather was a Korean rebel that fought against the Japanese. Nothing but horror stories from him, really. Seriously messed up horror stories. He didn't like to talk much about it. He did, however, also serve as an officer during the Korean War.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

My Dad was in the Navy, in the South Pacific, and I know he saw action, because he kept a piece of charred metal with Japanese Characters on it. I also have a hand drawn Christmas card of Santa Claus in batik patterned swim trunks, holding a can of SPAM. Inside that Christmas card was a "Short Snorter", with just one word on it, in his handwriting. The word was "LEYTE".

Holy HANNA! If he was anywhere near the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte, it's no wonder he came home with grey hair.

I know that the "Short Snorter" was NOT sent with the Christmas Card, because it would have tipped off locations.

As to "talking about it", most Veterans don't. I found it out when I was in High School, and we were studying WWII. I think I learned more about Bob Hope and Jerry Colonna then any 10 professional Biographers. I just gave Dad a hug, and changed my report to "The HOME FRONT", and dug out my mom's souvenirs: Things like Ration Books, Recipes, more Ration Books...this time, for clothing, movie pictures, and a 1941 portable phonograph with some Vintage records to play.

(Spike Jones' DER FURHER'S FACE was a BIG Hit!)

Thanks, Pop...for teaching me what "History" really is: It's really the everyday lives of the people who lived it...













I do hope he won't upset Henry...

Re: Any family history in WW2?

As for memorabilia and souvenirs, his uniform - along with the ribbons on his medals - got eaten by bugs because he didn't store it properly.

The family is pretty much in agreement that my meth-head cousin stole his service .45 pistol.

He brought back a 2 Japanese swords and 2 Arasaka rifles. The house was vacant for a while after he died, and one day a couple of b@stards broke in and stole them. By the time the cops caught up with them, they'd already sold them all.

What I've got are the stories.

- HOW kin I be so brainless, when I is so smart?

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Scumbags I say, your stories are priceless though. I have a Gurkha knife, jap bayonet and samurai from the war as well as all my grandfathers medals.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

And you said your grandfather was in the southeast Asian theatre, as a mechanic? Did you get to hear his stories?

- HOW kin I be so brainless, when I is so smart?

Re: Any family history in WW2?

He was in 60 squadron RAF. He told me a few sporadic stories but didn't talk much about it. He died when I was 21 years old and looking back I wished I had found out more, wether he would have talked more about it I don't know. As you get older I regret not hearing more about it. I have his diaries for two whole years of the war but one of them is a bit damaged.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

My Flying Tigers father served during World War II in China.

He was honored with Distinguished Flying Cross and two purple hearts.
Credited with downing two enemy aircraft per National Archives Military History.

Yes I have all his 14 medals and military jacket plus white silk scarf Madame Chaing Kai-Shek (First Lady of the Republic of China).

Writing Wikipedia page now....challenging documenting/footnoting everything so volunteers don't delete page.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

those jackets with Nationalist chinese flag on back were so cool they were replicated as a fashion, some years back..

Re: Any family history in WW2?

My parents had been a couple from about 1940. Not being able to find a decent steady job, my future father enlisted in the Army Air Corps and shipped out on October 29, 1940. A little over a year later, on December 7, 1941, World War II began for the United States. He got a short leave in March 19, 1942. He hurried home and married my future mother on a cold night after midnight in the small office of marrying judge. If you have seen the film noir classic They Live by Night (1948), the JP set-up shown in that movie (where Farley Granger marries Cathy O’Donnell) was very much like what my parents experienced in real life. He shipped out for the European War five days later. She did not see him for another two years.

My Dad was trained as a mechanic on fighter aircraft, first at Chanute Field, Chicago, Illinois (later to be O’Hare Airport) but later came to specialize on the British Spitfire aircraft and ultimately reached the rank of Staff Sergeant and became the Chief of his maintenance crew. His outfit, the 31st Fighter Group, was one of the first American units to arrive in England in the summer of 1942.

He departed the continental United States on June 4, 1942 and arrived in Europe with his group on June 10. With the rest of the “ground echelon,” he left England on October 21, 1942, arriving November 8, 1942, at Oran, Algeria. The invasion of North Africa was underway.

On February 6, 1943, the 31st relocated to Thelepte Airdrome outside of Feriana, Tunisia. At this point they were only 30 miles from the front lines. The time at Thelepte was the roughest, most dangerous days in the whole war for the personnel of the Fighter Group. They were virtually unprotected by radar and, therefore, subject to attack from the air. During the time in the war zone they were hit almost nightly. One story he told his family illustrates how people sometimes stay grounded and sane by finding humor in the most inappropriate circumstances. One day after the sun was down and hearing enemy aircraft approaching, Johnnie immediately went to his dugout to take shelter (enlisted men lived in pup tents while officers lived in much safer underground huts left behind by the Germans). His friend who shared the dugout, however, had been delayed because he was taking a crap and was caught in the open when the fighter aircraft made their dive. Johnnie could see his friend running as hard as he could toward the cover, silhouetted against a bright night sky, with a German fighter plane right behind him firing all of its guns. Dad was laughing and yelling out mockingly that he had better get a move on. The man finally tumbled unharmed into the foxhole. Dad never told what his friend had to say about all that.

His fighter group moved with the Front from North Africa to Sicily to Italy. They were in a place to observe the last (to date) eruption of Mt. Vesuvius from March 19-29, 1944. They would lie on their cots and watch the red lava flow over the volcano’s crest. It appeared, in the distance, to be coming out of the sky.

When at last the Spitfire aircraft, on which Dad and his crew had become expert mechanics, were replaced by the American built P-40 fighter, he was rotated out of the combat zone, arriving back in the States on June 20, 1944.

NOTE: Mt. Vesuvius has been an active volcano since 1631 with eruptions at least every seven years, the volcano has been dormant, however, from 1944 to the present day – 77 years; so a Big One is due.

mf

Trust me. I’m The Doctor.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Thanks for sharing your detailed story on your famly service. My grandfather was responsible for the ground crew servicing and making ready the fighters for action. Hurricanes, spitfires and thunderbolts namely. He took part in the battle of Imphal valley.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

I know I've heard of Imphal Valley...that was India/Burma, right? Where was your grandfather from? Sounds like he would have been either U.S. or U.K.

- HOW kin I be so brainless, when I is so smart?

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Imphal is where the allies stopped the Japanese advance into India. Pivotal battle that turned the tide. He was in RAF and came from a small town in the north of Scotland. A very humble man that was proud of his service. Took very ill during combat to disease and nearly lost his life. He stayed on out there after the war was won too, not seeing home till later on. I always remember him saying his last job before heading home was refuelling a Short Sunderland on a river.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

That's a great remembrance. All of us who carry these stories MUST put them down in some lasting form (I mean ON PAPER; very few books have been erased by a lightning strike), as a record of our fathers/brothers/grandfathers, for the next generation.

- HOW kin I be so brainless, when I is so smart?

Re: Any family history in WW2?

My granddad was retreaded into WWII serving on ammo ships in the pacific. Had three ships shotnoutnfrom under him. He was marooned on a scrap of land so small he never knew it's name for about 30 days before they found him. I asked him once what the worst part of that was, he replied wryly, "I can' t stand coconut cake anymore and it was my favorite."

My dad was working on radar at the Navy labs near D.C. When the U.S. entered the war so he was considered essential personnel and they wouldn't let him enlist.

Funny story. My dad ran into a guy from our hometown in D.C. They got to hang out some. dad's friend was assigned to an AA battery outside the city. Their orders were simple. Shoot down any enemy aircraft. So one day they spot a Japanese Zero and light it up. They are all excited wondering if an attack is coming. Next thing you know a car full of army brass pulls up and stArts chewing them out. Turns out it had been captured and the Navy was test flying the thing to figure out what it could do and how to fight them. their only defense was that it still had Jap markings.

Re: Any family history in WW2?


So one day they spot a Japanese Zero and light it up. They are all excited wondering if an attack is coming. Next thing you know a car full of army brass pulls up and stArts chewing them out. Turns out it had been captured and the Navy was test flying the thing to figure out what it could do and how to fight them. their only defense was that it still had Jap markings.


That's a great story; they're lucky to have had that excuse. I mean, nobody told THEM what was going on, right?

- HOW kin I be so brainless, when I is so smart?

Re: Any family history in WW2?

another Zero, which had been put together from spare parts of several crashed Zeroes, and was quite precious of course, was side-swiped on airfield by a taxiing Curtiss Helldiver divebomber, huge propellor juliened the Zeroes fuselage from cockpit to tail, rendering it useless.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

I second that, I've already started reading and mapping out his war service from his diaries and transferring to the computer and gathering photos. Like so many men of his young age at the time, he stood up and was counted on to do his bit when it was asked of him.

Re: Any family history in WW2? (a bit OT)

I'd also like to give a "Shout Out" to the Ladies and Gentleman of St. Paul's Cathedral, in London. These good people staff The American Chapel, and if any "Yank" was shot down over Britain, they'll have a record of it.

I was able to get the information for the Matron of Honour at my mom's Wedding. It meant a great deal to all of us, that Ned was remembered in that beautiful place.

It meant a great deal to me, too... as St. Paul's, London is the Sister Cathedral to my own St. Paul's at home.







I do hope he won't upset Henry...

Re: Any family history in WW2?


That's a great remembrance. All of us who carry these stories MUST put them down in some lasting form (I mean ON PAPER


What I posted is from a family history I researched off and on for about 20 years and finally cobbled together in book form in 2005. Copies reside in various local history and large genealogical libraries across the U.S. I sent copies to the Saints in Salt Lake City. They have already digitized it and the digital record is stored in an underground vault. They are trying to put their entire huge genealogical collection (which is part of their religious beliefs) in digital but as they work retrospectively, they are adding new material first, so my book got in fast. Whatever your religious or not-religious beliefs, the Later-Day Saints are a answered prayer to family history research.

mf

Trust me. I’m The Doctor.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Lots. And in both theatres.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Would you like to share your family history in both theatres?

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Aunts served as nurses, and the husband of one was in the navy. I think there was some fighting the Nazis, but I can't recall them.

In the pacific I had two uncles. One was captured in the Phillipenes at the opening of the war, and survived the Bataan death march. The other was a marine who married a Japanese girl.

Up until Desert Storm the family had fought in every major conflict, including the founding of this nation under Washington.

Re: Any family history in WW2?

Father's side: My great uncle Lawrence (Tooty), served in Italy with the 1st Canadian Corps. He was badly wounded and spent the rest of his life (He died in 1978) living on his pension, drinking gallons of whiskey and living in my Grandmother's attic. He never spoke about his experiences in the war.

Mother's side: Another great uncle, Markus, was shot in the stomach with a dum-dum bullet fired by a Russian soldier during the Siege of Stalingrad. He was a Feldwebel in the German 6th Army. It took him several days to die of his wound.
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