Day of Days June 6, 1944
My Uncle was in the Princess Pats (Canadian Light Infantry). They didn't land in Normandy, but served in Europe nonetheless. No stories for me unfortunately, he died when I was quite young.
Tragically, he would die little more than a month later of a heart attack while in France.
He would join his brother Quinton, who died in WWI, in being buried in France.
Didnt land in Normandy but did serve in WWII in the Army Air Corp in Northern Africa and Italy. He actually served under Patton for short while (he was at Kassarine Pass when the Americans first fought the Germans and we got our asses kicked. That's the scene right at the beginning of the movie Patton and my dad was there. He took me to that movie when I was 11 and it was the first time I saw him cry. Not because he was sad - he cried because he was so damn proud of what they were able to accomplish.
Family rumor. My dad would NEVER set foot in Italy again after the war ended. He and my mom travelled Europe extensively after he retired but he wouldnt even consider gong back to Italy and wouldnt say why. Rumor had it my dad fathered a child while in the war. I found out a few years ago he actually went AWOL for a short while and his CO found him living with an Italian family in Solerno. The funny thing was he didnt get in trouble (I guess it happened more often than people realized) cause all his CO said was " Bruce - party's over. Time to come back to the war" and he did.
Definitely the greatest generation and it's not even close.
And I really, really miss my dad.
According to family my Uncle Ed served as a torpedoman's mate aboard a US submarine that was depth-charged by the Japanese Navy. I was told he was a gregarious kid who had been a popular Parchment MI athlete, scholar and ladies man inter alia. When he returned from his depth-charged war experience, uncharacteristically quiet, my grandad got him a job at the local paper mill. Despite being handsome, he never dated after he returned and just kept to himself. A few years at the mill he didn't go off to college as expected, instead, he met with an attorney and willed everything over to mom's family. Then he tied a noose in his basement, inserted his head and neck, and stepped off into oblivion. PTSS dontcha know. Untold war cost, all we did was buy Europe a few decades before it destroys itself, as it will. I cannot determine whether it was worth it or not. I think maybe not.
Respect to the men who served.
That we left Europe to Europe and let the Nazis destroy the Bolsheviks or vice versa. They're equivalents, and we are at square one today now raising swine
Well there's a political hot take for the ages.
Conspiracy theories are not history, even if you buy it in the "History" section at Barnes and Noble. This is all pretty much bunk.
If you survived D-Day, that was only the first step. Most of the deaths at Normandy occurred in the next month after D-Day, fighting in hedgerow country which is ideal for defense.
The Day of Days episode is incredible, especially the entire Brecourt sequence. And what's really crazy is that real people actually went through that.
My grandfather was in Normandy. He didn't storm the beach but worked in logistics to get supplies to the front lines. I never met him as he passed in '63. Every time I go back and look at his military records it amazes me. Served with Patton from Normandy into Germany. I love the Greatest Generation and it pains my heart that there are so few left. My time spent with WW2 vets was invaluable. God Bless.
Just read a book about the assassination of Patton. Geopolitics is a dirty business.
Congratulations, you wasted your time reading bunk history!
If you're not willing to debate it, then that's part of the problem, too. Patton was not "assassinated." It's conspiracy theory fodder to sell books to people who don't know any better.
Great stories here. My father was a bit young to serve in WWII, however he did go over to Hiroshima for 2 years as one of the occupational troops.
The effects of the radition which he was exposed there wrecked his body as he had many issues starting in his 30s from horribly arthritis where his joints all froze up causing him to live with pincers for hands for the rest of his life...to psorisis all over his body, to enlarged prostate, double bypass and finally the esophageal cancer that took his life at age 69.
Some gave all. All gave some.
My father was in the second wave at Normandy; in the Battle of the Bulge; and at Buchenwald. He almost never talked about it -- an exception was to say that Saving Private Ryan didn't get it right -- but proudly wore his WWII Veterans' baseball cap.
I was at Normandy about five years ago. Moving experience both on the beaches and at the cemetary that overlooks the beaches.
Not many threads on MgoBlog can make a 57 year old man cry. This one did repeatidly.
Both my father and father-in-law served during World War II, and are still alive and of sound body and mind at 90 and 95 respectively.
My father had very easy service: he was a Navy mailman stationed in San Francisco through 44 and 45. Unlike the environment when I was in high school and college, everyone during the war loved those serving in the military. Dad was able to hitch hike all over California when he was on leave. He still remembers going to a football game at Stanford during the war.
My father-in-law, on the other hand, was indirectly at Normandy. He served as a C-47 pilot, dropping airborne troops behind the lines on D-day, as well as with operation market garden in the Netherlands and other lesser known operations. Normally, his regular runs were dropping supplies for troops on the ground throughout the war. I have heard a number of stories, and he considers himself extremely fortunate to make it through the war alive. C-47's were pretty much defenseless, and you just had to hope that you never were targeted, or that you missed flack in the air.
My maternal grandfather served in the Navy and spent time as a pilot in the Pacific. He passed away about 10 years ago, but the one story I will never forget him telling is when his ship got hit by a kamikaze. "The smoke was so thick, you could cut it with a knife", I remember him saying. The ship was sinking and the only way out was to crawl through the hawse (the hole through which the anchor chain passes), and swim to safety. He was a great man.
America was never great. Whether Left or Right on the political spectrum everyone should condemn those dumbasses for the cowards that they are
Much better side reading: Historical work written by people who are actually trained historians.
My late dad was born in China's Guangdong Provice right around the beginning of WW2 - thankfully he was spared the worst of the China-Japan conflict before GTFOing to Hong Kong, but it loomed like a shadow over everyone in China (if you ever want to lose your lunch, google "Unit 731") I grew up with a normal American childhood and don't remember talking much with my parents about their childhoods spent in the aftermath of WW2 - not an ABC thing so much as a 'our family' thing - but I remember that my dad absolutely refused to buy Japanese cars.