Thanks for the bump, guys!
I was away for the weekend (to Berlin, of all places!), so I had no time to do it myself. Luckily, someone always seems to remember, even if it was a day late. But after 66 years, what’s another day, right? 
Coldy!
Always a pleasure!
I read this OP every year, and every year it moves me more and more. Thank you **Coldfire **for posting it, thank you mods and others for resurrecting it every year, and thank you most of all to all those who put their lives in danger for all the rest of us.
I figured this deserved a bump so new folks could read it…
Thank you for that. I don’t know how the date escaped me. This thread is probably, (with one possible exception), the best thread ever on the Dope.
RIP, Uncle Larry.
I’m glad that I happened across this thread. It gives me a belated (in some cases) chance to remember some of my family members.
For the current generation, my brother is a gunner’s mate on a guided-missile destroyer, probably (given the state of his voicemail) on deployment somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now.
Dad’s retired now, but he served in both DS/DS and OIF. He graduated from ROTC just after they stopped sending troops to Vietnam, so he ended up in Germany (though he’s technically “Vietnam era”).
Maternal grandfather was WWII era Navy, though I unfortunately know nothing of his service. Paternal grandfather was a Tech 5 in the Pacific theatre in WWII, though I again know far too little of his service beyond that he was at Iwo Jima, though I don’t know if it was during the battle or the aftermath.
But mostly, this is for my great-uncle Carl. Growing up on the original homestead (in a different house, but less than 1000 feet from the original, where one of my great-aunts and two of my great-uncles [including him] still lived), my brother and I were constant presences. We climbed, crawled, scurried, and dropped across every inch of the place. Uncle Neil sat in the basement and drank his Coors, great-grandma sat five feet in front of the TV to watch her soaps, and aunt Mert spent all day cooking for every manjack working the farm and fields (my dad, my uncle, my grandfather, other great-uncles, various cousins, etc).
Uncle Carl didn’t watch TV, didn’t nap on the couch like my grandfather (his younger brother), didn’t work the fields. Instead, he sat in his office, keeping the farm’s books, chewing Levi Garrett, and filling up gallon Folger’s coffee cans with spit. Very fat, he would stir himself from the room when food was served, moving oh so slowly on his the cane that only left his hand to be draped on the back of the chair he was sitting on. He had no teeth, and so every meal at the table began with him removing his dentures (I don’t think they fit well), and a constant sight at my childhood meals was him gumming his food with as much vigor as he could muster. I recall that I, my brother, and various cousins would go running down the hallway, weaving and dipping around him and his cane en route to our destination and unmindful of the old, fat, bald man limping ponderously down the hall, and that he usually bore it with good grace but sometimes cursed us if his mood was short.
I don’t remember when I was cognizant enough to first ask about uncle Carl, but it’s fair to say that the implications didn’t truly impress themselves onto me. “Uncle Carl was wounded in WWII. Okay. Everybody that age I know was in WWII. He was a machine gunner?! Cool! He was at D-Day? Yeah, I’ve heard about that.” Keep in mind that I grew up with a military historian for a father, so I was familiar with much more history than the average American kid. I took the nuggets I was told and filed them away, and they were mostly just “stuff”. I’m ashamed to say that I never really put the whole together until it was too late to really understand it.
Uncle Carl died in August 2001. My grandfather in September 2001 (I was delivering his eulogy while 9/11 was happening). What I put together too late is the totality of my great-uncle’s service, and I wish I had a chance to talk to him about it. In lieu of that, this post.
Uncle Carl was part of D-Day. He was either at Omaha beach, or part of a Ranger parachute in behind the lines (I’ll need to get the official records one of these days, as accounts vary). He was a machine-gunner, and found himself solely arrayed against three opposing machine-gun nests. Uncle Carl took out the first two. He was then hit twice, one shot going through his mouth and blowing out his teeth, the other hitting his left femur and taking two inches of bone with it. Seriously wounded, he re-manned his gun and took out the third nest before passing out from his wounds. For his actions, he received the Silver Star.
He would spend more than two years in a VA hospital, not expected to survive. When he finally came home, he took over the finances of the family farm. His office faced west towards the pastures, fields, barns, and corrals. I finally got around to wondering if he looked out at his younger brothers with any sense of bitterness or envy. They had both returned from the war, married, and had children. Uncle Carl was a bachelor, consigned to be a crippled and toothless inhabitant of the family homestead from his 20s onward.
Uncle Carl, I’m sorry for all the times we went wending around you like an obstacle in our pursuit of fun. I’m sorry that I didn’t recognize what you did until it was too late. I hope that the squeals, laughter, and shenanigans of my childhood were an affirmation of your sacrifice, and not a bitter recrimination. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your service.
Thanks for the thread, Coldfire.
And god-speed, brother.
And so those of us who have been here a while can read it again. Thanks for bumping it.
I read it every year too. Thank you Coldfire.
RIP Grandpa Phil (KIA July 5 1944), Mom, Dad, Uncle Ed, Uncle Bud and Aunt Mary. I’ll never forget what you and your compatriots accomplished.
Wonderful post.
On May 8, 1995 I was a member of the US Army 3rd ID Band stationed in Bamberg Germany. With the 50th anniversary of the end of the war we were sent to the Czech Republic to play a lot of anniversary liberation festivities.
The feeling that you a young Dutch citizen felt was very similar to the feelings that many Czech citizens expressed to me during the many parades and ceremonies that we played. Veterans were fascinated by us 1995 Army Soldiers and told a lot of interesting stories related to the Battle of the Bulge, liberation of Munich etc.
There is something indefinable about WWII that lets it be there in our history as the triumph of something, good over evil seems way to sentimental.
BTW, during my few Army years we were sent to Holland a number of times for various ceremonies. I’m a bit biased as my mother’s family is Dutch but Holland is an awesome country. Not enough land? We’ll get some from the sea! Too much water? Use windmills! Interesting cities, great art, beautiful citizens, fields of tulips, a great place to bicycle, money so colorful one needs dark glasses and a crazy language. If the opportunity arose to live in Holland I’d take it in a minute.
A bit late this year - sorry guys!
Some wonderful updates though. I enjoyed reading about Uncle Carl, azraiel. Sounds like he was one hell of a guy in his day, even though you were too yong to talk to him about it.
Labor, the colourful money’s gone now - it’s Euros all the way, of course. But given how that is developing, who knows, perhaps we’ll see the colourful Guilder notes once more. 
Bump.
A bit early, to balance out last year
Thank you, Jim.
Here’s hoping some more war time stories trickle in this year. I always love reading those.
No new stories from me, but I always appreciate seeing this thread again.
I’ve always looked forward to this thread coming up each May. My Uncle Bob served with the Second Armored Division throughout Europe in WWII. Each year, I can’t read the OP without tearing a bit. This year, I cant get through it at all.
For the last thirteen years, I or my wife would escort my uncle to the reunion of the Second Armored Division. Twice we traveled with him to Europe, to remember the actions of these brave men. Usually we celebrated the liberation of Belgium, hosted by re-enactors. wonderful people who honored these veterans with parades of hundreds of World War II vehicles and thousands of citizens still gathering throughout the country to celebrate the events of nearly 70 years ago. Our last visit, in 2009, we were hosted by Maastricht at their liberation ceremonies. Next year, we were already planning to travel again to Europe for the celebration. But this time Uncle Bob won’t be with us.
This year, just weeks ago, my uncle passed away. His best friend from that time long ago, passed away last year. In a few years, there will be no more veterans from WWII on these trips.
But we’ll continue to celebrate their heroic acts from so long ago, when we meet each year with the friends we’ve met during past reunions, now more like family than like friends.
We shall remember.
R. I. P Uncle Bob.
My uncle Larry, who I briefly mentioned years past, was a short, slight, man, quiet and gentle. He was very soft spoken. I never knew, until it was too late to ask, that he’d been in a tank unit in Europe. He wasn’t at Normandy the first day, but had crossed by the second, still plenty dangerous. He went through several countries, and if I remember correctly he was in Belgium at the end of the war in Europe.
I never even once heard him mention his military service, perhaps he didn’t want to dwell on it. Like I said, a quiet and religious guy. Then looking through photo albums I saw pictures of him and my aunt, with him in uniform. By this time Larry was not well, dementia, so I couldn’t ask him, but my dad told me what he knew.
I mentioned he was short, well, 5’ 8", or 173 cm, and I realized, it’s kind of like with submariners, you almost can’t be a really big guy and fit in a tank, or be comfortable standing up straight in a sub. But Larry must have been tough, back in the day.
We just last week took my 85 year old Japanese father in law round his towns of birth, as he’s in failing health and at the start of dementia. He said he wanted to visit our family grave from the outside one more time before he sees the outside of it, and see his family before he forgets who they are, so my husband and kids and I took him to the north of Honshu on the ferry for a week of reminiscences.
We visited all the old relatives and graves and his hometown, and he made offerings to his ancestors and made peace with his past. In the process he told us a lot about his young life. He was born in 1928 so was a teenager during the war.
The family were always poor and he was shuttled round relatives and temples as a small child so that they would feed him and he wouldn’t be a drain on the rest of the family (he was the eldest of many brothers and sisters.)
When the war began he was about 12 or 13, and he was called back to his hometown to work in the steelworks. He was not called up because he was a buddhist priest’s son and for some reason they were exempt until they were 20. The family were starving and reduced to eating grass and rats and fish from the almost fished out river. He and his friends would steal food from shops and take it home for their families. If they were caught they were instantly sent off to the army no matter what their age.
When they were in the steelworks there was a rota for going up the mountains to look out for aircraft and to man an anti aircraft station. It was because he was up there on the night that the steelworks was bombed that he was the only kid in his class to survive the war. His father was elderly when he married and died soon after the war, despite fathering four children who were all born and died within weeks of their birth because his mother could not produce milk for them. The last child survived because she gave him to a couple whose baby had died but the wife had milk.
Father in law was 18 when the war ended and he had his mother and eight young siblings to provide for. He went to work for a farmer and was paid not in money but in rice. He got one day off a month. His rice was also for him to eat during the month but if he ate it the family would starve further, so he continued on the grass and rats diet. He couldn’t ride the train to his family to deliver the rice because people would steal it off him, so he walked over the mountains (it’s about 20km, a four hour walk) and then get the train back. In the late 40’s he was sent as a farmer’s assistant to Hokkaido and it was here that he managed to marry into a farming family and bring his mother and the last four younger kids up to Hokkaido to provide a home, food and schooling for them, then when they were raised to start his own family at over 30 years of age because they didn’t have enough money for their own kids to start with.
He still has a lot of survivor’s guilt and prays for the souls of his lost elementary school friends (they never got any more schooling after 11 years old but were sent to work in farms or factories). He said at the time he was desperate to go to war and fight but his father would never give permission for him to go underage and he hated his father for it at the time. But as an adult he realised that he’d been taught lies and he was grateful to his father who had understood what he was protecting his son from. He accepted me, a daughter of the previous enemy and he is now after twenty years of marriage my dear father in law who loves me and our kids and is proud of us all and the fact that his family is now international.
I have learned a lot listening to him and to his relatives’ stories of their wartime experiences and it made me realise that for the ordinary citizens there is no good side of a war to be on.
I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, I don’t mean it to. It’s just that we have been away with him for the past week listening to all his stories and it’s been going round my head a lot, and I wanted to share it. And I am really sad that we are losing him to cancer and to dementia. I want him to have the most peaceful last months/years possible and I’m happy that he got to sort out his affairs and say goodbye to all his past history.
Thank you for that. Seriously.
No need to apologize, HB. War is always a tragedy no matter whether you are on the winning or losing side. A sobering statistic I read a couple years ago: From beginning to end on average for World War II, 50,000 people a day were killed, military and worker, or just plain civilian. Our local baseball park holds about 50,000. I imagine people marching in until it is full, then vanishing – swept from this earth. Then the next day, another 50,000 do the same, then the next day and the next . . . for seven long years.
Late again - I don’t check the boards daily anymore.
HB, thanks for the wonderful tribute to your father in law. And how could anyone take offense to that? Just because your father in law was born on te losing side, so to speak?
Nonsense - his experiences and suffering are just as valid as those on the winning side. How wonderful that you get to spend this important phase of his life with - sad as it may be, as well.
Any Other Name, that’s a moving story about your uncle. Kudos to you and your wife for traveling with him to revisit the past. I take it you liked Maastricht?