The 80th anniversary of D-Day is upon us, and it puts me in mind of my own father’s service during World War II. He was a fire control man on the destroyer USS Carmick, which was in the thick of things that day:
On 6 June (D-Day), she took station guarding the flanks of the leading ships off Omaha Beach, acting as antisubmarine and anti-E-boat screen. As the infantrymen began to move ashore, Carmick provided pin-point gunfire support, knocking out enemy strongpoints. She remained off the beachhead through 17 June, firing against enemy air attacks and guarding the great numbers of ships moving into the area to support forces ashore. On 10 June, she splashed a Heinkel bomber.
Dad never said much about his service, but as a fire control man, I wonder whether it was his gun that took down the Heinkel.
So, fellow Dopers, how many of you had fathers or grandfathers who went through that necessary hell? And have they, did they ever speak of it?
Two of my mother’s three brothers (one had died before the war started) were there. They landed at Normandy, and both made it through the war. I don’t know much about what they did in the war beyond that; one lived out of town, so I didn’t have a great deal of opportunity to talk to him, and the other became estranged from the rest of the family when I was a kid.
The uncle I got to know pretty well (mother’s sister’s husband–my mom was the youngest of six) was a pretty cool guy, though, but he’s off topic here.
My grandmother was a WAC and arrived in July or August. To reach the shore, the WACs had to use netting clinging to the side of their ships to climb into smaller boats. She saw one of her fellow WACs fall and hit her head while making this attempt. Grandma always wondered if that woman lived or died, but finally found out more than 50 years later that she had in fact died.
Dad was in the Army Air Force, in the India-China-Burma theater.
Two uncles in the Navy, both in the Pacific.
One uncle in the Army, in Alaska.
One uncle in the Army Air Force, who I think was still in training when the war ended.
Nope, both my parents were born in 1937 and my grandfathers would have been in their early 30s when Canada entered the war in 1939.
I had one great uncle who was a doctor serving in the South Pacific with the US Army and one who was a Canadian GI in Belgium. I didn’t know either of them, unfortunately, even though they made it back.
If I’m remembering or was even told any of these stories correctly, my grandfather also landed the day after. I know he spent time in the UK and France.
He was (maybe?) a gunsmith in the army. One story he told was having to fire boxes ammunition which had gotten wet in the salt water to recover the brass, supposedly using up multiple machine gun barrels, which he buried and recorded as “destroyed in combat.”
He took home a .30-06 rifle which he claimed was made out of spare parts, so as far as the army was concerned it didn’t exist, so wasn’t stolen. Wikipedia suggests maybe an M1903 Springfield.
My grandfather was an officer in the Jugoslavian army. After the Axis occupied that country, he was sent to an officers’ internment camp in Osnabrück, Germany. He spent almost the entire war there.
After the war, he chose to return to Jugoslavia, now a Communist country. He planned to demobilize, but they were building a new army and wouldn’t let him. He spent his working life as a career officer and retired as a Colonel.
My maternal grandfather was at the D-Day landing. He was a 42 year old private in the Army. He was killed that day so I never met him. I’ve only seen 4 or 5 pictures of him.
Likewise my uncles; my father was serving Stateside, presumably because his brothers were overseas (except for the oldest who was married with kids at the time). I think some of my father’s cousins were in the European theater, and thus might have been at D-Day
My father was the right age, but he was serving in the Merchant Marine in the Pacific theater. So, no. I’m not aware of any relatives who participated in D-Day or any part of the European war.
My dad had three younger brothers; they all served. One was a pilot, flew the Burma Hump. One was an Army engineer. The youngest went into schooling for a dentist and I don’t think he ever left the States.
Dad, being the oldest son in the Depression, never got to go to college; had to go to work right after high school to help support the family, and was an enlisted man in the Navy. His three brothers were all officers.