Grandpa's War Stories

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[pollynicklas]

Not grandpa, my dad. He was a medic in WW2 in the Navy, but never talked too much about it. I'm sure he saw horrific crap!

[rvail]

Not my grandfather but my father. He never spoke about his service until after I volunteered for the USMC in the early 80s. When I came home from boot camp, we got drunk together, and I learned why he never spoke about his experiences. He was shot down twice as aC47 pilot. He spent 6 weeks leading a platoon of glider pilots during DAY in France. 2nd time was dropping supplies the the 101st at Bastogne...after I went to Granada her had other talks. He flew some of the 1st medical teams into liberated Dachau concentration camp. Horrifying stories.

[equarg]

A lot of these stories make me think of Christopher Lee.
He saw and did things during WW2 he took an oath to take to the grave.
He had the Script changed for the Final Lord of the Rings movie because his characters death was “inaccurate”.
When the director challenged how did he know what a man did when he was stabbed in the back…. Christopher Lee only gave him a slightly Sadistic Smile in response.
Director immediately changed the script to Christopher Lee’s liking.

May he and his fellow soldiers RIP.
I wish the world could know what he and his guys did.
THAT would be an amazing movie/documentary.
Christopher Lee met Tolkien too!
Oh I bet Tolkien’s Ghost was tickled pink seeing Lee depict a character in his book!

[russelljohnson]

My grandfather on my dad's side was in the USAAF during WW2. He fought in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and was in southern France when the Germans surrendered. His unit was originally going to be sent into the pacific. However, most of them had not been home since before the Japanese attack on pearl harbor so they convinced their superiors to let them go home on leave. He was sent home for two weeks and on his second day home the Japanese announced that they would surrender so he never had to go back overseas.

[stanford-nfjk]

My grandpa’s best friend was from the French countryside and was in the Maquis. He was in charge of setting traps on rural roads, sabotaging enemy vehicles, and otherwise cause distractions in order to misdirect the Germans as well as waste their time.

[stewg]

Some people experience horrible things in different ways. An example is I think my father and I are prone to not experiencing ramifications of trauma. I think this since a lot of people get PTSD but some just don't. He was a marine in Vietnam and has told me of some horrible things he saw, including seeing a friend of his burning to death and having to tell that man's girlfriend what happened. He has no PTSD, he just said it was bad but nothing anyone could have done to stop it. He got shelled all the time, no issue to him since he walked away. I had a friend who tried to kill herself in a gruesome fashion. I checked in on her, picked her up, put her in my car and got her to the hospital. No panic, nothing other than a second or two of seeing what she did to herself then just knew what needed to be done to fix the situation and I just acted. I view it as a... I don't want to say fond, but a good memory because she is alive now. Bad situation, good outcome because she got the psychiatric help she needed as a result.

[equarg]

My Grandpa (dad’s side) fought in the Pacific during WW2. He was a Senior at West Point when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and was shipped out immediately upon graduation.
He saw literal Hell. He had a Japanese bomb land next to him, resulting in hearing loss and shrapnel injuries. He escorted McAuthor, retired a Brigadier General after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
He avoided the topic what he saw.
The only story he told he in detail (I was about 9 and took to long in the bathroom one day. When I got out he looked be dead in the eye and boldly told me he was worried “either the Shit or the Snipper had killed me!) is when he and a buddy was a stones throw from the shore, and his buddy suddenly had to do a number 2 in the ships latrine.
Apparently, a Japanese Sniper had the latrine window scoped out. When the buddy sat down to go, the sniper blew his brains out thru the port hole.
Grandpa heard the “strange noise below”, ran down, kicked the door open and, “both ends were bad. Based on the mess below, the shot to the head may of been a mercy shot!”

Grandpa had one phobia from the war, bathroom windows.
When he had his custom house built in Arizona the bathrooms either had no windows or were so glazed over you could not see if it was day or night outside.
As a female, I don’t like bathroom windows either….too. I just fear creepers.

But he saw things. He….made peace with the Japanese.
“They did horrible things and attacked Pearl. We nuked two of their cities. As far as I am concerned we are even”.
He was also insistent that the nukes saved more lives then they took. For both sides.
Reading the statistics of Japanese killed taking smaller islands vs captured alive….and Americans/locals killed, I believe him.

[finchborat]

My grandfather was in the Army Air Corps. All I know is he arrived in Europe a few weeks after D-Day and did bombing missions over Germany. Last yr and just recently, I came across quite a few photos of him from WWII.

This fall will be what would've been his 100th birthday.

And in a crazy twist, there's a mirror pattern with his and my grandmother's death dates (she died nearly 2 weeks ago and she divorced him after 6 yrs of marriage; my mom was 6 months old when the divorce happened). His is 125 (January 25) and hers is 521 (May 21).

[Randomguyb]

My grandpa was a gunnery officer stationed on Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked, then he served on the USS Johnston. The ship he was on went and attacked a Japanese fleet to distract them from the aircraft carriers. The turret he was working in was the last one firing shells until the call was made to abandon ship. He also saw the Captain of another Japanese ship salute the Johnston as it sank.

[SupermarketSweep]

What little I got from my mom on her dad.
Navy veteran. Served in the Pacific. Was in a gun turret when a kamikaze hit another turret right by his. Lost friends in the turret and his back was badly burned. Saw the A-Bomb explosions and helped in the cleanup.

Gramps from my dad's side was a guerilla soldier in the Philippines in WWII. It was around the time when US forces started to land in the Philippines and the japaense were in retreat to the mountains for their last stand but were pillaging villages along the way for supplies. They were tasked to clear out the villages that the japanese soldiers pillaged.

The only thing he mentioned was his group was sore for quite some time because of digging. Digging every time they go into a village they went through because a lot of civilians were executed by the retreating japanese. Male female and almost every age group they buried on mass graves.

Small detail he mentioned was they were singing "The Yanks are coming" all the time.

[tasiashiraori]

There's a mole in grandpa's team, almost causing him and his friends get caught by Japan. They got away by hiding in pig sty. I don't know if I can call this ironic because he's the one who bought my all kinds of anime stuff

[johnoneil]

My grandma on my dad's side was still a young woman when she fled Silesia from the oncoming Red Army. Meanwhile my grandpa on my mom's side was an aircraft gunner for the Germans. He was shot down over England and spend years as a POW. They treated him pretty well ftom what I heard.

[SteffidelaM]

My great uncle had to run from the germans and hide in big pile of sawdust to keep the Germans from finding him and taking him to a work camp in Germany. After that he went into hiding. After the war he had to fight in Asia and that's where he met my grandpa. My grandmother casually told me this as we walk through her old town. And showed me his escape route

[SmittyWarbenJagerManJensen]

So this is basically "stories my grandpa DIDNT tell me about war because it was too traumatic"

[Kirjava]

Both of my grandfathers were tradesmen so were left till last because they were too useful to use as cannon fodder. The one who did get sent overseas only shared one single story with us, the time he had a pet chameleon. They were walking on a road where post holes had been dug but the fence posts not installed yet. They weren't marching, so some of the guys were checking the post holes for small animals which had fallen in and couldn't get themselves out. He found a particularly weakened chameleon, and didn't want to just leave it there, so he took it with him. At night it would be climbing around in the rafters, any time he could take it with him he did because it did a good job preventing mosquito bites. When it has recovered enough it wandered off. He wasn't the only one with a temporary wild pet. He had nightmares about things he saw, and we didn't want to know or upset him so we didn't ask. The chameleon story was the only one he volunteered to share, and we didn't ask him about anything else. He didn't even know which country he was sent to.

[BlueDart]

Material grandfather was at Pearl Harbor when it was hit and on the ship when the treaty was signed. Paternal grandfather was in Normandy. I wish I knew more.

[sauerkids]

Don't remember much but my great-grandfather on my mum's side fought in Italy.

[SamSparks]

I believe both my maternal great-grandfathers served. They never really talked about it and my mother says her grandfather Havelock was kind of mean.

[Touhou]

My moms dad was a Sargent in ww2 and basically he told me that he has a friend who fought in China and what was once Burma but is now Myanmar in general basically he was on a rescue mission behind enemy lines with a friend who were both assigned to save another friend of theirs and basically when they found their friend they were walking back to friendly lines when all of a sudden the friend of his who was with my moms dad was shot by an imperial Japanese sniper right in front of his eyes in general which caused my favorite grandpa to have a version of PTSD where he would have nightmares of being surrounded by imperial Japanese soldiers in general for real up until his death in 2016 in general. P.s he also lied about his age by 1 year in general right after the Pearl Harbor attack and yes he was alive until the age of 92.