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2 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Because that's where the Japanese were.  My wife's grandfather was there too.  One of the ugliest, least told stories of WW2.  

I understand that part. My question to Brat is “Why?  What made it important?”  

4 minutes ago, Kennythetiger said:

I understand that part. My question to Brat is “Why?  What made it important?”  

The afterparty?  

1 hour ago, BabaYaga said:

I can't wait to the equivalent of BOB/The Pacific talking about the daylight bombing raids over Germany.  The crew had to cycle through 25 raids before being reassigned.  At one point US losses of crews was 1:4.  Do the math.  Statistically every crew bore the burden of knowing they were most likely going to be shot down.  They flew anyway.  The smaller UK bombers took the easier night raids, the larger US forces and their ultra-secret Norden bomb sight needed line of sight, daytime visibility.  To be accurate, they had to cluster and maintain a steady pattern to hit targets, making them extremely vulnerable, especially before the P-51 could accompany them to-from the entire run.   

 

43 minutes ago, ABSR said:

Some rotations were even 30 flights, but then you in theory had a break, but were reassigned back again after 6-9 months.  My Wife's grandfather was a navigator on B-17's.  We did not know much about his time until decades after his death when we found a picture and his citation for the Distinguished Flying Cross which was awarded after his 43rd combat mission, where he "manned his guns" as the fighters concentrated an attack on his plane, then rendered aid to his "seriously wounded" radio operator, and then navigated back on the "badly crippled plane" without further injury to crew or aircraft.

 

 

25 flights was the original "get out of jail free"  rotate home card for the 8th Air Force. And that was the initial promised number, and for the most part all the crews that finished in the early summer of '43 got the full rotation credit. 

But very shortly after that (page 10),  late Summer/early spring of '43 the 8th realized that they wouldnt have enough crews to keep managing the planes, so the "go home" number got pushed to 40, then 50, and finally finished at something like 75... which obviously hugely pissed off a lot of the airmen.  

To make up for that, they were given much longer "mini breaks" after 30-40 missions (got a month or 6 weeks off before going back into active duty combat flights). And that kept going through most of the end of the war

22 minutes ago, Kennythetiger said:

I understand that part. My question to Brat is “Why?  What made it important?”  

It was part of coordinated Japanese invasions of US held territories - including the Philippines, Wake, and Guam after Pearl.  It was only time of the war US soil was occupied.  Those islands, especially the weather and relay stations, help control those shipping lanes.  It also kept US and Russian forces for coordinating attacks from the north.

  • Author
55 minutes ago, msucolt45 said:


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“Rupert” - From the WW2 Museum - NOLA.

A great way to spend a day in New Orleans!

Hook’em!!!

That is on the list for sure! 

17 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

It was part of coordinated Japanese invasions of US held territories - including the Philippines, Wake, and Guam after Pearl.  It was only time of the war US soil was occupied.  Those islands, especially the weather and relay stations, help control those shipping lanes.  It also kept US and Russian forces for coordinating attacks from the north.

Actually, it was more part of the Midway campaign (June 1942).   The Japanese were trying to lure our carriers out into a fight.   They go more than they bargained for at Midway so the outpost on Attu was kind of screwed long term.   They lasted until May 1943 

1 hour ago, Kennythetiger said:

Remind me again why your dad was in the Aleutians, please. What was the strategy there?  

 

1 hour ago, YGIFS said:

Because that's where the Japanese were.  My wife's grandfather was there too.  One of the ugliest, least told stories of WW2.  

Japan invaded the Aleutians during the same time that the Battle of Midway was starting. Most likely done to get a foothold in the Northern Pacific , plus actual US soil, but really to divert US forces from Japan's main goal of capturing and fortifying MIdway into a stronghold in the Pacific to be a nuisance and threat to Pearl Harbor. It also kept us from launching an attack against Japan from the Aleutians themselves.

Terrible living and fighting conditions for both sides with the "island hopping" tactics and lessons learned for later battles of the Pacific. 

Probably the best thing to come out of that campaign is the capturing of a very intact Japanese Zero that had been crash landed onto one of the islands. The lane was transported back to the mainland where it was gone through, studied , and flown by American pilots. What was learned from it would be later put to great use in defeating it and its pilots in the skies over the Pacific in the remaining battles of the war.

Edited by BillyGoatHill

Let's not forget our Marines - the invasion of Okinawa was a larger in almost every way to Normandy.  Or the initial island invasions such as Peleliu or Tarawa, where the coral atolls forced the Marine's to exit their craft hundreds of yards off the defended coastline, wading through pre-bracketed shores with ZERO cover.  It wasn't until later campaigns that the Japanese figured out that letting them land, establish a beachhead, and them hammer then as we saw on Iwo.

I’m not denigrating the bravery of any of these brave souls that ran out of a flimsy landing craft into withering fire. Guess there were some infantrymen who landed at Sicily, Anzio, and Normandy. But so many Pacific troops did it over and over fighting an enemy which had no word for surrender. I am thankful for each of them in every theater of the war.

My scoutmaster was a tank commander in a Sherman in Patton’s Third Army who was in the relief of Bastogne and then the race into Austria and Czechoslovakia. A great great uncle died on the Bataan death March. My great uncle died on a destroyer that sank in that typhoon portrayed in the Caine Mutiny. A cousin went up the spine of Italy in horrible bloody fighting. A great friend’s dad was a B24 pilot, got his 25, and was on the Schweinfort raid. The list is long.
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1 hour ago, Kennythetiger said:

Remind me again why your dad was in the Aleutians, please. What was the strategy there?  

 

1 hour ago, YGIFS said:

Because that's where the Japanese were.  My wife's grandfather was there too.  One of the ugliest, least told stories of WW2.  

Correct. A miserable place to fight.

The Japanese had occupied the Alaskan Aleutian islands of Attu and Kiska with about 2,000 troops on each. 
It was intended as a diversion from Midway. 
A total of about 15,000 US and Canadian troops landed on Attu in May of 1943 to take it back. After a few weeks of fighting, 2,300 of the enemy were killed (many committed suicide) and only 21 prisoners taken. 
Over 500 Americans were KIA, 1,100 wounded, and 1,800 dead & sick from disease.

Allied forces landed on Kiska in late July to discover that the Japanese had quietly evacuated under cover of bad weather & darkness. Dad said the only living thing they found was an abandoned dog that was promptly adopted by some soldiers.

Dad took these pictures, along with a few more.

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Edited by Armybrat

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It is nearly 0100 hours in Normandy.  The 150,000th Allied soldier will touch his feet to the French soil just now.  5000 ships will have arrived on the shores of Normandy.  I forget that 3000 civilians also lost their lives that day.  The 75/88 artillery continue to light up the sky.  It will take another week to coordinate the 5 landing sectors.  And another month to press deep off the coast.  The 2nd Rangers Battalion will lose almost everyone and be down to just 90 men by sunrise, only 6 hours from now.  

But more and more armor and reinforcements arrives throughout the night.  Though it will prove to be perhaps the most chaotic night in the history of warfare, particularly for the U.S. Army, logistical lanes are being set.  Nearly a year of brutal warfare is still to come just on the Western Front/Theater.  But the foothold has been established in proper order with many sacrifices.  And the turn towards Paris has begun.  And eventually the ride to Berlin.  All because some 19 year olds from Ontario, Wales, and Texas decided to say, "Yessir, I'll ride in the front of the Higgins."  

 

It is 0330 hrs in the Channel.  U-boat 629 is one of many dispatched by Kriegsmarine to disrupt and disarm incoming Allied vessels with armor and reinforcements.  She is sunk at this very moment from RAF depth charges.  This begins another under-reported shift in the D-Day narrative.  Massive attempts to disrupt the Allied armor and supply chains at sea become futile efforts.  The Nazis do regain a foothold on land but within just days, the Air & Sea efforts fade like the stars at dawn for the Reich.  

U-629 serves as a harbinger.  A cautionary tale of what it is to come as sea power begins to overcome the theater and American and British supply chains begin to flood the continent anew.  Teenagers retook a continent that was already an established place because they understood the undercutting of democracy was wrong.  They were wiser in their disconnected youth than we are now.  And later tomorrow, they would take the turn towards Saint Lo' where even more danger awaits.  The situation grows dim before sunrise.  

I don't know how I hadn't seen this before, but there is a documentary on HBO

We Stand Alone Together
The Men of Easy Company

Gives more background on some of the men

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Correct. A miserable place to fight.
The Japanese had occupied the Alaskan Aleutian islands of Attu and Kiska with about 2,000 troops on each. 
It was intended as a diversion from Midway. 
A total of about 15,000 US and Canadian troops landed on Attu in May of 1943 to take it back. After a few weeks of fighting, 2,300 of the enemy were killed (many committed suicide) and only 21 prisoners taken. 
Over 500 Americans were KIA, 1,100 wounded, and 1,800 dead & sick from disease.
Allied forces landed on Kiska in late July to discover that the Japanese had quietly evacuated under cover of bad weather & darkness. Dad said the only living thing they found was an abandoned dog that was promptly adopted by some soldiers.
Dad took these pictures, along with a few more.
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Brat, my uncle was a bad motherfucker. He was a member of the First Special Service Force, also known as the Devil’s Brigade, a joint US-Canadian Special Forces unit.  They were paratroopers, ski troops, demolition experts, and the head of the Hong Kong police taught them martial arts.
They arrived in Kiska only to find out the Japanese had withdrawn. They talked themselves into a transfer to Italy, and made a name for themselves via their attack on Monte la Difensa.   They also held an outsidze stretch of beachfront at Anzio.  That is where my uncle had his spine severed from shrapnel from a German 88.     My dad visited his brother right before the Ninth Armored shipped out on the Queen Mary to Europe. He found his bad ass brother reduced from 230 pounds to about 120 and covered in bedsores. He thought about going AWOL to save his brothers life, but instead called his uncle down in Florida, and begged him to come get his brother. My dad‘s uncle drove to the VA hospital, punched out an orderly, and took my uncle down the fire escape to his car and drove him to Florida. He took him out in the ocean every day and the salt water helped heal his bedsores, and the swimming gave him upper body strength to allow him to eventually recover, go to law school, and become an attorney. Unfortunately, his wounds were so severe that he ultimately died when I was about four years old.  A picture of my uncle sitting at his desk in his law office is on my wall. Whenever I have a bad day or want to have a pity party, I look at my uncle sitting there next to his crutches and think about what he went through. After a couple seconds reflection, I realize nothing that I am experiencing is a problem worth a shit.
I am nowhere near half the man my father and uncle were. I am amazed by what they did every day of my life . 
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Pics of uniforms from my collection of some brave soldiers that were total badasses that participated in the D-Day Invasion.  I have uniforms of others that were in Normandy but came ashore later in the month.

56th Signal Battalion:

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357th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division.  This soldier was later a POW in Germany but escaped to Czechoslovakia:

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B Company, 4th Infantry Division.  This soldier was later WIA in July taking a bullet to the knee:

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29th Infantry Division:

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505th PIR, 82nd Airborne:

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101st Airborne:

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1st Infantry Division:

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COMZ, Armored Forces, Red Ball Express:

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10 hours ago, YGIFS said:

It is 0330 hrs in the Channel.  U-boat 629 is one of many dispatched by Kriegsmarine to disrupt and disarm incoming Allied vessels with armor and reinforcements.  She is sunk at this very moment from RAF depth charges.  This begins another under-reported shift in the D-Day narrative.  Massive attempts to disrupt the Allied armor and supply chains at sea become futile efforts.  The Nazis do regain a foothold on land but within just days, the Air & Sea efforts fade like the stars at dawn for the Reich.  

U-629 serves as a harbinger.  A cautionary tale of what it is to come as sea power begins to overcome the theater and American and British supply chains begin to flood the continent anew.  Teenagers retook a continent that was already an established place because they understood the undercutting of democracy was wrong.  They were wiser in their disconnected youth than we are now.  And later tomorrow, they would take the turn towards Saint Lo' where even more danger awaits.  The situation grows dim before sunrise.  

Something that I’d never given much thought until recently is that those submarines probably didn’t have freon-cooled air conditioning. 

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Utah, St Mere Eglise, Brecourt Manor, St. Marie du Mont, Angoville au Plsin, American cemetery, Omaha, Point du Hoc 

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Ironic, starting the war the French built a massive, static defensive line (Maginot) to thwart German advances.  So what do they do, using deception and speed, they attack where they were least expected.  Fast forward a few years, what do they build?  A massive, static defensive line.  And what happens, it is circumvented using deception and speed and attacked where least expected.....

51 minutes ago, Kennythetiger said:

Something that I’d never given much thought until recently is that those submarines probably didn’t have freon-cooled air conditioning. 

Couldn't you just pump seawater through a heat exchanger to cool off the inside?

It is now 1500 hrs in France.  The infantry assaults on Breville and Caen begin right now, in earnest.  Unlike the uncharted islands of the South Pacific, the Brits have detailed maps of Northern France between personal experience and French Resistance.  But the Allied Forces have another problem, local collaborators and conscripted SS.  The first few days of pressing onward from the beachhead until the armor and supply lines will prove a great challenge.  As well as hidden Panzer units.  The sea and air will prove surprisingly secure.  The success of Overlord, despite the casualties, will be greeted with satisfaction.  But the road to Paris will take longer and more grim tolls, than suspected.  How odd is must have felt to retake a continent that was known to the entire planet.  Despite that, they press on without the knowledge that supply lines behind them are growing more secure.  They didn't know that in real time, and the Allied Infantry moved ahead anyway.  

Edited by YGIFS

4 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Couldn't you just pump seawater through a heat exchanger to cool off the inside?

Probably. Maybe something similar to the swamp coolers in our Gleaner combines when I was a kid. I’ll bet that even when everything was working correctly it was still smelly and humid as hell. 

You wouldn't even need that. Pump dirty seawater through a shell and tube exchanger with clean water on the other side, then pump the clean water through a radiator type exchanger with forced ventilation. It probably wouldn't be as cool as a freon cooled system, but you wouldn't have to worry about coils freezing up or any of that.

14 minutes ago, Kennythetiger said:

Probably. Maybe something similar to the swamp coolers in our Gleaner combines when I was a kid. I’ll bet that even when everything was working correctly it was still smelly and humid as hell. 

There is no way I could serve on a sub.   I'm already a little claustrophobic.

Found out yesterday that a family member was on a PT boat in the channel that day with other PT boats as part of Operation Glimmer (The Pas-de-Calais deception.)  

6 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

There is no way I could serve on a sub.   I'm already a little claustrophobic.

Found out yesterday that a family member was on a PT boat in the channel that day with other PT boats as part of Operation Glimmer (The Pas-de-Calais deception.)  

We toured the Bowfin in Hawaii.  I'm pretty tall (6'5) and it was miserable just walking through it.  I can't imagine spending an extended amount of time on one.  

I was also surprised to learn than US subs DOMINATED the Pacific.  Something like 90+% of all Jap boats sunk in the Pacific were taken by US subs.  

26 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

We toured the Bowfin in Hawaii.  I'm pretty tall (6'5) and it was miserable just walking through it.  I can't imagine spending an extended amount of time on one.  

I was also surprised to learn than US subs DOMINATED the Pacific.  Something like 90+% of all Jap boats sunk in the Pacific were taken by US subs.  

Yep, the Silent Service does not get hardly any ink when it comes to talking about naval operations in the Pacific Theater.    Halsey and Spruance and the carriers get all the notoriety but the subs really wrought havoc on Japanese shipping.   

29 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

Yep, the Silent Service does not get hardly any ink when it comes to talking about naval operations in the Pacific Theater.    Halsey and Spruance and the carriers get all the notoriety but the subs really wrought havoc on Japanese shipping.   

I've mentioned before:  If you read Bush Sr's memoirs or Flags of our Fathers you follow the account of Chi Chi Jima.  Bush was shot down and was treading water off the island, Japanese soldiers were in a boat paddling out to capture (and invariably kill) him, and a US sub breached the water between Bush and the soldiers boat.....grabbed Bush and then submerged again.  They'd been monitoring the battle over the radio.  Bush spent over a month on the boat - always volunteering for the night watch just so he could get fresh air and out of that tin can.  I can't imagine how wild that would be!

To be helpless, seeing soldiers coming to grab you, your fellow airmen strafing and harassing Japanese trying to get him, and then out of a movie, a sub breaches right in front of you, grabs you, and slips back under the water.

 

45 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

Yep, the Silent Service does not get hardly any ink when it comes to talking about naval operations in the Pacific Theater.    Halsey and Spruance and the carriers get all the notoriety but the subs really wrought havoc on Japanese shipping.   

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38 minutes ago, Homesickhorn said:

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This group of paratroopers was a special demolition section assigned to to the 101st. Inspired by part Choctaw Indian Sgt. Jake McNiece, they cut their hair into Mohawks prior to the jump with the accompanying warpaint. 13 of them made up the section and they did not really care for, or adhere to the most rigid military standards as mentioned by the haircuts and warpaint.

This 'filthy thirteen" would be the basis for the book and movie "The Dirty Dozen" . Unfortunately , due to the dangers involved with their mission besides being paratroopers, half of them would be killed, wounded, or captured during the Normandy Campaign. After Market-Garden (Bridge Too Far) and hoping to avoid the possibility of making another combat jump ( half of the unit were casualties here also), McNiece along with most of the survivors, joined the Pathfinder Units. Instead of this keeping them out of combat, resupply was paramount for the encircled troops of Bastogne and McNiece and those  that remained with him were tasked with jumping into Bastogne and directing the follow up resupply drops for the 101st. The success of the resupply drops  and this Pathfinder unit using their Eureka beacons would be used for the 17th Airborne's jump in Wesel, Germany (Operation Varsity). McNiece was an observer on this operation and completed his 4th Combat Jump of the war. A rarity for any paratrooper during WWII and even today. 

CSB(?)/ My Airborne unit that I served in (USAF) traces it's lineage directly back to the Pathfinder units of Normandy, and more particularly with Jake McNiece and his Pathfinders of Bastogne and Operation Varsity. 

Link below has much more on Jake and his fellow bad asses...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filthy_Thirteen

On 6/6/2023 at 10:01 AM, BabaYaga said:

I can't wait to the equivalent of BOB/The Pacific talking about the daylight bombing raids over Germany.  The crew had to cycle through 25 raids before being reassigned.  At one point US losses of crews was 1:4.  Do the math.  Statistically every crew bore the burden of knowing they were most likely going to be shot down.  They flew anyway.  The smaller UK bombers took the easier night raids, the larger US forces and their ultra-secret Norden bomb sight needed line of sight, daytime visibility.  To be accurate, they had to cluster and maintain a steady pattern to hit targets, making them extremely vulnerable, especially before the P-51 could accompany them to-from the entire run.   

My wife’s uncle (wife’s dad and his mom lived with this uncle’s family for a while prior to WWII) was a ball turret gunner. His plane was shot down by the Germans and he spent the rest of the war as a POW. He had a human skull on a shelf in his home office, but no one was allowed to ask him about it. He wrote a biographical manuscript later in life, and that was the extent of what he would say about his war experience. He didn’t even mention the skull.

He taught HS history and became superintendent of a central Texas school district. 

Edited by ImissWallyPryor
Can’t spell, can’t grammar

3 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

I've mentioned before:  If you read Bush Sr's memoirs or Flags of our Fathers you follow the account of Chi Chi Jima.  Bush was shot down and was treading water off the island, Japanese soldiers were in a boat paddling out to capture (and invariably kill) him, and a US sub breached the water between Bush and the soldiers boat.....grabbed Bush and then submerged again.  They'd been monitoring the battle over the radio.  Bush spent over a month on the boat - always volunteering for the night watch just so he could get fresh air and out of that tin can.  I can't imagine how wild that would be!

To be helpless, seeing soldiers coming to grab you, your fellow airmen strafing and harassing Japanese trying to get him, and then out of a movie, a sub breaches right in front of you, grabs you, and slips back under the water.

 

….and then on leave, he arrived home in time for Thanksgiving dinner.  Something out of Norman Rockwell.

As I recall, the Japanese captured and killed the other members of his crew.

On 6/6/2023 at 10:56 AM, BillyGoatHill said:

 

Yep. A German bomber went off course during a night raid in August 1940 accidentally dropping its bombs on London. Though targets at that time between England and Germany had been only military (Germany did bomb civilians and cities in Poland) , Churchill thought it done on purpose and retaliated the following night with a raid on Berlin. Damage to both cities was slight but now the gloves were off and cities (especially in England) were the main focus of bombing raids.

Later on during the blitz, Germany and Goerring's Luftwaffe had the British RAF on the ropes as their airfields, radar installations , and most importantly the aircrews were being saturated with losses. But Hitler changed their tactics for 6 weeks to bomb the British population (cities) into submission. This 6 weeks gave the Royal Air Force time to regroup and win the Battle of Britain. Operation Sea Lion ( the invasion of Britain) was put on permanent hold due to a lack of control of the skies over England.

My dad’s oldest brother trained fighter pilots during the BOB. No one is alive to ask, but my recollection is that he served in an “advisory” role because the US wasn’t directly involved at that time. There were US pilots flying with the Brits and Canadians, but - unlike my uncle - they weren’t official US Army pilots. They snuck into Great Britain via Canada so they could fly, albeit illegally. I read a book about this, but I can’t come up with the name of it.

This uncle retired to Pensacola, and he took me up in his single engine Cessna when we visited in ‘73. He circled the USS Lexington which was moored there and did a mock approach to the landing deck to show me what it looked like to the pilots. He didn’t get close to the ship, so it was just to show me what it looked like from a distance of probably close to a mile. 

Edited by ImissWallyPryor

On 6/6/2023 at 11:38 AM, YGIFS said:

Because that's where the Japanese were.  My wife's grandfather was there too.  One of the ugliest, least told stories of WW2.  

Another good read…

EF7-BB8-B8-1188-425-A-8266-E0-CA6-AB6650

37 minutes ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

My dad’s oldest brother trained fighter pilots during the BOB. No one is alive to ask, but my recollection is that he served in an “advisory” role because the US wasn’t directly involved at that time. There were US pilots flying with the Brits and Canadians, but - unlike my uncle - they weren’t official US Army pilots. They snuck into Great Britain via Canada so they could fly, albeit illegally. I read a book about this, but I can’t come up with the name of it.

This uncle retired to Pensacola, and he took me up in his single engine Cessna when we visited in ‘73. He circled the USS Lexington which was moored there and did a mock approach to the landing deck to show me what it looked like to the pilots. He didn’t get close to the ship, so it was just to show me what it looked like from a distance of probably close to a mile. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Squadrons

That's what it was.

ONE OF THE TOUGHEST AND HARDEST THINGS I DID IN MY LIFE. SIMPER FIDELIS BOYS! HOO-RAH. BEAT THIS ON HARD MODE, THE ONLY MODE AT 16. RAW FOOTAGE, YTHE ONLY WAY TO FILM THINGS AT 16 TOO
 

 

My grandmother's youngest brother enlisted July 4, 1943. He was 15 or 16, tall kid. The marines told him no, but the army gladly took him. For the next 10 months, he trained for D Day. June 6th, he hit the beach. D Day + 2 someone took a pic of him and he ended up in Stars and Stripes. D Day + 6, he gets shot up pretty bad (fuck the nazis). He was headed home, 6 days of WW2, 16 yo. Sent back to England, then back to San Antonio, Fort Sam / Brooks.

He was a great guy, the type anyone would want to have a beer with, great person. While in the hospital, the staff asked him what he's going to do when he's released, he told them he promised his parents he'd graduated from HS. They found him a job on base (printing press I believe), then helped him get his hs diploma. He worked there for 45 years. Along they way, he bought a nice chunk waaaaay out around Boerne. Weekend place in the country. Turned out to be a great buy

RiP Uncle Larry

Edited by tx 3 putt

18 hours ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

My dad’s oldest brother trained fighter pilots during the BOB. No one is alive to ask, but my recollection is that he served in an “advisory” role because the US wasn’t directly involved at that time. There were US pilots flying with the Brits and Canadians, but - unlike my uncle - they weren’t official US Army pilots. They snuck into Great Britain via Canada so they could fly, albeit illegally. I read a book about this, but I can’t come up with the name of it.

This uncle retired to Pensacola, and he took me up in his single engine Cessna when we visited in ‘73. He circled the USS Lexington which was moored there and did a mock approach to the landing deck to show me what it looked like to the pilots. He didn’t get close to the ship, so it was just to show me what it looked like from a distance of probably close to a mile. 

The Few.  A great book.  There may be other books on this as well.

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6 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

My grandmother's youngest brother enlisted July 4, 1943. He was 15 or 16, tall kid. The marines told him no, but the army gladly took him. For the next 10 months, he trained for D Day. June 6th, he hit the beach. D Day + 2 someone took a pic of him and he ended up in Stars and Stripes. D Day + 6, he gets shot up pretty bad (fuck the nazis). He was headed home, 6 days of WW2, 16 yo. Sent back to England, then back to San Antonio, Fort Sam / Brooks.

He was a great guy, the type anyone would want to have a beer with, great person. While in the hospital, the staff asked him what he's going to do when he's released, he told them he promised his parents he'd graduated from HS. They found him a job on base (printing press I believe), then helped him get his hs diploma. He worked there for 45 years. Along they way, he bought a nice chunk waaaaay out around Boerne. Weekend place in the country. Turned out to be a great buy

RiP Uncle Larry

My grandfather was 23 when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred.  The very next morning, he took a chicago train to Great Lakes Naval Base to enlist in the U.S. Navy. He was one of only a handful of people on the train but when he arrived, there was a line numbering in the hundreds, possibly thousands there to heed the call.  A few years later, his younger sister-in-law's husband, my grand-uncle Steve would lie about his age to join the Navy and immediately become a submariner.  He is now one of only two remaining living submariners from his ship and still leads the class' reunion group each year, which thankfully still rotates through Texas.  I lied about my age to buy beer.  He lied about his age to be submerged for weeks at a time to fight Kriegsmarine vessels that still thought the war could be won at sea like suicidal fools.  Both men were cut from a different cloth.  I walk in their shadow.  Great-uncle Steve is still alive and cannot fucking believe we allow Nazis to walk among us in regular society.  How the fuck is this still a thing?  

Yeah, thread tangent and all.  But we are really talking about Nazism, Fascism, and White Nationalism.  He lives in Florida and is the political tilt you'd expect of an almost 100-year old white man.  He is a deeply religious man.  He literally worked for Gerald Ford in the Dept. of Agriculture.  He wasn't old enough to buy beer but volunteered to go into the North Sea on a fucking submarine to fight Nazis.  And he saw a man with a swastika tattoo'd on his chest a few months ago.  I can't wrap my head around how fucking insane that is to guys that age.  And then we get to hear, "Well we don't really know their Nazi sympathizers just because of the tattoo."  Our grandfathers and grand-uncles and the rest did a lot of cleaning.  And we're letting the rot fester.  I am ashamed.  Almost 80 years later from the Day of Days and we're letting it take root again.  For another thread I suppose.  But this was literally about a frontal assault on White Nationalism and some of us still have living relatives who were veterans of that campaign and they do not deserve to die with this shit happening.  It makes me want to cry.  

31 minutes ago, HouTex said:

The Few.  A great book.  There may be other books on this as well.

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That’s the one. 

7 hours ago, HouTex said:

The Few.  A great book.  There may be other books on this as well.

IMG_1540.png

Thanks for the heads up. If written by Alex, that has to be good. The other two on that cover, The Longest Winter and The Bedford Boys are must reads also.

Yeah, thread tangent and all.  But we are really talking about Nazism, Fascism, and White Nationalism.  He lives in Florida and is the political tilt you'd expect of an almost 100-year old white man.  He is a deeply religious man.  He literally worked for Gerald Ford in the Dept. of Agriculture.  He wasn't old enough to buy beer but volunteered to go into the North Sea on a fucking submarine to fight Nazis.  And he saw a man with a swastika tattoo'd on his chest a few months ago.  I can't wrap my head around how fucking insane that is to guys that age.  And then we get to hear, "Well we don't really know their Nazi sympathizers just because of the tattoo."  Our grandfathers and grand-uncles and the rest did a lot of cleaning.  And we're letting the rot fester.  I am ashamed.  Almost 80 years later from the Day of Days and we're letting it take root again.  For another thread I suppose.  But this was literally about a frontal assault on White Nationalism and some of us still have living relatives who were veterans of that campaign and they do not deserve to die with this shit happening.  It makes me want to cry.  

God bless him. The wonder of it all is that he wasn’t exceptional as an individual, but part of an exceptional generation of Americans.

It’s too bad we have fucking Nazis, Communists, Maoists, Islamists, technofascists, and royalists still in our midst.
  • 2 weeks later...

Thread bump.  Today marks a particular milestone, or kilometer stone as it were.  Though the Brits are stalled, elements of 3 different groups of the American Army are now officially 10 km inland.  Cherbourg is about to be overtaken but Caen will continue to prove a challenge.  Tilly will prove the next massive challenge.  The coastal assault has proved a success in 10 days of hindsight, armor has arrived, the Germans were caught off guard, but a miserable 10 month land battle has begun.  Bad weather and sea issues will slow things down later tomorrow and the Brits will be left holding their dicks.  An unprecedented beach assault will soon meet its greatest challenges.  The German 7th Army (Heer) is moving up quickly.  And they are playing for keeps.

  • 1 month later...
On 6/6/2023 at 2:03 PM, Armybrat said:

 

Correct. A miserable place to fight.

The Japanese had occupied the Alaskan Aleutian islands of Attu and Kiska with about 2,000 troops on each. 
It was intended as a diversion from Midway. 
A total of about 15,000 US and Canadian troops landed on Attu in May of 1943 to take it back. After a few weeks of fighting, 2,300 of the enemy were killed (many committed suicide) and only 21 prisoners taken. 
Over 500 Americans were KIA, 1,100 wounded, and 1,800 dead & sick from disease.

Allied forces landed on Kiska in late July to discover that the Japanese had quietly evacuated under cover of bad weather & darkness. Dad said the only living thing they found was an abandoned dog that was promptly adopted by some soldiers.

Dad took these pictures, along with a few more.

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A couple of nights ago I stayed up way past my bedtime watching a “War in the Pacific” series on the Smithsonian channel. They covered in surprising depth the Aleutian Islands stuff. I thought of your dad and thought it was pretty cool that I “knew” someone there. 

1 hour ago, Kennythetiger said:

A couple of nights ago I stayed up way past my bedtime watching a “War in the Pacific” series on the Smithsonian channel. They covered in surprising depth the Aleutian Islands stuff. I thought of your dad and thought it was pretty cool that I “knew” someone there. 

Even though few remember the Aleutian “side show”, those troops deserve just as much accolades as any others who fought the Japanese and the nazis.

 

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  • Author

And we should all pour out a bit for your squad mates at Yorktown right? 

Just messing with you. Love the stories about your dad and you are right it is a forgotten theater. And a damn hard one. 

My father got assigned to an intercept location up there. He spent a few months and said fuck this, send me back to Vietnam. 

Thanks for posting the history and pictures. 

 

11 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Even though few remember the Aleutian “side show”, those troops deserve just as much accolades as any others who fought the Japanese and the nazis.

 

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I read a book years ago (that I can not remember the name of) that covered the war from ranging from Alaska down to Oregon along the PNW coast.   The Aleutians were the bulk of it but the Japanese did some other wonky stuff like try to create forest fires in Oregon by bombing with incendiary bombs via a seaplane and balloon bombs sent off from Japan.   

 

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