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Thread: World War Two History

  1. #41
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    Sounds like an example of how stressful a situation they were all in.

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Srt201 View Post
    Could you figure out what unit she was in go from there?
    DISCOM had about 7,000 officers and troops and about 20 sep units under it's command.. I spent a few weeks in bed and yes I tried to find out but I ets shortly after.

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    Quote Originally Posted by parabrave View Post
    DISCOM had about 7,000 officers and troops and about 20 sep units under it's command.. I spent a few weeks in bed and yes I tried to find out but I ets shortly after.

    I figured you had tried but who knows maybe one day you'll run into her. I can't say I know a lot about the military. All I can say I respect them a lot.

  4. #44
    Senior Member BrunswickDawg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Srt201 View Post
    If you could share any stories please do, I'd love to hear some of them.
    After my granddad got captured after St. Lo, he was put on a prison train to be taken into Germany. Just before the French border, he realizes there is only 1 guard on the rail car and the door was open. He turned to the guy next to him and said "I'm rushing the guard, pass the word and we can all jump out of the train. He tackled the guard from behind, wrapped him up and launched them out the door. He landed on the ground on top of the guard - breaking his neck and killing him. Grandad looked back at the train and saw no one else had jumped. He was alone, miles behind the lines. He travelled at night toward the sound of guns, until one night he was caught by a French farmer. The farmer turned out to be an American who had deserted in WWI. He helped granddad get with resistance fighters who smuggled him back to the lines. When he got back, he realized the Germans had taken his dog tags - and he got thrown in with the German POWs. He only got out when a friend from our hometown walked past and ID'd granddad and got him out.

  5. #45
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    Damn BrunswickDawg. Hell of a story. Thank you sir.

  6. #46
    Senior Member BrunswickDawg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bully13 View Post
    Damn BrunswickDawg. Hell of a story. Thank you sir.
    Thanks. Amazingly, he didn't even have the best stories in the family. His older brother Jack was a SeaBee, stationed at Pearl. He survived the Jap attack and then went to work rebuilding the fleet. He talked some about the horrors of diving into the ships to repair them enough to refloat them and finding bodies in all sorts of odd places. Jack later was headed to somewhere like Guadalcanal to build an airstrip when the boat he was on got torpedoed. He swam onto some island with a couple of other survivors that turned out crawling with Japs. They lived in caves on the run for 18 months. The whole family thought he was dead, then the island gets liberated and he got sent home. The oldest brother, Herbert, had built the first airplane and airport in Cobb County, Ga. He volunteered for the Air Corps, but at 40, they said he was too old. He went to Canada, lied about his age, and joined the RAF. He flew one supply mission to England before they found out his age and discharged him. Spent the rest of the war as the head of the Civil Air Patrol, and would buzz Downtown Marietta in his biplane during air raid drills.

    My grandfather and his brothers were the best bunch of guys you would ever want to meet. Smart, athletic, funny as hell, and giving. I miss them all almost daily.

  7. #47
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    Most people don't know but the most dangerous missions in all of ww2 were the fly boys leaving England into France and Germany. Some 22,000 flew 1 or more missions. Close to 3000 never made it back. Their units had the highest mortality rate of all military units in ww2.

  8. #48
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    Percentage wise that is.

  9. #49
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    2 great movies about the Army Air Corps Twelve O'Clock High and one with Steve McQueen in it "the War Lover"

  10. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by parabrave View Post
    2 great movies about the Army Air Corps Twelve O'Clock High and one with Steve McQueen in it "the War Lover"
    WAR lover. Is that the one that ends in a plane crash?

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    I really love The Great Escape one of my all time favorites and along with the Stalag 13? movie.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bully13 View Post
    WAR lover. Is that the one that ends in a plane crash?
    Yep. Great final scene. AS a former aviator I do know what it's like trying to get the last bit out of your aircraft.

  13. #53
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    One of the REAL Band of Brothers still lives in Caledonia Mississippi. I had the distinct honor of meeting Bradford Freeman a few years ago. He signed my copy of the book. He did not feature in the show but he IS in the book.

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    Two must read books are "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Flyboys". They are well worth the read if you have time.

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    My list of must read WWII books is long. It includes but is NOT limited to Ambrose's D-Day, Band of Brothers, and Pegasus Bridge; Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy; Ryan's The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far; Churchill's six volume The Second World War; Colville's The Fringes of Power; Motimer's The Longest Night; Stafford's Ten Days to D-Day; Webster's Parachute Infantry; Holland's The Battle of Britain; Prange's Miracle at Midway; Brown's Bodyguard of Lies; Lord's Day of Infamy; Hornfischer's Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors; Sledge's With the Old Breed; and May's Strange Victory. I'd also say that while not strictly confined to the war years themselves these also belong on the list: Toland's Rising Sun: Schirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Berlin Diary; Gilbert's The Appeasers; Faber's Munich, 1938; Martin's France 1938; and Macmillan's Paris, 1919.

    Edited to add one more, Salisbury's The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad.
    Last edited by Liverpooldawg; 05-08-2017 at 07:02 PM.

  16. #56
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    You can't go wrong with any Ryan book. One of the unknown ones is James McDonald "Time for Trumpets" about his fighting in the battle of the bulge. It's very detailed and you will go into information overload. Be careful reading Ambrose. He just rehashes everything in all of his books.

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    If you ever want books about the history and development of specific firearms that were used in World War 2 you can always look online at the library of congress. If they have it, you can request it from your local library and they'll send it from the library of congress. I did that with the Arisaka type 38.

  18. #58
    Senior Member TStationDawg's Avatar
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    I love this thread. My grandfather served in the 503rd in the Pacific. Was part of the jump on Corregidor. Later transitioned to the 11th where he was part of the first wave of the occupation of Japan. He had many brutal and humorous stories. I will share two:
    1. First kill: comes out of a fox hole and comes face to face with soldier that looked "younger than I did- I froze and so did he. My friend reaches over and pulls my trigger for me and kills him. He says, the first one is on me, next one's on you". This always made him tear up.
    2. Caught in tree: Night jump; Supposed to land into clearing surrounded by jungles occupied by enemy- of course, he misses LZ and lands in jungle and gets hung in tree. Jet black- no moon/star light. Has to hang for hours (no idea how long), couldn't cut down bc he had no idea who was below him. Couldn't piss- nothing. First beams of sunlight come out enough for him to see in front of his face, he said "I'm maybe 2 feet from the ground; all this time I was worried about falling on someone and I should have been worried about someone walking in to me!" This one always made him laugh.

  19. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by TStationDawg View Post
    I love this thread. My grandfather served in the 503rd in the Pacific. Was part of the jump on Corregidor. Later transitioned to the 11th where he was part of the first wave of the occupation of Japan. He had many brutal and humorous stories. I will share two:
    1. First kill: comes out of a fox hole and comes face to face with soldier that looked "younger than I did- I froze and so did he. My friend reaches over and pulls my trigger for me and kills him. He says, the first one is on me, next one's on you". This always made him tear up.
    2. Caught in tree: Night jump; Supposed to land into clearing surrounded by jungles occupied by enemy- of course, he misses LZ and lands in jungle and gets hung in tree. Jet black- no moon/star light. Has to hang for hours (no idea how long), couldn't cut down bc he had no idea who was below him. Couldn't piss- nothing. First beams of sunlight come out enough for him to see in front of his face, he said "I'm maybe 2 feet from the ground; all this time I was worried about falling on someone and I should have been worried about someone walking in to me!" This one always made him laugh.
    Wow the 503rd, You never hear much about that unit. When you read about their jump onto the Rock, you will wonder why the entire unit wasn't wiped out.

  20. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by parabrave View Post
    Wow the 503rd, You never hear much about that unit. When you read about their jump onto the Rock, you will wonder why the entire unit wasn't wiped out.
    I think something like 40% didn't even survive the jump. But the ones
    That did kicked butt in record numbers. They are what lead To HALO jumps. Real roughnecks. It's perfect for my grandad. Heck of a price a lot of 18-21 yr olds paid for us. My grandad didn't even know what a "paratrooper" was when he signed up. He found out real quick.

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