My Grandfather US Army

[RMD Photography]

So he didn't speak a lot about the war, but I know he was on a halftrack crew at some point and spent a good amount of time in Europe. He brought back several "souvenirs" as most did that were on the fronts. I have a nice Luger and Mauser rifle as well as various German pins and patches. I wish I would have been able to talk to him more about the war before he passed.

Anyways, here is an old photo of him at some point early in his career.

[edpanzer]

Jeez you forget how young they were I had the same problem with my grandfather he wouldn't talk much about it, I guess it affected them in ways we can't imagine.

[jackalope]

Wow that's cool! Sorry to hear of his passing though.

We had all sorts of cool stuff from my grandfather from both WWI and WWII but my aunt raided my grandparents attic and took all of his "war stuff" and sold it at flea markets. Everything he brought back lost forever.

[greengiant]

It's a shame how little has survived in the US from our WW2 vets. My father served from 1942 to 1945 and other than a few pictures of him at training camps and in France at the end of the war in dress uniforms I have nothing other then the pictures and the uniforms and one hand grenade which he took apart and blew up the fuse on and dumped out the powder, now when you pull the pin the handle flies off like the real thing but without the boom. It seems that most of the weapons snuck back illegally ( a lot of Thompsons came back in parts ) were destroyed by those bringing them back for fear the government would catch them with them rather then donating them to museums.

[RobW]

Given what they saw, heard and experienced it's not really surprising that so little remains. I've got a set of field glasses from WW1 (Great Grandpa was a sniper) and Dad has Great Grandad's diary which he's gradually typing up & researching the names (Great Grandad seems to have been in the wrong country at one point!). No photos other than a dress uniform though.

Neither Grandfather spoke of WW2. All one said was how happy the Gurkha regiments seemed to be (but to keep out of their way first thing if they'd been raiding) and how much he hated rice (wouldn't eat it other than in rice pudding). The other only really said how much he disliked the US airforce (think they came closer to bombing him than the Germans), and that he'd only applied for his campaign medals because of the prize money (Royal Marines got a share of the Navy prize).