# World War I and II - tell me about your relatives **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 13, 2008, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575 "2008-11-13T19:10:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gam_Zeh_Yaavor)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/101 "2009-05-07T18:35:34Z")
My maternal great-grandfather was enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army in WWI. I don’t know anything else about that, sadly. WWII: Paternal grandfather was a chemist, worked on bomber canopies; he would occasionally receive very cryptic postcards from his friends who were working on something in Los Alamos. Maternal grandfather was a lawyer for some branch of the military. My maternal grandmother’s family were deported from Vienna to the Opole Ghetto in February of 1941. In early 1942 they were sent to the Belzec or Sobibor death camps where they were gassed (only 28 of the 2,003 Viennese Jews in Opole survived). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/102 "2009-05-08T03:48:14Z")
Only war story involving a relative I know is my Uncle John’s, who was a paratrooper in World War II (I don’t know if he was in the 82nd or 101st). He was one of the soldiers who made the drop in [Operation Market-Garden](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden). He was captured and ended the war as a POW. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/103 "2009-05-08T12:21:27Z")
My maternal grandfather paid his own way to fight in the Boer War. He then enlisted in the Light Horse to fight in the Great War. He tried to enlist again for the Second World War but was told he was too old. Paternal grandfather enlisted and fought in the Great War. Fought may be too strong a term- I think he was a cook. Two of his brothers in law were killed in France after serving at Gallipoli (my great uncles). My father fought in New Guinea against the Japanese during the Second World War. I have done nthing more heroic than arriving home drunk after a happy hour. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/104 "2009-05-08T12:38:34Z")
The only relative I can think of for WWII is my great uncle Robert who fought his way up Mt. Suribachi. My other uncles were in Korea or Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![Engineer\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9fc29f/32.png) [@Engineer\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engineer_Dude)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/105 "2009-05-08T12:59:18Z")
My great grandfather was an Allied soldier in World War I. He wore a pocket watch in his right “pocket watch” pocket. One day during fighting, a bullet hit the pocket watch and shattered the glass inside, but he was (relatively) unharmed. If it weren’t for that item that’s only a few square inches, he may have been killed by the bullet and I wouldn’t have been born. So that’s a nice story to hear. The story about him killing a German soldier and then having to look through his possessions (for information) and seeing pictures of the soldier’s wife and kids, not so nice. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/106 "2009-05-08T13:02:30Z")
> [@Engineer\_Dude](#): > > My great grandfather was an Allied soldier in World War I. He wore a pocket watch in his right “pocket watch” pocket. One day during fighting, a bullet hit the pocket watch and shattered the glass inside, but he was (relatively) unharmed. If it weren’t for that item that’s only a few square inches, he may have been killed by the bullet and I wouldn’t have been born. > > So that’s a nice story to hear. The story about him killing a German soldier and then having to look through his possessions (for information) and seeing pictures of the soldier’s wife and kids, not so nice. ☹ So you could say the bullet didn’t lay a hand on him? ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/107 "2009-05-08T13:14:03Z")
It wasn’t his time. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/108 "2009-05-08T13:20:11Z")
Just a second. But for Engineer Dude- the practice of ratting the enemies pockets was common for the information it could contain. ---
**Author:** ![seosamh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@seosamh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seosamh)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/109 "2009-05-09T13:42:58Z")
WW1: in 1916 my grandfather, along with four or five other lads from his village, signed up with a recruiting sergeant at the local fair in Co. Longford in Ireland. [conscription was never introduced into Ireland]. Legend has it that they only took the king’s shilling because they could buy either 3 or 4 more bottles of stout (a bottle cost either 3d or 4d). A couple of weeks later, two burly MPs arrived at the house and whisked him off - he had not told my grandmother about it and may even have been so drunk that he’d forgotten he had signed on. I don’t know much about his service record except that he somehow rose to the rank of sergeant and lost the tip of a finger. And was probably very badly shell-shocked. WW2: my dad (son of the above) had joined the Irish Free State Army in 1936 and by 1942 was an Acting Quartermaster Sergeant, based in Longford barracks. He was at the same time the district administrative officer for the otherwise volunteer Local Defence Force. Note that Ireland was neutral during WW2. Alas, he took it upon himself to embezzle the district’s funds to which he had ready access. On being discovered in late November 1944, he fled to north Wales and joined the British Army. But the British Army was on the lookout for Irish deserters so he was swiftly discovered and hauled back to Dublin by a Garda sergeant. He was court-martialled, reduced to private and sentenced to 3 months military detention in the Curragh. Upon release, he was tried in a civil court for the offences of forgery and uttering forged documents and sentenced to a further 4 months, which I think he served in Mountjoy gaol in Dublin (Irish prison records are sealed for 75 years, so I’ll have to wait until 2020 before I can be sure.). Dad died in 1978 but I only discovered the story in 2001. Ignominious or what? ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/110 "2009-05-09T17:24:24Z")
Well, I also had a many greats grandfather who fought against the British in the American Revolution. He was courtmartialed too. See, being Protestant he objected to having to fight with the French Catholic auxiliaries that came over with Lafayette. His people had, a couple of generations earlier, fled France after the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. But he got his sentence commuted, or pardoned, or whatever it’s called. I have an aunt who wants to join the DAR but is embarrassed to use this guy as her in to the group. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/111 "2009-05-09T17:49:01Z")
My father dropped out of high school to enlist in the Navy at the age of 17 in 1944. He served on the [USS Eldorado](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Eldorado_(AGC-11)), the flagship for the landings on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, two of the fiercest battles of the war. The photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima was developed on the ship. He disliked talking about his experiences, though he occasionally mentioned them, especially having come under kamikaze attack. My mother’s uncle Jack served in a machine-gun battalion in World War I and fought in France. He survived a poison-gas attack, but it scarred his lungs and he wasn’t able to do heavy work afterward. After the war he ran a newstand. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/112 "2009-05-09T17:59:52Z")
Both of my grandfathers were steelworkers, so were exempted from military service. I do have a great-great-grandfather who died on the home front in World War I, though: He was patrolling a railroad tunnel for saboteurs when he got hit by a train. ---
**Author:** ![Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cornelius_Tuggerson)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/113 "2009-05-09T20:18:02Z")
My great grandmother and great grandfather on my mothers side were pilots, I don’t know what they flew or where, but they would reunite with their fellow pilots every now and then. My great grandfather on my fathers side was a driver for some higher up, but he ended up driving around some crazy stuff as the eastern front was very fluid and no one really new who was where day to day. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/114 "2009-05-11T06:03:53Z")
My maternal grandfather was a plumber. He never went into the Army in WW I, but went from Brooklyn to Georgia to do plumbing work at military bases. Unfortunately, his last name was Sherman. Telling the Georgians that there was no relation because he was Jewish wasn’t going to help. My father did get drafted, and was a Corporal in the 10th Armored Division. His battalion landed in Belgium in late 1944, and one company (not his) was in Bastogne. He was a radio man in a half track. He was part of the advance into Germany. He was the president of the Battalion veteran’s group after the war, which had big reunions every two years until the late 1980s, and which had a battalion newsletter which ran for 30 years or so. I have a full battalion history. He used his restaurant skills to run an officer’s mess after the war while on occupation duty in Bavaria. He had some former Nazis (SS) working for him, taking orders from a Jewish kid from New York. My father-in-law had bad vision. As war approached, he found he had problems getting a job since everyone assumed he would be drafted. Finally he went to the doctor and got a strongly worded letter saying his eyes were so bad he should never serve. He got that letter December 5, 1941. ---
**Author:** ![jonbvn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f9b8f/32.png) [@jonbvn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonbvn)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/115 "2009-05-11T10:17:05Z")
Both my grandfathers were in reserved occupations (in the UK) during WWII. However, one grandfather was engaged in nightly anti-aircraft (he called it ack-ack) gunnery during the blitz. Makes me wonder when he slept? Years later I found out that my grandmother was a serious player in the black-market during WWII:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Wakinyan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wakinyan/32/352_2.png) [@Wakinyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wakinyan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/116 "2009-05-11T12:00:31Z")
My paternal grandfather and maternal grandfather were both drafted by the Finnish army 1939. Don’t know much about my maternal grandfather, but my paternal grandfather was at the [Karelian isthmus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karelian_Isthmus) during the [Winter War,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War) and he became a “[fältväbel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A4ltv%C3%A4bel)” (Master Sergeant?). He was still at the front (around [The Mannerheim Line](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannerheim_Line) near Leningrad, now St Petersburg) during the [Continuation war](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War), during which he at least once operated way behind the enemy lines. Once his team took 20 Soviets as prisoners. He was still at the front when the Soviet launched its huge [offensive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyborg%E2%80%93Petrozavodsk_Offensive)in 1944. While the Finns were partly scattered and retreated, they managed to gather and hold the offensive; which effectively kept Finland a free democratic state throughout the lifespan of its aggressive neighbour, the Soviet Union. He got through all this without any serious physical wounds, but of course psychologically he never fully recovered. He was a good man. My father was fond of him, though they never got really close for obvious reasons; I myself remember him as a big man in many ways, who I admired from a distance; unfortunately we never spoke though we met every summer during my childhood. ---
**Author:** ![ColonelDax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@ColonelDax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColonelDax)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/117 "2009-05-11T15:23:57Z")
I have no knowledge of anyone in my family being in the military during World War I, but my paternal grandmother had a brother who was an Army Air Corps doctor in the Philippines when World War II broke out. He didn’t survive. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/118 "2009-05-11T19:21:24Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > My maternal grandfather was a plumber. He never went into the Army in WW I, but went from Brooklyn to Georgia to do plumbing work at military bases. Unfortunately, his last name was Sherman. Telling the Georgians that there was no relation because he was Jewish wasn’t going to help. > > My father did get drafted, and was a Corporal in the 10th Armored Division. His battalion landed in Belgium in late 1944, and one company (not his) was in Bastogne. He was a radio man in a half track. He was part of the advance into Germany. He was the president of the Battalion veteran’s group after the war, which had big reunions every two years until the late 1980s, and which had a battalion newsletter which ran for 30 years or so. I have a full battalion history. > > He used his restaurant skills to run an officer’s mess after the war while on occupation duty in Bavaria. He had some former Nazis (SS) working for him, taking orders from a Jewish kid from New York. > > My father-in-law had bad vision. As war approached, he found he had problems getting a job since everyone assumed he would be drafted. Finally he went to the doctor and got a strongly worded letter saying his eyes were so bad he should never serve. He got that letter December 5, 1941. You shared this in this thread back in November of 08. I just read through this thread this afternoon, and I thought I was losing my mind reading the same story (differently worded). No Worries, thanks for sharing in the first place. > [@Voyager](#): > > My father, who turns 93 in January, went from Brooklyn to Georgia for basic training in 1944 and went to England and the Belgium in the fall. He was in an anti-aircraft battalion of the 10th Armored Division, where he was radio operator in a half track. Patton was his general for a while. One company of his battalion was in Bastogne, but not him. They wound up in Southern Germany / Austria where he was on occupation duty. Not bad duty - he ran a lunch counter before the war so he was in charge of an officer’s club. The best part of that was that he had some former SS types forced to work for him, a young Jewish guy. They were scheduled to go to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan, but never got anywhere close by VJ Day. > > Soon after the war he helped organize a newsletter for the battalion, and they had reunions up until 1990 when they all had gotten too old. Most of them were very well attended. I remember helping him do the duplicating for Track Tracings when I was a kid. It was put together by a vet who was the editor of a maintenance trade rag. There was clearly a big connection between those who went through the war together. A lot of the battalion came from New York, which helped the cohesion. > > My father-in law was having trouble getting a job since everyone assumed he would be drafted soon. He had terrible eyesight so we went to the doctor and got a letter saying he should under no circumstances be drafted. This was on about December 5, 1941. I’m pretty sure the result would have changed if he had waited a week for his exam. ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/119 "2009-05-11T19:40:27Z")
My paternal grandfather was in a National Guard artillery unit that participated in WW I. In fact, he was on a troop train to the front when they pulled over to announce the Armistice on Nov. 11. HIS Dad, my Great Grandfather, fought at Gettysburg in the Army of Northern Virginia as part of Ewell’s Corps. ---
**Author:** ![Suse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Suse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suse)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575/120 "2009-05-11T22:52:11Z")
My parents each had three brothers who fought in WWII - one brother from each side in Europe and the other four were in the Pacific. The ones in the Pacific were better off, as my mom’s brother died in Germany in 1944 and my dad’s brother was captured by Rommel in North Africa and spent the remainder of his time in the war in a POW camp in Germany, I believe. We have some letters from the uncles that my cousin scanned and sent to all of us on DVD; one of them was to my grandmother after her son died and was from his twin brother. He said something comforting like “now, don’t get too upset, it can’t be helped.” My dad was the oldest out of the bunch and a mechanic with 5 kids (at the time) but was on a ‘don’t take till necessary’ list and was never called up for service. My grandfathers have murkier histories - I know one spent time at Leavenworth for desertion before WWI and I’ve seen a picture of the other one in uniform but am not sure if/when he actually served. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-war-i-and-ii-tell-me-about-your-relatives/472575.md?page=7)