Sounds like an example of how stressful a situation they were all in.
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Sounds like an example of how stressful a situation they were all in.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Srt201
Quote:
Originally Posted by parabrave
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Srt201
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bully13
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.
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.
Percentage wise that is.
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by parabrave
I really love The Great Escape one of my all time favorites and along with the Stalag 13? movie.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bully13
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.
Two must read books are "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Flyboys". They are well worth the read if you have time.
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.
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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by TStationDawg
I think something like 40% didn't even survive the jump. But the onesQuote:
Originally Posted by parabrave
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.
Does anyone have pictures they'd like to share?
I have a photo somewhere of my g'dad with a friend soaking up some Sake in Japan somewhere. Its either here or at my parents house. I'll see if I can't round it up and post it on here.
Actually HALO got its start during the Vietnam war by trying to get SOG teams into Laos and Cambodia. A good account of the Corregidor or any other WW2 Airborne Operations is "Paratrooper" by James Devlin.
you are correct- that was my stupid iphone autocorrect. I meant to type LALO. Tough way to make a living.Quote:
Originally Posted by parabrave
Watching some pacific theatre right now. The amphibious beach assaults of Guadalcanal and Tarawa were indeed before Normandy. The Tarawa landing was a disaster because they made a huge mistake arriving at low tide forcing the Marines to get out of their landing crafts early. Wading thru the water with sharp corals all around, the awaiting and dug in japs mowed several hundred marines down before they ever got to the beach.
The saipan landing went much better which I think was just a few days after Normandy.
After that there was a disagreement between McArthur and king as to what to do next. King wanted to go take Formosa (Taiwan). It would have provided a base where bombers could reach Japan. But McArthur wanted to do more island hopping including the Philippines.
I think king's plan could have worked because even though the islandstill would have remained undefeated, kings plan would had them isolated. If king's plan had been implemented and had been successful, over 200K lives would have been saved. Maybe McArthurs promise to the Philippines should have been delayed?
Late to the thread and don't have any really interesting stories, but my grandfather served during WWII and was a POW in Japan for almost two years (I think.) He did the Bataan Death March and at one point caught malaria and was also bayoneted in the thigh while on the march.
Don't quote me on this, but i think he received a bronze star, and for some reason he turned down two purple hearts.
I know my grandmother still has the draft letter, as well as the letter to his family saying he had been captured and was a POW.
Next time i'm home i'll try and find them if that's something y'all would be interested in.
OMG Louisville . I've seen multi documentaries on Bataan. Dude, anyone who survived that march PLUS endured the 2 years at the camp is one tough SOB.Quote:
Originally Posted by louisvilledawg
Did he ever talk about the rescue raid? If you can, please send more!
GREAT POST!!
Please tell us more if you can, do you know which POW camp it is? One the links posted earlier talks about the camp liberations in the direct aftermath of the war.
Also guys today is the anniversary of using the code AF to trick the Japanese.
http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=6
The AF trick was amazing. Midway, that was a big WTF moment for the japs. Turned the tide of the Pacific.
Not my grandfather but this is a picture he had up in his house when I was growing up.
https://s12.postimg.org/6p7yqqi71/IMG_2635.png
Thats a british Bren.Quote:
Originally Posted by Srt201
Close, it's a type 99 jap light machine gun. Basically it's a copy of the Bren with French influences. But man it would be fun to shoot.Quote:
Originally Posted by parabrave
These pics and comments about these guns are awesome. Thanks guys.
Awesome thread guys! I don't venture over to Scatology often and just now saw this thread.
My dad was in the navy from toward the end of WWII to the end of Korea. The closet he said they ever came to action was in WWII when a lone Japanese bomber got to within a couple of miles of them but then turned and went the other way. He was on a liberty ship hauling naval ammunition. If you've ever seen the Henry Fonda movie Mr. Roberts, that was his ship except Mr. Roberts was hauling toilet paper. Daddy told me that it had to have been one of his shipmates that wrote that story. Boring duty, a tyrannical captain....... He said "We even had a damn palm tree!" He ran the laundry on the ship and said that he had it made. He'd sleep on a table in the laundry with a fan blowing fresh air from the deck on him to keep the mosquitoes off of him. He would let the officers come take hot baths in the tubs in exchange for liberty papers when the captain wouldn't give the crew liberty and he'd let the cooks come take hot baths in exchange for special food privileges. He told me "I never ate with the captain but I ate what the captain ate." One time during Korea while re-arming the Missouri, they rammed it and ripped the railing off from bow to stern on one side. A call from the Missouri, which had an admiral on board, came in requesting to send the captain over. They strapped him in the chair and sent him over and never saw him again. I asked daddy if he thought the guy steering the ship rammed it on purpose. He said "It wouldn't surprise me a bit."
Here is a very cool story a late friend of mine from Natchez told me. I've shared this on the main board before on Memorial Day or D Day I believe.
He ran one of the carriage tours in Natchez. One time someone contacted him and said that a retired general from Ohio (I think) and his wife were in town and the guy asked a question they thought my friend could answer. He went and met the general and the general asked him about the military history of Mississippians. My friend wasn't sure what the general was getting at with such a broad question so the general explained it to him. He told him that during WWII, he was the aide to the general in charge of the landing craft on D Day. As they were having their last briefing with the landing craft drivers when they were crossing the channel, the general asked if any of the drivers were from Mississippi. Several of the guys raised their hands. The general then informed them that their boats would be leading the first wave. As all the other drivers were hooting and hollering, the general said "If you're wondering why I picked you, it's because you sons of bitches from Mississippi are too stupid and hardheaded to turn and run when you're getting shot at and all we need for this invasion to fail is for the first wave to turn and run." The retired general said he always wanted to know why the general had said that. I don't know what my friend told him but I'm betting some of it has to do with general Barksdale and 4 brigades of Mississippians at Gettysburg. If you've never read about his charge, please go read about it.
A couple of years after my friend told me that story, I relayed it to another friend of mine from Jackson. His eyes welled up and in a cracking voice he told me "My grandpa was a landing craft driver in the first wave there." Well it got real dusty in that room to me all of a sudden too. He went on to tell me that it was so bad that his grandpa said he had to carry a Thompson across his shoulder and threaten the men with it to get them off his boat when he'd drop the ramp. I can't imagine and don't want to imagine all of the shit they had to go through that day. God bless them!!!
Awesome Mjo, thank you sir for that.
I am a healthcare practitioner NE Miss. I had a client, he died a few years back, who was a coxswain, IE the commander, of a landing craft at Omaha Beach on D-Day. He was the nicest old GENTLEMAN you could have ever wanted to meet. He never spoke to me about it. I never would have never known about all except by accident. As he never mentioned it to me I asked his wife about it one time. I told her I was deeply interested, but I would understand if he didn't want to talk about it. She said he didn't like to talk about it but she would relay my interest to him. She said let him bring it up, if he wants to. He never did, and I respected that as much as I wanted to hear his story. His wife DID tell me WHY he never wanted to talk about it. He piloted a landing craft in the first wave at Omaha, and beyond.. He told her that he dropped the ramp on the first run into the beach, and every single one of the boys on his boat were cut down as soon as they left his boat. She said she asked him once, after one of his nightmares, what he did. He said he turned around and went back for another load. He was just a kid too. Hat's off to Mr ****, and those boys he dropped the ramp for. God bless them all.
That's just a crazy story I couldn't imagine going through something like that. Have you ever heard of the Bedford boys?Quote:
Originally Posted by Liverpooldawg
I have the book on them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Srt201
You're the first I've known to have that book. But it's devastating what can happen to these small towns.Quote:
Originally Posted by Liverpooldawg