Topic: Stories of WW2 & Interesting WW2 Facts ...

[GamesPoet]

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet a lady friend's father who was an accomplished painter, and saw military service in WW2.

He talked of being in the 71st Inf Division, 66 Inf. Regiment, under Patton, and going from southern France to the Battle of the Bulge as an S2 with an automatic rifle, and traveling in a Jeep with a 50 cal machine gun, a driver, and a captain, to scout enemy positions and draw what he saw.  He told a story about how while traveling along a road the column stopped for a rest, clean their guns, and a German Messerschmitt lined up to strafe the soldiers and tanks on the road, yet apparently two men on top of tanks fired 50 cal machine guns, and the plane exploded in the air, wings going down into a field taking out a fence and some animals, with the pilot's head found 50 yards down the road.  He spoke of how before crossing the Rhine in boats that he was afraid that the dinner the night before might be his last.   He also spoke of having helped carry survivors of a concentration camp to vehicles so they could be transported to medical facilities.  And towards the end, he was recruited to serve in a band, because he had in the States and could sing, to entertain various groups of soldiers including Patton himself who he met.

He said to me about painting that, "It is good to have a hobby to make life more fun", and about WW2 that when going, "We didn't realize what we were getting into, and then hoped just to get home."  And he said, "I ended up going home, some of the rest didn't."  I was amazed at his stories, and so thankful to have heard some of them.

I am glad he made it back home to live a long life, and the idea that he passed away on the anniversary of D-Day is quite the special time to remember such a hero as he.  I am honored to have met him.

[Rowsdower]

My first job was at a nursing home. I met several veterans there.

There was crew chief Earl: He spent much of his time working on bombers; namely Lancaster's. He'd joined the RAAF in the hope of flying spitfires but wronged too many people and was sent to England and made a ground crewman instead. Although he didn't anything of too much significance; he often remarked on how comical he found the Home guard [don't panic] and he narrowly missed bumping into MacArthur after the war

There was PFC Norm [I never learned his full name]: He was garrisoned at Singapore and was sent to Changi after the Japanese invasion. He must have been treated badly as he seldom spoke of the subject and wouldn't use ANY Japanese manufactured item.

Then there was Corporal Arthur: He was part of the forces which were sent to North Africa. Although he hoped to go toe to toe with Rommel; he wound up guarding a museum storage facility in Cairo. I think he's been the only person I ever met who got 'bored' of looking at the pyramids.

And then there was PFC Arnold: He was the first one of these men I met. He lost both his legs in New Guinea. How he managed to survive is a miracle. The saddest thing about Arnold though was that his family more or less forgot about him. They shipping him off to that nursing home, seldom visited him and only showed an interest in him when he was on his death bed. It was so saddening to hear he had been dragged through hell only to be ignored. 

[Inarticulate]

The missus once nursed a chap who was captured at Dunkirk and was put on one of the death marches in 1945 when Germany crumbled.

[Artobans Ghost]

Years ago I met a guy at the Highland games. We were seated by each other in the bleachers and had not been talking. The bands started playing a tune and he broke from his reverie and started talking to me. He described being part of an 11 man artillery crew in Ww1. They were shelling the Germans when some counterbattery fire hit his gun. He was blown off his feet but managed to stand up again and all 10 of his mates were dead around him. He ended by saying you just never know and went back to his silence.

Another time I was working as a labourer - I was 14 and my dad hated to see us idle. I was working with a German  bricklayer. He didn’t tell me but I had heard he survived Stalingrad. I had to ask. He really didn’t want to talk about it but did mention he was a technician and was flown out near the end. He wayed 72 lbs. only 5000 or so made it out and I managed to meet a survivor.

Also met a pilot of the ME262. He flew the type that took off on a carriage and when you ran out of gas, you flipped to plane and ejected. Not sure how accurate that was but it was a great story.

My uncle was with the Canadian airborne out of Nova Scotia but never saw action. He did parachute training and on one of his jumps, the chute didn’t open. He landed on another parachute and floated down. A little tough landing but he was known as the hitch hiker after that. 😺

[GamesPoet]

Is that really a WW1 story about the artillery guy?   Either way, yowza!

- - -

Hoping to attend the 93 year old's funeral this week.  I hardly knew him, only being in his presence once, yet some how I am mourning his passing.

- - -

I was talking with an Iraqi War vet today who works with veterans.  He mentioned that Vietnam vets tend to have more anger than most, Korean War vets are given less attention, and WW2 vets tend to be more honored by the public at large.  However, all have their stories, a nd it's worth listening to them.

[Rowsdower]

Earl; the guy I mentioned above, was a chronic hoarder. You name it; he had it. When he died, his family found a few space marines and a Dark elder model. It turns out he wanted to get into wargaming but his eyesight had decayed too much. They gave the miniatures to me. I might have to make an Ork big mek; sitting atop a mound of detritus in his honour

[GamesPoet]

Attended the funeral.  Taps almost had tears coming from me.  It was a gorgeous day on the seacoast, wind off the ocean, blowing the leaves on the trees, blue sky, few clouds.  I parked outside the cemetery, and walked into it.  Across the rolling little hills, around various monuments and trees and plants and flowers.  Scoped the whole place out, sort like an army scout, the 93 year old vet might have approved. Saw the lady I'd been seeing for the first time in a couple weeks, not sure when I will again, perhaps a double loss happening.  I'm honored to have met the 93 year old, and so glad to have had such quality time with him.

 

[Artobans Ghost]

Makes me think of a story my now dead neighbour who was an infantry soldier in the 4th mountain division in army group a in the Caucasus mountains. He was given a job to run some communication wire to some front line trenches that were now overrun but he didn’t know it at the time. He was coming to a rise when the earth started shaking. His stomach twisted and he tried to disappear in a depression. Over the top of the rise, 5 Russian tanks came over (kv1’s I think) the rise and stopped. A hatch swung open an a woman looked out. He said he never forgot her face. Blackened with greasy hair. She closed up and the tanks started forward. Her tank was directly in his path and that’s when he shit himself. A little bit of artillery responded and a shell landed right beside her tank.  It lifted it and it landed towards the his right. The tanks geared up and the next tank in line bumped into her tank and the other 4 turned accordingly and passed by Fritz. He stayed there till dark and started to work his way back to his lines. Took 3 days and nights following the burning villages by night till he got back. They arrested him for attempted desertion and that’s another story. Loved hearing his stories. He made no attempt to try to sound like the heroic soldier.

[GamesPoet]

A good story, thanks for sharing!

[GamesPoet]

PBS is running a weekly series on actors and actresses who had relatives that lived and participated in WW2.

Episode 1 ... Helena Bonham Carter explores the stoies of her maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother.  He was Eduardo Propper de Callejon, a Spanish diplomat that defied his government's orders, and helped Jewish people escape the Holocaust as the Nazis invaded France. Carter's grandmother, Lady Violet Bonham Carter, took a stand against anti-Semitism, and also volunteered as an air raid warden, and campaigned for women's rights as well.

Episode 2 ... Mark Rylance's grandfather, Osmond Skinner, spent close to four years as a Japanese prisoner of war. Osmond, a banker for HSBC, joined the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Force with no military training, and after battle to defend the island was captured, and then survived the Hong Kong POW camps, and claimed that if it hadn't been for the dropping of the bomb, the Japanese would have kept fighting, and he wouldn't likely have made it.

Episode 3 ... Kristin Scott Thomas uncovers the story of grandfather William who helped save thousands at Dunkirk while serving as a commanding officer in the Royal Navy throughout World War II, and later served on the coast protecting shipping lanes to Russia where 400 million pounds of goods were shipped, some of the ships were sunk, and 3,000 sailors lost their lives doing this.

[Syphon]

My greatgrandfather hid draft-age boys from the Nazis when our country was occupied.
My grandfather was put to work as skilled labour in the south of our country.
His brother saw Hitler in the mid 1930s, as well. He wasn't impressed by the screaming man with the weird moustache.

[GamesPoet]

The last medal of honor recipient from WW2, Woody Williams, passed away this past June 29th at the age of 98.

When on the island of Iwo Jima he crawled forward multiple times with cover fire from 4 other marines, and managed to take out each pill box in a complex of 7 of them using his flame thrower.  At one point he encounter enemy riflemen in the open firing on him, and he had to use his flamethrower to defend himself and take out the enemy.  Two of the four marines that gave him covering fire, died in so doing, and he would say that his medal was worn in their honor.

After the war, Williams established a foundation for Gold Star families and a monument for those who have lost their lives in military service to the USA. He once said, "Anytime you take a life, there's always an aftermath to that if you've got any heart."

I will raise a glass in his memory.

[Rowsdower]

^ Semper Fi

[KTG17]

My grandfather fought in WWII as a Sherman tank commander with the Canadians and fought from France to Holland, and told me a few stories that stuck with me.

One was how dirty tanks were. He said when a round hit a tank (and didn't penetrate), it would kick up all the dirt and dust and for a few seconds you couldn't see anything. Maybe his tank was dirtier than most I don't know. I just can't imagine that. He said there was a time too when they were getting pelted by mortars and machine guns after heavy rain, and while the noise of mortars hitting the tank was stressful, you preferred that over the mortars landing nearby in the mud as the mud would kick up and splash over the viewing ports leaving you unable to see. It might have been the same event but he also had to pull out another Sherman that had gotten stuck in the mud and this Sherman was all buttoned up and the crew wouldn't come out and help and he had to set up all the tow cables on his own under fire, and he was pretty pissed about it.

He never brought it up to me but my Dad said he was still bothered by the sights of the remains of a dead crew in a knocked out tank.

If word was out that intelligence determined that a single Tiger was somewhere on the front it killed morale. So they demonstrated the new Firefly by having it blow up a captured Tiger in front of everyone, and while it did the job, it still didn't do much for morale.

Played with a lot of captured german weapons when they found them, like MP-40s and so on. Brought back 4 Lugers and gave them to my Dad and uncles who sold them years after ( ).

I was building tank models back then too and when he saw my collection I could see in his face remembering seeing some of them in real life and telling me what their role was. I thought that was interesting.

My Dad was apprehensive about me talking to him about his memories as he was still bothered by some of the things he saw, but I wish these stories could be passed forward.

Even though he never fought them, he was still angry about what the Japanese did in WWII even in his later years and hated them. Its amusing today when we see propaganda from the US from that era, and how people think it degrades the Japanese or call it racist, but people really did hate them back then and the Japanese only have themselves to blame for that. Now its about winning hearts and minds and fighting war without hate, which hasn't seemed to work out most of the time, so you don't want to offend the population you are going to war with.

"Hey we're going to kill some of you, but we're not here to offend any of you." 

[Rowsdower]

One of my dads many jobs over the years was cleaning out deceased estates. When i was 12, an aged campaigner had died in a condemned farmhouse. The only things of any value he had were some boxes of broken firearms he'd brought back from the Somme.
One of my classmates then took this story and reworked it into a load of crap about there being a cadaverous German paratrooper being found in the tall grass

[KTG17]

So we had something like this going in the old Back Table and I keep learning things and thought I would share some new stuff I learned.

- Dunkirk -

A lot of historians have stated that the Germans letting so many British escape was a huge missed opportunity, and have tried to point blame with various peeps as to why panzers never rolled up to the beach. Well it turns out the situation was so much more complicated and in reality the Germans never really had that chance.

The terrain around Dunkirk was not suitable for tanks and initially one panzer division was beaten back trying to approach the town. In addition, the German high command was so surprised at the speed at which German units were reaching the coast that the advance units had no instructions on what to do, and had to wait for orders from high command.

Many of the units involved in this area were made up of men who hadn't been in the military for long, so didn't have the same aggressiveness or tactical awareness as more veteran troops, or how would they have when they fought in Barbarossa. They assumed the British were defeated and would surrender, and there was no point in further unnecessary action since France was the real power to be beaten. Its hard to overstate how the Germans viewed France. The French were considered to have the most powerful military in Europe, and there was still a lot of fighting ahead. The Germans knocking out France would be like if the US and China went to war and China won.

While we think of the German war machine as a blitzkrieg, only 16 divisions were armored/motorized at this point, so the vast majority were still slogging it out on foot and would take time to catch up to the mobilized divisions. This is where you sometimes hear where Hitler stopped the panzers to allow the infantry to catch up, but it was actually Rundstedt. The German commanders also had The Somme on their minds from WWI and couldn't believe things were progressing so easily so fast, and were concerned about getting clobbered on their flanks.

A lot of details from the German side are lost in history as most of the divisions that took part in the battles around Dunkirk were all later destroyed in Russia, where most memories focus on such battles as Stalingrad and Kursk.

British lost 90% of their equipment. It is sometimes forgotten how bad the defeat was because the emphasis is on the successful evacuation from the beaches. Dunkirk was a total defeat for the British but the evacuation does a good job making peeps forget that.

Good book: https://www.amazon.com/D%C3%BCnkirchen-1940-German-View-Dunkirk/dp/1472854373

- Battle of the Bulge -

I had no idea of this, but the Germans employed over 50,000 horses during the battle. 50,000. So even this late in the war, the Germans were still using a ton of horses while no one else was. We think of German super weapons and its hard to imagine the Germans still dependent on horses. The reason many aren't aware of this is because of German propaganda, which tightly controlled what the German people, and world, saw of their forces in pictures and film. They wanted to show King Tigers and a very modern force, but in reality the German army was still dependent on horses as they were in 1939, as fuel was in extremely short supply, and horses would actually move artillery off road better than most vehicles, and they actually had plenty to feed and care for them.

How did Germany have so many horses? Because they actually had few cars. Fewer per capita than most other modern countries, so people still used horses in great numbers which the army was able to acquire.

Snow - its common to imagine the battle was fought in knee deep snow, but the battle actually started without snow, and ended without snow.

German formations were a hodge-podge mix of Volksgrenadiers and men pulled from other divisions to buffer up others, and decreased the size of divisions overall. Its impossible to really gauge these things looking at symbols on a map. Another instance I heard about was a tank platoon who used men pulled from Luftwaffe units who knew little about ground combat let alone running a tank, as well as having Romanian crews who spoke little German. How effective was that unit expected to be? Or the army as a whole? It sounds like a complete clusterf***.

The Bulge shares some similarities with Market Garden, which also need a whole series of events to go right in order to be successful. Even if the Germans had made it to Antwerp, then what? They would have been sitting on a narrow corridor that would have been laid to waste like the Falaise pocket when the Allies regrouped. It was a complete waste of men and resources.

Bastogne gets all the limelight, but the Battle of Elsenborn Ridge was more important and you've probably never heard of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Elsenborn_Ridge

[Padre]

I had no idea of this, but the Germans employed over 50,000 horses during the battle. 50,000. So even this late in the war, the Germans were still using a ton of horses while no one else was. We think of German super weapons and its hard to imagine the Germans still dependent on horses.

From Band of Brothers ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_DnRn9hyFU

How did Germany have so many horses? Because they actually had few cars. Fewer per capita than most other modern countries, so people still used horses in great numbers which the army was able to acquire.

At the start of the war I believe France had the highest number of cars per capita. A vast number of which were nicked by the Germans when they moved in!

German formations were a hodge-podge mix of Volksgrenadiers and men pulled from other divisions to buffer up others, and decreased the size of divisions overall.

And from early in the war a right hodge-podge of vehicles, stolen from all sorts occupied countries. In Operation Barbarossa vast numbers of different vehicles were used, obtained by the German Army during the earlier WWII campaigns. All those vehicles required different parts, and so were really difficult to repair, being often abandoned for want of appropriate parts. From an obscure Dutch truck's clutch to a French tractor's carburetor (I'm playing with words here). Can you imagine the impossible nightmare of supply this caused, and impossible task, compared to the much more uniform and organised methods employed by the allies with vast numbers of standardised vehicles like Shermans etc. (Interesting looking book on the topic - https://www.panzerwrecks.com/product/captured-vehicles-in-wehrmacht-service/ )

[Padre]

Yeah, quick confirmation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_France#1900_to_1950

1933 - With French passenger car production at 140,635 units, France lost its place as Europe's top automobile producer to Great Britain 220,775. The French roads nevertheless reflected three decades during much of which the French auto-industry had led the world, with a "car parc" of 1,448,000, ahead of Britain which had 1,210,880 cars registered and of Germany with only 510,680 cars.

So 1933 the French weren't producing as many as the UK, but because they had been, they still had more cars.

Interesting article re: Germany trying to get the French (Peugeot, Citroen and Renault) to build trucks for them - https://bestsellingcarsblog.com/1945/01/france-1940-1944-production-restricted-to-sabotaged-trucks/

Renault argued that “by continuing operations he had saved thousands of workers from being transported to Germany.” The Renault factories in Paris became top priority targets for the British bombers of the Royal Air Force and were severely damaged in 1942 notably. Subsequent studies showed that while Renault had collaborated, he also hived off strategic materials and sabotaged trucks by marking dipsticks low for example, and engines dried and seized in action, an outcome much in evidence on the Russian Front.

Weird to see a German soldier beside a Wehrmacht number-plated truck so 'not German' looking!

[GamesPoet]

So we had something like this going in the old Back Table and I keep learning things and thought I would share some new stuff I learned.

...

Actually ... it is in the current Count's Tavern ...

 http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=53053.0

Suppose I could merge them.

[Brad]

I had no idea of this, but the Germans employed over 50,000 horses during the battle. 50,000. So even this late in the war, the Germans were still using a ton of horses while no one else was. We think of German super weapons and its hard to imagine the Germans still dependent on horses.

From Band of Brothers ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_DnRn9hyFU

That was the exact clip that popped into my mind.

[Feanor Fire Heart]

I remember re-watching it recently. There is a scene in the second to last episode (or was it the last episode) where they're going through Germany and someone randomly executes a couple of German soldiers. I remember seeing that scene a decade or so ago and thought it was not only pretty messed up but was surprised at the lack of discipline the U.S. soldiers had especially since Easy company driving by just looked on (one of the recent new guys was shocked). Upon my recent re-watch, I noticed that the executioners were not US G.I.s, but French soldiers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS1RB3qvFjc

[GamesPoet]

I had no idea of this, but the Germans employed over 50,000 horses during the battle. 50,000. So even this late in the war, the Germans were still using a ton of horses while no one else was. We think of German super weapons and its hard to imagine the Germans still dependent on horses.

From Band of Brothers ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_DnRn9hyFU

That was the exact clip that popped into my mind.

Some day I need to go back and re-watch that series.

[KTG17]

I remember seeing that scene a decade or so ago and thought it was not only pretty messed up but was surprised at the lack of discipline the U.S. soldiers had especially since Easy company driving by just looked on (one of the recent new guys was shocked). Upon my recent re-watch, I noticed that the executioners were not US G.I.s, but French soldiers.

If you were riding in the back of a truck and saw some enemy troops being executed by another unit, would you jump out and make a big deal about it or just move on? I am thinking most would just move on, even if disapproving.

[KTG17]

I need to find a good source to help explain it, but immediately after the war, there was a mass migration in Europe. Germans being run out of other countries, and people brought to Germany or other countries going back to their own. The numbers and visuals were pretty staggering. And a lot of Germans were harassed and executed along the way. And I don't just mean German soldiers, but civilians or even German speaking people who had nothing to do with the war.

[Feanor Fire Heart]

I remember seeing that scene a decade or so ago and thought it was not only pretty messed up but was surprised at the lack of discipline the U.S. soldiers had especially since Easy company driving by just looked on (one of the recent new guys was shocked). Upon my recent re-watch, I noticed that the executioners were not US G.I.s, but French soldiers.

If you were riding in the back of a truck and saw some enemy troops being executed by another unit, would you jump out and make a big deal about it or just move on? I am thinking most would just move on, even if disapproving.

Oh for sure, and a few of the squad mates even shrug like "eh, what are ya gonna do." One actually smiled, but I'm unsure if its because of the execution or if its from watching the new guy squirm about it all, having missed the war.