What are your best war stories from the greatest generation.

[cplnorton]

I love hearing old war stories from WWII. I was wondering what stories you guys had from friends, family, or acquantances? This is probably my two favorites ones.

1) A gentleman stopped by where I worked who was wearing a WWII veteran hat. As I always do when I see someone who is wearing a veteran hat, I always make it a point to go up to them and shake there hand and thank them for their service. When I shook the man's hand, I noticed his middle finger was gone at the knuckle. The guy noticed that I had seen his finger was missing, even though I tried not to make it obvious. He lifted his hand, looked at his missing finger and laughed. He said, "Yeah I learned the hard way, don't ever flip off an SS officer in a German POW camp." We became good friends after that. lol

2) I bought a German P38 one time from an older guy that walked into a gunshow. As I always do I asked do you know any history of where it came from. The guy said yeah, I brought it back. Well I said if you don't mind me asking where did you get it from. The old guy said well it's really not that interesting. I said I would still love to know. He said ok, it's not really special but if you want to know I will tell you.

He was in Field Artillery in WWII, and was somewhere in France. He said they had orders to move to a new position and were towing a field artillery piece with a jeep. He said it was just four of them in the jeep with small arms and then the artillery gun. He said some how they read the map wrong and ended up being lost and behind enemy lines. They stopped and were trying to figure out where they were, when a German tank appeared on the horizon and started firing at them. He said they didn't have any anti-tank weapons and said that they were in a little valley so the tank couldn't get a real good shot on them. Even though it kept trying as it came closer. He said they thought about unhitching the artillery gun and making a run for it in the jeep, when one of the guys got an idea to try to take the tank without the artillery gun. He said they unhooked the gun and pointed it in the direction of the tank but the tank was too close and they couldn't get the right tragectory on it to hit it. So one of the guys came up with the idea to push the cannon over, let it fall on the jeep, and then drive the jeep back and forth to move the position of the cannon.

He said they did this, waited for the tank to come up over a little ridge, fired, and hit the tank right on the bottom of it, knocking the tank out. He then said they then rushed the tank with their small arms. A German opened up the top hatch, came rushing out of the tank while it was on fire, and this guy said he shot the German. He then said he found this P38 on the German's belt.

This guy had said it was an unremarkable story on how he got the P38 and here they had knocked out a tank to get it. He was so very humble about it, and just acted like it wasn't anything special.

Now lets hear some of your guy's stories.

[Ltdave]

here is my only 'war story' from WWII...

my uncle was interviewed by the local newspaper when he came home on furlough around Christmas 1944...

i retyped it from the newspaper-glued-into-the-old fashioned-black-page-scrap books. it was pretty hard to read and knew it wouldnt have copied very well so....


‘DEAD SOLDIER COMES HOME’

Escapes Death By Miracle
In Battle of the Bulge


When the frozen bodies of 150 American soldiers, slaughtered by German SS troops during the height of the Belgian Bulge battle in December, were rechecked by U.S. doughboys, six of the “dead” were missing.
One of the “corpses” is Pfc. James E. Dell, 21, son of Mr. and Mrs. John H. Dell, 4270 West Water street, home on a 30-day furlough.
“I was coming out of the hospital last Dec. 17, and everything was nice and peaceful,” he said. :Then all of a sudden all hell broke loose. The Jerries had launched a terrific counteroffensive.
“The driver of the truck we were riding in told us he’d have to leave us off because the whole sector was overrun by German panzer columns, so a bunch of us started hoofing it to our outfits,” he said.
“There wasn’t much chance of finding our units so we joined up with a bunch of recon troopers. Not long after, the Krauts captured us.
“After three days about 150 of us were rounded up in the middle of a field. Jerry tanks kept circling round and round us, forming us into a tight circle.
“Suddenly a Heinie guard opened up on an American with his ‘burp’ (automatic pistol), killing him. That must have been a signal for the tanks to let go, because machine guns started firing from every side. Guys were mowed down like wheat in a field.
“Two men on each side of me got hit at about the same time and when they fell, they knocked me down. Blood from their wounds spurted all over me. I must have looked like I had been cut to ribbons, because a few minutes later, Krauts kicked and prodded all the bodies, shooting in the head any of those who groaned or moved.

Passed By
“One of the men next to me had been hit badly. He groaned when a Jerry kicked him and they let him have it right in the head. I just lay still, praying they’d pass me by. They did.
“About two hours later I sneaked a look and noticed the German soldiers were about 400 yards away and the tanks were idling quite some distance off. I knew I had to get out of there and fast, so I yelled: ‘Any of you guys who are still alive let’s get the hell out of here.
“Five men jumped up and we took off across the field. The tanks spotted us and opened up with their artillery. Two of us, myself and another guy, got hit with fragments or something. My leg was broken. But by supporting each other we managed to hobble about five miles when we met a ‘medic’ from the 101st Airborne. He fixed us up. That’s why I’m here today instead of being buried in Belgium with the guys the Krauts slaughtered in cold blood.”
“Just before his division, the 28th (Keystone) Infantry Division left for the United States, Private Dell had a reunion with his brother, S/Sgt. John W. Dell, who left his engineer outfit in Czechoslovakia to go to Paris but changed his plans so that he could see his brother in another part of Germany.

Wears Many Decorations
Private Dell’s battle service with the Keystone outfit, nicknamed the “Bloody Bucket” division by a captured German officer, who said his troops had given it that name, netted him a Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman Badge for exemplary conduct in action, and three Battle Stars for campaigns in France, Belgium and Germany.
During the first few days of the bitter fighting in the Ardennes sector of Belgium, where German forces launched their desperate counteroffensive, the 28th was credited with holding off nine enemy divisions, upsetting the Van Runstedt timetable enough to allow reinforcements to be brought up. A few weeks later the Keystoners won a commendation from General Devers, Army Group Commander, for the quick, efficient manner in which it cleaned out the Colmar pocket, last German stand in Belgium.
Before entering the Army in April, 1944, Private Dell was employed by the Grand Trunk railroad. At the end of his furlough he will report to Camp Grant, Ill.

[Griff Murphey]

I must give my father-in-law, Lucien B. Clark, his due; he was drafted in 1941 at age 30 and given basic at Indiantown Gap. He was sent home and sold shoes until Pearl Harbor. He was infantry in the 37th Ohio, but a Jewish friend got his Irish Catholic ass into the medical battalion by arranging an interview with his company commander, who was impressed that he had been at Notre Dame, and played some football. The 37th Ohio arrived on Guadalcanal in early '43 after most of the fighting was over. However my father-in-law was shelled by heavy naval gunfire, probably 8" and 14", and was bombed on his birthday, 21 July, 1943. He said the jap pilot had the cockpit slid all the way back and looked right at him. At that moment he had a vision that his hometown paper would be running a headline saying "PEKIN (Illinois) MAN DIES ON GUADALCANAL ON HIS BIRTHDAY!" As a corporal he occasionally had to go out with infantry and would carry an M-1 Carbine. One time the unit took a knee in the gloom as a jap patrol passed by. My father-in-law was ready to fire and aimed in but the unit held fire. Another job he had was building cemeteries. He enlisted the aid of an engineer unit's bulldozer to do that. One time he saw a P-38 make a forced landing on a road. All in all just another G.I. doing his job. Diversions included developing and printing film in his tent and fishing with hand grenades. The call went out for applicants to go for OCS as medical service corps officer candidates. His friends laughed at him for filling out his application. He waved goodbye to them on the beach. In 1962 he retired as a Major in the Army medical service corps.

An Uncle, Dr. Phelps J. Murphey, was a Dallas orthodontist. He was sent to Bethesda to the National Naval Medical Center. There he became aware of the shortage of glass eyes due to the Nazi occupations in Czechoslovkia and Austria, where most were made, and developed a technique using dental acrylics to fabricate eyes that were superior in fit, and made with dental materials. In 1954 he received the Legion of Merit from President Eisenhower. Finished as Capt. (DC) USNR.

Another dental uncle, Dr. Marcus Murphey, was Patwing 4's dental officer on Attu in the Aleutians, flying to remote weather stations to provide dental care by PBY. He flew illegally on PV-2 raids against the Kuriles and they were bombed on Attu as well. Finished as LT (DC) USNR.

My dad was also 30, an orthodontist who volunteered for the U.S. Public Health Service and requesting duty with the U.S. Coast Guard and he was the dental officer for the base at Tampa. I think he had a pretty easy war but the thing is he could have taken his chances and may not have even been drafted. He told me one time that he did about 2,000 units of crown and bridge and that was a lot of that type of work with the old belt drives! His gold work was particularly requested by the many Russians who came to take over lend lease ships built at Tampa Shipbuilding. He finished as a LCDR.

[DRAGONFLYDF]

I was a member of the Arizona Wing of the Confederate Airforce when I was younger and the wing was more fun to be around, and one of the events I took part in was one of their first Warbird shows at Falcon Field, what follows is a story of why it is such a privelage to work with Warbirds.

We had been moving planes and setting up fencing panels all morning and I was getting hungry. The show was supposed to open at noon, but we were far from ready and there were a few people looking at the planes we had on display. As I was getting ready to leave I noticed a older gentleman looking in the rear crew door on the B-17. Since we were not ready to open the gates, there was no one to take money for the show or tours, I decided to take him thru the plane for free, then go get lunch. As we went from station to station in the plane I gave him the usual spiel about the crew stations and what crewman did there. He did not ask any questions and just looked around as I was pointing things out. The normal tour exited the plane thru the front hatch after going thru the cockpit. As you step down out of the cockpit and toward to the hatch you can look forward into the nose where the Bombadier and Navigator stations were, we normally did not take tours in there as it is a very small area and the tours tend to back up, but since it was just the two of us, I removed the Bungee cords that were blocking off the nose. When ever I did take someone into the nose I would have them sit in the Bombadier's seat, where they could look thru the Norden Bomb sight and thru the glass nose. When this gentleman sat in the chair, a change came over his face, it is hard to explain, but, you could see he was looking into the past. He proceeded to tell me that he had been a B-17 Bombadier in the 8th Air Force during WWII and had 2 planes shot out from under him. The first one he told me, was hit at the start of a bomb run. He had just leaned over the bomb sight and heard a loud explosion and then it got very windy, he was not hit and did not hear any orders from the pilot, so he stayed at his sight and completed his run. Once the bombs had been dropped and control of the plane released back to the pilot, he sat up, it was then he noticed 2 large holes in the plexiglass nose, right at the level of where his head would have been, had he not been learning over the sight. He turned and it was then he saw that the navigator, who sits behind him and to the left side of the plane, had been hit and killed instantly. It was the only damage they received and they made it back to the base in England.
The second plane did not fair as well, as they were shot down and he became a Prisoner of War. After he said that, he was back in the present and said he better be going, and thanked me for the tour, I said that the pleasure was all mine and thanked him for sharing his story with me. I went to lunch thinking about that man and his story and how many men like him were still around.

The next day, we finally had everything set up and the gates were open and we had a good turn out. I was standing with the B-25 and answering questions, when I saw the gentleman from yesterday, with him was his daughter and grand daughter. He said he wanted to show me a picture of his crew. He had a 8 x 10 picture of him and his crew in front of the B-17that was shot down later over Germany. He pointed to each person and told what happened to each of them, some came home, a lot of them didn't. He told me what it was like in the POW camp and how he was treated. We had been talking for a while when his grand daughter tugged on the sleeve of his jacket and said, “Show it to him Grampa”. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and held it in his open palm. He gently opened the handkerchief and inside was a side view of B-17, about 4inches long, carved out of wood, complete with open bombay doors and markings, He said he carved it out of a bed slat while in the POW camp, and he would have been shot had they found it. I was could not think of a thing to say, other to say thanks for what he did and I was so glad he came back and showed it to me, and as long as I was around, if he wanted to sit in the B-17, come find me and I would let him sit in HIS B-17 as long as he wanted. He put the bed slat B-17 back in his pocket and that he had taken enough of my time, I thanked him again and watched as he, his daughter and grand daughter walked away.

I never saw him again, but his story has stayed with me and I still have the same feeling every time I tell it.

[Gatofeo]

My mother was in the Belgian Resistance. Her first husband, the leader of one Resistance group, was betrayed and captured after nearly a year on the run. He was held at the notorious Breendonk torture camp near Brussels for a year, then executed two weeks before D-Day.
Mom was twice imprisoned by the Gestapo in St. Gilles Prison, in Brussels. She was a 26-year-old widow when she met my father, an American G.I., after Brussels' liberation.
Mom had some great stories about the Belgian Resistance (she died in 1983).
During the occupation of Brussels, they'd sneak out during night blackout and remove the manhole covers from outside bars. The German troops were inside the bars, getting drunk.
The Germans were meticulous about their uniform. If you got caught with a filthy uniform -- off to the Russian Front!
So out staggered the Germans from the bars, in utter darkness. They'd fall through the open manhole and drift down the Brussels sewers until they spotted light and could climb out.
Then, they had to make their way back to their barracks without being caught in a filthy uniform.
"We sent a lot of Germans to the Russian Front," Mom used to say, laughing.

The German commandant of Brussels would have a fit at least once a week, because he'd find a copy of the latest Belgian Underground newspaper on his office desk. He changed guards. He changed Belgian workers. He'd station extra guards outside his locked doors at night. And within days, there was another paper on his desk.
The office was searched countless times for hidden passages (it was in a very old building).
No luck.
How did the paper regularly end up on his desk, despite all precautions? I asked Mom.
"No one knows but the message was clear: 'This could have been a bomb.'"
Mom laughed about that too.

At the age of 16, my cousin Francois was a member of the Belgian Resistance. He was never caught, though he had a few close calls.
He knew another Belgian Resistance member who took an unusual approach at gathering intelligence.
British Intelligence knew that many new German troops had been assigned to the airfield in Brussels, but couldn't determine how many. The Germans kept it a closely guarded secret.
Knowing that the standard ration for each Wermacht soldier was 1/4 loaf of bread, a Belgian Resistance member learned who had the bakery contract. He sought out the baker.
"How's business?" the man asked as he bought a few loaves.
"Couldn't be better!" the baker replied.
The man chatted up the baker a bit and learned exactly how many loaves he was supplying the local airbase.
Each German soldier's ration was 1/4 loaf, so the Belgian Resistance member multiplied the daily delivery by four.
British Intelligence got their answer.

Many, many downed allied fliers were smuggled to safety by the Belgian Resistance. It was one of the most active Resistance groups in Europe. Consequently, many Belgian Resistance members were killed, imprisoned and tortured.
The next time someone uses the two words, "French Resistance," immediately interrupt them and add, "And the Belgians, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes and even the German Resistance and many others."
They all deserve recognition.

[Andouille]

Whenever I hear the term "greatest generation", I remember a guy who never said hardly a word about it until he died at age 91.

Daddy didn't tell any war stories. He probably could have sat out the war safe and sound, but instead enlisted at 33-years of age and kept hounding his commanding officers until he got the chance to see the elephant for himself. I have very little idea what the elephant looked like to him, because he never described it. I have pictures of him in his sailor suit, both before and after his government sponsored cruise to the sunny South Pacific. The hair that was dark, had turned white in the course of the 18-months or so he was gone. He did open up just a little bit the night I got home from Viet Nam, and then he crawled back behind his newspaper, and that was that.

Some of you will recognize the pattern.............and some of you may have the pattern yourselves.

[Gunbuff58]

http://www.4thinfantry.org/content/r...j-posthumously
A close friend of mine is a WWII vet of the 4th Infantry Div. I have known him for years but he really didn't mention his war experiences until I asked him about what and where he served in WWII. He then opened up with brief stories from time to time if I would ask. One story in particular really set me back on my heels. I was going thru a book on Medal of Honor men in WWII and I came to a name and then Company and the Division. I thought of my friend after I read the account of Lt Ray and wondered if he knew him. I called him on the phone and asked him if he knew this Officer. He said it was his Platoon Leader at the time. I then read him the account of how Lt Ray earned the MOH. He didn't say anything for a moment or two and I asked if he was ok. He then told me this story. They were fighting in the Hurtgen Forrest and they came up to a place that the Germans had zeroed in with small arms and mortars and they were getting shot up pretty bad. The Germans had barbed wire strung up so it would stop any advance by our guys and a few had already been shot/killed trying to destroy the wires. My friend was behind Lt Ray and ordered to give suppressing fire while men were trying to get rid of the wire, Lt Ray advanced and was now in front of my friend who was firing his M-1 at the German gun emplacements. He said Lt Ray was working on a Bangalore Tube and he thought he got hit but in the excitement of the battle he was not sure. Then while still giving suppressing fire the Bangalore Tube exploded killing Lt Ray. I thought what a terrible thing to have to live thru every day with men dying and getting injured all around you. But the amazing part of the story is this. My friend did not know that Lt Ray detonated the Bangalore Tube he thought that with his angle just behind Lt Ray one of his M-1 rounds caused it to go off killing his Platoon Leader. I could tell he was very upset and that I would hang up and call him later and he said it was ok. He had been carrying that thought all of these years and was glad I had called and read him the story of the account on how Lt Ray received the MOH. Wonder how many of those WWII vets carried those type of stories with them the rest of their lives.

[John Sukey]

Not really a war story, but my father was a doctor. One day they came around and asked if anyone wanted a ride in a glider. After the rides were over, they were told "congratulations, you are now all in the 101st! My dad was put in charge of two gliders. He got a blood clot in his leg and was hospitalized before the day so he got to france later. He met the doctor who replaced him and was told that glider was released too soon so they wound up in Belgium.

[Clark Howard]

A family friend who was in radio in Canton, Ohio, in the early sixties, told his story. He was a B-17 pilot stationed in England. On a bombing mission to Germany, during initial climb to altitude, the top turret gunner had a problem with his turret. Jim got out of his seat, released the crotch straps of his parachute, and re-hitched the releases outside his hips to enable him to move around the aircraft without binding. After the turret problem was resolved, he again took his seat and fastened his seat belt and shoulder harness. Their B-17 was attacked over the target and damaged by flak and fighters, but they completed their bomb run. On the flight back to England, they lost two engines on the same wing, and had to slowly descend. With the English Channel in sight, the third engine caught fire and had to be shut down. Just as they crossed the coast at 12,000 feet altitude, the one remaining engine started to surge, a sure sign of impending failure. With two crewmembers already killed by enemy fire, Jim ordered the crew to bail out. When he saw that everyone who was able had departed, he left his seat, went aft to the open bomb bay. There he found his navigator sitting on the edge of the bay. He pushed him out, then followed. His parachute opened properly, but as he looked up at the canopy, he noticed that the harness chest strap was about arms length above his head. He then discovered that his elbows had slid into the leg straps that he had fastened outside his hips. Realizing his luck, he locked his arms across his chest. All was well until he had the idea that by grasping the chest strap before he landed in the water, he could simply release his grip when he splashed down, releasing the chute to blow away instead of dragging him through the water. He reached up with one hand to see if he could reach the chest strap, and the canopy started getting smaller. Realizing what had happened, he start the count' "One thousand one, one thousand two". He reached ten and stopped counting. His last recollection was the fluttering, tiny parachute canopy framed between his boots as he fell head first toward the water. He was seen to hit the water by a German E-boat (torpedo boat), and was fished out of the water and made prisoner. He spent two years in captivity, during which time he had two surgeries to repair back and neck injuries from the fall. He was well treated by his captors, and was given affidavits by the Germans documenting his fall into the Channel without his parachute. He passed away in the early seventies. Regards, Clark

[barretcreek]

A non-combatant story. Spent a couple months in Oz, abusing the hospitality of friends up Cape York. Their neighbor Bill was a 19 year old book keeper at a plantation in Malaya when he became a guest of the Emperor. He was over 6 foot and told "no white man may look down on a Japanese". Guards told him he could stand amongst the other prisoners but if he was approached by any of the Japanese he better be on his knees chopchop. Or it would be chopchop.