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Utah Man

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Topic: World War II stories...
Posted: January 04 2008 at 21:31

I love WW II history.
I kinda “envy” you European members who live where this event took place.
Here’s a few accounts from eyewitnesses. [yea..i know it's long reading but...]

Story 1: My uncle was a u.s. army infantry lieutenant. As the Americans were pushing their way into the third Reich, they captured a small unit of German troops. Among them were several NAZI officers one of whom had on his possession some Hershey bars. Some of the American troops just flipped out at that point & lost it. One guy grabbed the NAZI officer, walked him several yards away to a riverbank, pulled out his automatic and shot him in the head. He walked back and said, “That kraut knew I was going to kill him & he didn’t even flinch”. Cold-blooded murder…nobody did a thing about it ‘cause it was all in the name of war.

Story 2: My friend Hennie (now in her 70’s) was a young girl when the Nazis rolled into the Netherlands. She recalls the troops generally treated them with courtesy & respect. Local Jews in the community weren’t so lucky, of course. She remembers SS Officers sitting in her living room over a cup of tea talking with her mother about Soviet communism vs. German socialism. She also told me that an SS officer, a physician assigned to the unit, actually saved her life. She was suffering from what appeared to be malaria or something and was on the verge of death. Medicine was scarce, and apparently certain kinds of meds were impossible to get by Dutch physicians at that time. This Nazi officer took it upon himself & managed to go through some “restricted” channels to secure for her plenty of proper medicine to help her.

Story 3: Hennie witnessed both the German occupation of the Netherlands as well as the Allied liberation several years later. She noted the contrast in the overall behavior of both armies.
On the one hand the German soldiers were extremely well disciplined, so much so that they were not allowed to even touch the young - and attractive – Dutch girls. One young soldier tried to smooch Hennie’s sister…her mother in typical Dutch fashion stormed down to the soldier’s headquarters and proceeded to get right in the face of the senior NAZI in command to protest. Hennie remembers her mother screaming at this officer (at the top of her lungs, & speaking in German) and pointing her finger right at him, right in his face. The young homesick soldier guilty of just trying to get a little kiss was gone within a few hours…shipped off to front line combat duty. Apparently was KIA.
On the other hand, she said the Americans, although much friendlier than the Germans, were unfortunately also morally lax. She says the U.S. Officers didn’t care what their men did to or with the local girls as long as the guys didn’t get too carried away, and didn’t physically hurt any of ‘em.

Leningrad

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Posted: January 04 2008 at 22:27

I'm a big fan of this kind of stuff. I've got a big archive of them laying around. Here's one. It's not mine, by the way.

Charlie Brown was a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17 was called 'Ye Old Pub' and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.

After flying over an enemy airfield, a pilot called Franz Steigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he 'had never seen a plane in such a bad state'. The tail and rear section was severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was all over the top of the fuselage. The nose was smashed and there were holes everywhere.

Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at Charlie Brown, the pilot. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and blood-stained plane.

Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to and slightly over the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe.

When Franz landed he told the c/o that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remains of his crew told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk about it.

More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. After years of research, Franz was found. He had never talked about the incident, not even at post-war reunions.

They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now - all because Franz never fired his guns.

Utah Man

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Posted: January 04 2008 at 22:45

Great story chameleon, thanks...
I love this stuff.

My dad had some really great stories, but since he was in medical school in Philadelphia during World War II all of his were from his M*A*S*H unit during the Korean War.

[he was in the actual M*A*S*H not the movie]

.

Edited by Utah Man - January 04 2008 at 22:49

Chris H

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Posted: January 04 2008 at 22:47

This stuff is also interesting to me, I'm a huge history and geography buff. My great uncle (granpa's brother) was drafted into service during the beginning of the war, and instead of being killed by opposing forces he was taken as a prisoner of war in Italy. Being of Italian descent, he had concocted a plan in which a fellow jailmate would hold-up the Italian patrolman and my great uncle took his uniform and guys and used his newfound disguise to slip through the cracks of the system and unlock his helpful jailmate. My uncle escaped back to the States and he lives right next door to my grandpa, and he will be 84 this year. He still works in the family construction business and kept in touch with his newfound friend until he died of a stroke in the late nineties.

Beauty will save the world.

Leningrad

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Posted: January 04 2008 at 22:48

I've heard some that have just about blown my mind. I'm off to hunt for some more.

Utah Man

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Posted: January 04 2008 at 22:52

Zappa88 wrote:

This stuff is also interesting to me, I'm a huge history and geography buff. My great uncle (granpa's brother) was drafted into service during the beginning of the war, and instead of being killed by opposing forces he was taken as a prisoner of war in Italy. Being of Italian descent, he had concocted a plan in which a fellow jailmate would hold-up the Italian patrolman and my great uncle took his uniform and guys and used his newfound disguise to slip through the cracks of the system and unlock his helpful jailmate. My uncle escaped back to the States and he lives right next door to my grandpa, and he will be 84 this year. He still works in the family construction business and kept in touch with his newfound friend until he died of a stroke in the late nineties.

Affascinante, grazie zappa88, grazie Wink

Utah Man

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Posted: January 04 2008 at 23:20

Here's another (Not the European Theater of Operations but what the heck...):
My friend John Hornok (age 84) was at Pearl Harbor on that "fateful day". He recalls getting up early that Sunday morning to go see a local sports event - a football game I believe. He was on board one of the ships in the harbor when all of a sudden he heard the air raid sirens activate.
Suddenly, he sees the air filled with attacking Jap planes.
He remembers there being a lot of confusion everywhere. He manned a machine gun turret and stayed there firing away. He said he could see the enemy pilots very clearly as they flew in low during their attack runs. The ship he was on was several hundred yards away from the main flotilla and so was not a primary Japanese target and apparently didn't suffer a lot of damage.
He said what upset him was that he missed the game !!!
He recalls not sleeping for about three or four days straight...He said to me, "When someone is trying to kill you, you don't feel like sleeping"

.

darren

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Posted: January 05 2008 at 02:16

A friend of the family was too young but lied about his age to get into the army. He fought in Europe. Years after the war, he bacame friends with a man who was in the German army. They were good friends and compared notes. They were fighting in the same place at the same time. They were known for saying things like "If I was a better shot, you wouldn't have been able to do that".

Kind of related: My grandfather (on my father's side) has a USMC knife. He beat the snot out of a marine to get it.

My grandfather on my mother's side served in Italy. He was a medic. He came to visit one summer but declined to go with us to see the fireworks. I was too young to connect the dots.

Years ago I was looking after my aunt. A friend dropped by and we were listening to the news. There was something about these guys who deny the holocaust happened. He got misty eyed and told me about his being in the army. He was in the first allied division to liberate a concentration camp. I still get chills thinking about his stories. He said it wasn't like looking at people, they were walking skeletons.

I had an instructor in college who was a correspondant in Viet Nam. His prized possession was a raincoat with a bullet hole in the shoulder. The bullet grazed his shoulder, just took the skin and a bit of muscle tissue. He became a bit religious after that.

"they locked up a man who wanted to rule the world.
the fools
they locked up the wrong man."
- Leonard Cohen

Atkingani

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Posted: January 05 2008 at 02:58

Although not known by many, Brazil went in a state-of-war against Germany, Italy & Japan in January, 1942 and declared war in August that year.

Brazilian troops participated in the Mediterranean Theatre since 1943 and later ground and air forces fought the Nazis and Fascists in the Italian soil, from 1944 till the end of the war. It was painful for those men of the tropics to fight during the Winter '44-'45 (one of the worst Winters of the XXth Century) but they strengthened, gained experience and became very reliable for the Allied effort.

Ground troops served attached to the 5th US Army but they kept their uniforms, weapons, chain of command, etc. After Feb, 1945, Gen. Mark Clark, the 5th Army commander, put the 1st Braz Infantry Div as a spearhead, denoting that he and his staff trusted the Brazilian soldiers.

Some deeds achieved by the Brazilians:

1. The 1st Braz Infantry Div was the only Allied unit in the Italian Front where no desertion case was reported.

2. This Division was the only to get the surrender of an entire German Division in the said front. In this case, the 148th Division (Wehrmacht) which curiously included remainders of the famous Afrika Korps.

I know some interesting stories about these guys (I have 2 uncles that were there)... just remembering I'll post here.

Edited by Atkingani - January 05 2008 at 03:16

Guigo

~~~~~~

Dean

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Posted: January 05 2008 at 08:40

Chameleon wrote:

I'm a big fan of this kind of stuff. I've got a big archive of them laying around. Here's one. It's not mine, by the way.

Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at Charlie Brown, the pilot. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and blood-stained plane.

They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now - all because Franz never fired his guns.

^ Wow! Great story. Kimbolton was one of 4 RAF airfileds near where I grew up in the 1970s all of which served as bases for the USAAF during the war.

RAF Kimbolton went out of use in the 1947s and part of it became a Go-kart race track (which you can see on this satelite map here - you can still see ground features that were once the main runways)

RAF Poddington airfiled became Englands first and only permanent Drag Racing strip, known as Santa Pod to infuse a little bit of California into rural Bedfordshire (here), where I spent many a happy weekend there watching top-fuel dragsters and inhailing Nitro fumes.

RAF Thurleigh and RAF Twinwoods became RAE Bedford, a defense research establishment where I served my apprenticeship.

Keeping the automotive connection, RAF Thurleigh is the location of BBC Top Gear's test track (here) - you can see the test track markings on the runways and the long (06-24) runway at over a mile in length was for many years the longest in the world - I was fortunate enough to see the Red Arrows display team take off in formation from that runway.

Twinwoods farm is famous for being the airfield where Glen Miller took off from on his fateful last flight, but hidden deep in the woods stands some disused Nissen huts that were the USAF crew living quarters. These huts are covered in the graffiti that the airmen wrote on the walls before each mission as messages to loved ones they may never see again. Nothing else remains of the airfiled, (I don't even know where the Nissam huts are - their exact location is a closely guarded secret), this satellite map (here) shows the research buildings that were built on the site in the 1950s. (/edit: found them)

/edit: My wartime story: During the war my Granddad was a farm labourer in Suffolk. One day while ploughing a lone fighter plane came in low across the fields. My Granddad, being a friendly sort, waived at the plane, which promptly turned around and straifed his tractor - he took a crash course in aircraft recognition after that.

Edited by darqdean - January 05 2008 at 10:05

What?

E-Dub

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Posted: January 05 2008 at 08:42

When my dad worked for the fire department, he was buddies with this guy (an American Jew) who served in WWII driving tanks. I believe this was towards the end, but on this particular day he fell asleep in his tank while out on patrols. He woke up, poked his head out and he was surrounded by Nazis. Thinking he was living his last day, he was shocked to see that they all were surrendering.

I just got The History Channels complete DVD set on WWII for Christmas. Looking forward to sitting down and watching this series.

E

N Ellingworth View Drop Down

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Posted: January 05 2008 at 08:57

Two of my relatives were heavily involved in the second world war.

My great grandfather served in the Navy during both world wars, during WW2 he was a bomb disposal officer and tragically met his death whilst trying to diffuse a Nazi parachute mine in Dagenham, he was awarded a posthumous George Cross for his bravery.

My grandfather was a motorcycle dispatch rider for the Army and was at Dunkirk during the evacuation, he actually managed to steal an old Indian motorbike from a French farm but when he got back to England some bugger had nicked it. He was also in Normandy a few days after D-Day. A few years before he died he gave me one of his old field telephones, apparently he had two but one went missing.

Edited by N Ellingworth - January 05 2008 at 08:57