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Thread: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

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    Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    I've met a few, but not all that many. Just my Pa, a RAAF bomber pilot, and Chuck Yeager.

    I'm guessing that quite a few people here have met quite a few more veterans than me, though. So please, feel free to talk about the veterans you've met, and what they were like
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Met quite a few... US, British, Canadian and German.

    Most of them are quite elderly now... and unfortunately have considerable health problems. Most of the ones I met have died.

    All of the pilots I met had one thing in common, a zest for life, a 'can do' attitude, and a lack of fear... or at least the ability to suspend their fear when they had to do something dangerous. They all said they were afraid, (mostly before they took off) but didn't let that interfere with their ability to fly in combat.

    They were all quite admirable... 'Men' in the truest sense of the word.

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Bill is moving out of our building and into assisted living , he is a WW2 navy vet and this week he has been cleaning out his condo, I caught him in the lobby putting a couple of books down and when I asked why he said he thought it was a shame to throw them out ( 1. a book of the WW2 memorial 2. a book about military aircraft) I flipped open the 2nd book and said that's a corsair and that's a A6 intruder a big smile came over his face and he told me he stood on the deck as the corsairs took off.

    I think he was happy because someone of my generation took such an interest in his generation, I have known Bill for over a decade and he seems to have a sense of class and mannerisms that give me the impression that he comes from a generation of....dare I say, high quality!
    from model A fords up to rovers on mars, their generation has seen a lot.
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    My Grandfather was quite a young man and was only part of the occupation forces in the Philippines but nonetheless has quite a few good stories and some pretty neat mementos. He made sure us grandkids knew and respected what the men before him had to endure.

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Some great stories above....

    I spoke with a few WWII vets in my youth...You could meet them in any pub in the UK in the late 70s and they all had a story to tell...Always wish I had spent more time with them....

    I remember when I was travelling around France and ended up in a bar and spoke with a resistance fighter...He told me of a few of their night time activities and of one occasion when they got caught and ran..he was in his teens but was with older chaps from his town...A couple of the chaps got separated from them and disappeared that night and only turned up a few days later with bullet wounds and floating in the local river..

    Check this for more...

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    I have had the honour of meeting quite a few in my effort to document the story of the 325th Fighter Group "The Checkertail.Clan". Go to Google and type on "Checkertails Vimeo" and both documentaries will be linked. Part 3 is due out in the next couple of months.
    In all I have sat and interviewed on camera many veterans, not all from the 325th, another group I helped a friend in South Africa interview was the Bomber Crews of B-24's of the 31st and 34th SAAF.

    Also Eric Carter who flew Hurricanes with 81 Squadron alongside the Russians in Murmansk and Vaenga.

    So many have now passed but I have their memories preserved and it has been an honor to meet so many.

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    I've been fortunate enough to meet quite a few over the years, including Yeager, Bob Hoover (many times, when I worked at AOPA), and several of the Tuskegee Airman (I grew up near Tuskegee).

    Some of the high points for me were getting to meet Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler at a Warbirds convention about 20 years ago. Gentlemen both, and obviously good friends.

    My Warbirds squad (JG2) and I provided OPFOR for a mission put on for the veterans of the 352nd Fighter Group at a reunion thrown by the current group. We did a bomber intercept that was shown on some big screens so the veterans could watch it. A great honor, and I'm told they really enjoyed it.

    Actually got to fly against some of the Tuskegee Airmen in a Warbirds event. Those old guys could still ball with the best; They waited so far up sun we couldn't see them, then busted us good as we were getting set up for runs on their bombers. I think we got one of the buffs, but they shot down most of the squad.
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cybermat47 View Post
    I've met a few, but not all that many. Just my Pa, a RAAF bomber pilot, and Chuck Yeager.

    I'm guessing that quite a few people here have met quite a few more veterans than me, though. So please, feel free to talk about the veterans you've met, and what they were like
    Most notably I met a Whirlwind pilot and a US armored intel officer about 30 years ago.

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    I had an uncle who was on a cruiser in the Pacific. A Kamikazi hit the ship, and burst a lot of steam pipes in the engine room. With all hatches sealed for combat, the trapped men died in a pressure cooker enviroment.

    My dad was in a division that sealed off Germans at the sub pens at St. Nazaire and Lorient, France. Without any way to escape, or be re-supplied, the Germans finally surrendered.

    One of my instructors at Navy photo school in 1964 was a Marine who survived the Bataan Death March.
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    During a FRECCE TRICOLORI AIRSHOW EAF51 met a CR42 veteran and let him fly it on the old il2!

    He was very pleased!


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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    During a FRECCE TRICOLORI AIRSHOW EAF51 met a CR42 veteran and let him fly it on the old il2!

    He was very pleased!








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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    I met an RAAF Lancaster Wireless Air Gunner who dropped Window over the channel during Overlord and participated in the daylight RAF raids at the end of the war. He told me about finding a B-17 over England on the way home from a night raid once, they pulled up along side and somehow communicated to each other that early in the morning is a good time to do a bit of bomber drag racing. They toyed with the B-17 pilot for a while, watching him sweat to keep up before opening the throttles and leaving him well behind. He also told me about the menace of Me-410's during the daylight raids who would sit back out of range and lob rockets and cannon at them. He also had a German pistol that was given to him by the pilot of an Fw-190 who defected and landed at their airfield near the end of the war.

    Another guy I met was a Rat of Tobruk, he showed me some nice photos of Erwin Rommel addressing the troops from his Kubelwagen. He had taken these pictures from the body of a dead Italian soldier. He didn't say much about Tobruk or any other battles and I wasn't inclined to ask him for details since his inheritance of those photographs said enough really, this bloke was a real soldier.

    I also had the pleasure of dinner with a Bomber Command Lancaster pilot although we didn't speak that much about his time in the RAF. He was more active during 1942-43 so I was reluctant to press him for details since I am aware of the stresses put on the RAF in this period. He did tell me the truth about carrots and "Scare Shells" however. The carrot anecdote is fairly well known so I won't go over it but the scare shell one is worth relating.

    There had been a rumour in Bomber Command since 1941 that the Germans were using some huge artillery shell to create a great blast that was supposed to simulate a fully laden bomber exploding from a direct flak hit in order to break the nerve of other crews. Crews would return to base with stories of huge blasts that lit up the night sky and could be heard from miles away.

    Needless to say, the Germans were using no such thing and anyone with an imagination can deduce what these "scare shell" explosions actually were. Apparently the Air Staff kept the rumour going to hide the truth.

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Quote Originally Posted by JimmyBlonde View Post
    There had been a rumour in Bomber Command since 1941 that the Germans were using some huge artillery shell to create a great blast that was supposed to simulate a fully laden bomber exploding from a direct flak hit in order to break the nerve of other crews. Crews would return to base with stories of huge blasts that lit up the night sky and could be heard from miles away.

    Needless to say, the Germans were using no such thing and anyone with an imagination can deduce what these "scare shell" explosions actually were. Apparently the Air Staff kept the rumour going to hide the truth.
    The RAF Night Bombing casualties were quite horrific... the crews had very little chance of surviving a tour if they started it in 1942 or 1943. This was especially the case when the the Germans introduced their "SchrageMusik", ('JazzMusic') 45 degree upward firing cannon setups on the Bf-110's and Ju-88's, as the fighters could approach almost unseen, and the weapons were very effective, as the rounds went right up into the bomb bay and gas tanks... explosions were almost instantaneous. (if the fighter was too close it could take damage)

    The Lancaster was very quick and maneuverable bomber, easily superior to a B-17 or B-24, it could be thrown into maneuvers which would put a USAAF heavy into a spin. Which was why a "Corkscrew" dive was the standard evasion maneuver whenever a fighter was sighted... usually worked if the fighter was sighted before it fired.

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Too many to name them all. When I was growing up during the 50's and 60's, it was still recent history. My dad served as a nose gunner/gunner's mate on PBYs patrolling the Gulf of Mexico, and spent his second tour as ground crew servicing F4Us on Espiritu Santu, East of the Solomons.
    My Great Uncle was with the 1st Infantry Division, and saw action in North Africa, Normandy, Market Garden, etc. though his worst experience was liberating one of the death camps. Another of my Great Uncles was lost when his ship was torpedoed in the North Atlantic. I worked with many WWII vets in various jobs over the years, and met several WWI vets as well, one of whom was my landlord years ago.
    Growing up, everyone I knew had a dad who served. Our neighbor across the street had survived the Bataan Death March, and years of subsequent imprisonment, but he never regained his health and passed away when I was still quite young.
    While staying overnight at a friend's house while in my late teen's, his Dad woke up yelling in the night. My friend said, "Oh, he's just remembering that night on Okinawa". This would have been almost thirty years after the fact.

    "Sole survivor,
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Many years ago I met Branse Burbridge, one of the top-scoring RAF WW2 night fighter pilots with I believe 20 victories, all gained in less than a year on Mosquitos. I'd read about him and knew he'd become an Anglican church clergyman after the war, as did his navigator, Bill Skelton.

    In 1979 I was applying for a gap year groundsman's job at an Anglican church retreat and conference centre. There was a group of Oxford students there on a retreat and I noticed that one of the leaders was a Branse Burbridge. With an unusual name like that, and being an Anglican clergyman, it could only be him so I approached him. He was such a friendly guy, and modest too - he was surprised I knew about him, and it's a fair bet that none of those Oxford students knew that they were in the company of a war hero.

    A few years later I visited an Anglican church in Oxford and bumped into him again. He probably thought I was stalking him!

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Live not too far from Elvington air museum http://yorkshireairmuseum.org/ and was often a visitor there a few years ago. Once bumped into an old guy in the Air Gunners Room who was a volunteer and there to answer any questions about the exhibits.
    He engaged the missus in conversation while I was not really taking much notice, more interested in looking at the exhibits when I heard her remark on how did they managed to fly day after day, and realised he was air crew. As you can guess, my feet scorched a burnt trail into the floor of the hut at this.

    He told his story about his time in the RAF, his mates on base and his crew. Cannot recall which base he served on, but it was not a Yorkshire one (I live in the centre of bomber country with a couple of old bomber bases within slingshot distance of the house - RAF Snaith and RAF Burn, in fact I'm taking the dogs for a walk round Burn later). IIRC he was in Lincolnshire.

    About 50% of his friends in aircrew on base finished their tours and were moved on and 50% failed to return from Ops.

    He was a rear gunner on a Wellington, on a night mission to Hanover if I recall, I am certain he was to bomb some railway yards and they took off as dusk approached, made it over the North Sea and crossed the Dutch coast, he remembered the Nav saying they had crossed into Germany when they got a fire in the wing which was rapidly spreading. The pilot told everyone to get their parachutes ready as he had no option to dive to try put the flames out and if they were still alight at whatever altitude he was going to pull out and tell them to abandon the aircraft.
    So he left the turret to clip his chute on, as he reached his chute and was clipping it on, he remembers a bright flash and regaining consciousness in a tree, still in his chute and surrounded by shouting men who were looking for him. He had no idea how high he was up the tree because it was dark, he was having trouble opening his eyes from flash burns and he thought the best course of action was to stay still and silent until daylight. Within minutes a torch was shone at him and he was surrounded by soldiers. Turned out his feet were only a few inches from the forest floor.
    He was taken to the local headquarters where a friendly German "Luftwaffe Pilot" gave him a cigarette and arranged for his burns to be attended to. While not really interrogated, he felt this "pilot" may have been Gestapo who was mining him for any unguarded comments.

    He was then told that none of his mates had made it out of the aircraft which had come down in the same wood he fell into and was taken to the crash site. All his "brothers", he thought of them all as brothers were laid out under a big tarpaulin and he had to identify them even though they had the dog tags. He was then taken to a POW camp.

    I was almost moved to tears and grabbed his hand to shake it, then noticed how disfigured it was, almost like a claw from burns. He offered it almost shyly as if he was used to people recoiling which upset me more, however I was mindful not to give my usual iron grip handshake. I told him he was a hero and all he said was no, he was lucky, all the aircrew that never came home were heroes.

    He then had great pleasure in telling how the war changed his life for the better, as a teenager growing up in Bradford, before the war, he came from a very poor background and to help feed his family he turned to petty crime, - stealing cooling pork pies from the back windowsill of the local butchers was one detail he mentioned and he reckoned it was on the cards he would have got deeper into crime, got caught and sent to prison. When war broke out he was too young to enlist himself, but he got his parents to sign the consent and entered the RAF, where he was tested and volunteered for aircrew duties. He took to the discipline and it taught him a lot, but most of all, he owed it to his crew to live a good life as he felt he was living it for them all.

    Edit: If you type RAF Burn or RAF Snaith, I have some pics of Snaith and Burn on flickr as they are today.

    Edit 2: Footage taken from my T28 RC plane of Burn Aerodrome...Forgot that the runway narrowed right where I was landing and ran out of concrete...

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    I have one uncle who was U.S. Army Coastal Artillery before WWII, then transferred to Field Artillery after the war began. Not sure if he was in North Africa, but he did participate in the Anzio landing and continuing tour of Italy. He was wounded pretty severely at some point by return artillery fire, but recovered. He's still kicking (95 this year) and sharp as a tack. He's taped his oral history, but I haven't heard the tapes yet. One of his younger brothers was a U.S. Navy salvage diver (hard hat diver) in the Pacific, he's passed now and I never heard any details of his service. Their middle sister (my aunt) was a U.S. Army nurse who served in England. She was married to a guy who had joined the U.S. Army prior to the war as a clerk, then earned a commission as an officer in the Quartermaster Corps. After the U.S. entered the war, he was accepted for flight training and became a B-17 pilot. He was KIA over Germany on his 17th mission by Fw-190s of JG.300. There was some mystery as to exactly what happened to him, so about ten years ago I sought out and interviewed the surviving crewmembers. Of the original nine, three had been KIA and six became POWs; all were wounded. Two had passed away after the war, so I was eventually able interview the crew's navigator in person, the bombardier and radioman by telephone, and the ball turret gunner by correspondence. Very nice bunch of guys with interesting stories, but still a bit conflicting as to what happened during their combat. All but the radioman have since passed. Shortly after the war, he wrote a book about his ordeal, opening with the attack and ending with his release from the stalag luft (http://www.amazon.com/Whispers-Death...3321624&sr=1-1).

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    My Dad::::: 450 Bomb Group, Manduria, Italy 1944 top turret/Flight engineer B-24
    back row far left (he was 17, lied about his age) passed away 1995

    he was the one that instilled my love of airplanes

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    My old Boy Scout Master, long passed, was a ground crewman with the Mighty Eighth. I used to have his old shoulder patch.

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Quote Originally Posted by JimmyBlonde View Post
    I met an RAAF Lancaster Wireless Air Gunner who dropped Window over the channel during Overlord and participated in the daylight RAF raids at the end of the war. He told me about finding a B-17 over England on the way home from a night raid once, they pulled up along side and somehow communicated to each other that early in the morning is a good time to do a bit of bomber drag racing. They toyed with the B-17 pilot for a while, watching him sweat to keep up before opening the throttles and leaving him well behind. He also told me about the menace of Me-410's during the daylight raids who would sit back out of range and lob rockets and cannon at them. He also had a German pistol that was given to him by the pilot of an Fw-190 who defected and landed at their airfield near the end of the war.

    Another guy I met was a Rat of Tobruk, he showed me some nice photos of Erwin Rommel addressing the troops from his Kubelwagen. He had taken these pictures from the body of a dead Italian soldier. He didn't say much about Tobruk or any other battles and I wasn't inclined to ask him for details since his inheritance of those photographs said enough really, this bloke was a real soldier.

    I also had the pleasure of dinner with a Bomber Command Lancaster pilot although we didn't speak that much about his time in the RAF. He was more active during 1942-43 so I was reluctant to press him for details since I am aware of the stresses put on the RAF in this period. He did tell me the truth about carrots and "Scare Shells" however. The carrot anecdote is fairly well known so I won't go over it but the scare shell one is worth relating.

    There had been a rumour in Bomber Command since 1941 that the Germans were using some huge artillery shell to create a great blast that was supposed to simulate a fully laden bomber exploding from a direct flak hit in order to break the nerve of other crews. Crews would return to base with stories of huge blasts that lit up the night sky and could be heard from miles away.

    Needless to say, the Germans were using no such thing and anyone with an imagination can deduce what these "scare shell" explosions actually were. Apparently the Air Staff kept the rumour going to hide the truth.
    I think they were actually called "scarecrow" shells. And, yes, they were really bombers blowing up. Get Len Deightons "Bomber" for a terrific read.
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Quote Originally Posted by RAF74_Buzzsaw View Post
    The RAF Night Bombing casualties were quite horrific... the crews had very little chance of surviving a tour if they started it in 1942 or 1943. This was especially the case when the the Germans introduced their "SchrageMusik", ('JazzMusic') 45 degree upward firing cannon setups on the Bf-110's and Ju-88's, as the fighters could approach almost unseen, and the weapons were very effective, as the rounds went right up into the bomb bay and gas tanks... explosions were almost instantaneous. (if the fighter was too close it could take damage)

    The Lancaster was very quick and maneuverable bomber, easily superior to a B-17 or B-24, it could be thrown into maneuvers which would put a USAAF heavy into a spin. Which was why a "Corkscrew" dive was the standard evasion maneuver whenever a fighter was sighted... usually worked if the fighter was sighted before it fired.
    They were careful to not hit the bomb bay. The fuel tanks were their target.

    I think it was Schnaufer (sp?) who is supposed to have shot down a Lancaster as it did a corkscrew. He was below it, and shot it down, in the dark, using jazz music, while both a/c were upside down.
    Last edited by TWC_SLAG; May-17-2016 at 19:35. Reason: Forgot something
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    I had another old friend, Floyd Tanaka, who served along with his brother with the 442RCT in Italy, during which time the rest of the family was interned. His brother was killed there. Both he and his brother are buried here in Denver near the Nisei WWII monument that he himself designed. A short distance from there is the grave of my old fishing buddy Phil Stoole, who served with the USAAC in the Aleutians.

  34. #23
    Supporting Member LuseKofte's Avatar
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Quote Originally Posted by RAF74_Buzzsaw View Post
    The Lancaster was very quick and maneuverable bomber, easily superior to a B-17 or B-24, it could be thrown into maneuvers which would put a USAAF heavy into a spin. Which was why a "Corkscrew" dive was the standard evasion maneuver whenever a fighter was sighted... usually worked if the fighter was sighted before it fired.
    Nightfighter pilots flying BF 110 with radar antenna reported they could not follow a Lancaster in a corkscrew maneuver even if they wanted to. The antennas made the plane respond to late and when the bomber turned the 110 just flew straight and overshot.
    But usually night-fighters aborted their attacks as soon as they where discovered and attempted to find a new target. The rear turret of a Lanc was respected.

    As far as the veterans goes I met one commando in sailor school back in 1982 and my granddad. The latter had 1 polish, 1 french and 1 Norwegian medal, but he refused to talk about the war. So his service is not known within the family
    Last edited by LuseKofte; May-18-2016 at 05:01.

  35. #24
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    I had a family member in the Danish Resistance movement (received RAF air drops) and also met an Auschwitz survivor (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Sonnenbluck). However, the guy I will tell about here is one I met when I lived in Denmark.

    I did my laundry in the common launderette in the basement of my block of flats. There was an old guy there whom I came across a few times, and we started talking. Well, I say old guy, because he was obviously around 80 or older, but he walked straight as a stick and had a very healthy complexion, reddish skin, hardly any wrinkles.

    He turned out to have a really German family name, so I asked why, and he told me he had been a German citizen until the nineteen-fifties. Uh huh, I knew what that would mean, and asked him if he had done military service in Germany during the war.

    As any other ATAG member I'm reasonably well-versed in WWII. Also because I am a historian by education. So, he heard - after a while - that I knew what I was talking about, and slowly started opening up about his military service in the Wehrmacht.

    To the Americans in here: you must understand that German veterans don't carry their service record "on their sleeve". Usually they just don't open up about it at all. But this guy realised that I had a respectful, non-judgmental attitude towards him and his war service, and so we really started talking.

    It went on everytime we met in the launderette. Usually we talked for hours on end, long after our clothes had been washed...

    It was incredibly interesting to me, because I had never met a German veteran before, and never met such an articulate person before, who not only told me lots of anecdotes, but also put them into context and reflected on his experiences.

    This is his story (a selection of the bits I remember anyway).

    His family was from the Danish-German border areas and culturally German. When Hitler rose to power his father wanted nothing of the Führer, but still, when war came, the then young man that I had met enlisted in a local regiment. He was in training during the Western and Balkan offensives, but transferred to the Eastern front for Barbarossa. He was in the 30th division (Schleswig), 26. infantry regiment (Flensburg).

    I asked what the soldiers felt about the Eastern onslaught and Hitler, and he told me that until the winter of 1940-41 everybody were positive, but then the mood soured immmensely, because it became obvious that nobody had prepared for winter combat.

    He told me that when everything went to Hell in the winter months, the soldiers began no longer saying "Heil Hitler" when they did the Nazi salute, but instead said "We're in shit up to here!" ("So hoch ist d' Scheiss!"), holding up the arm in a mock hitler salute. Also, Hitler was referred to as Gröfaz, short for "Grösster Feldherr aller Zeiten", "Greatest Warlord of all Times". Very much ironically!

    I had read about those signs of discontent in history books, so those and very many more of his anecdotes - known and unknown to me - really made it obvious that I was face to face with a real veteran of the Wehrmacht. That was just surreal to me, especially to meet him in my launderette!

    It was very surprising to me that he had survived the Eastern Front from 1941 to -45, so I asked him how that came about. He told me that it was a stroke of luck. On leave in Prague he intervened in a street fight, where some German soldiers were beating up an elderly gentleman. My acquaintance pulled out his officers' sword (he was a lieutenant I seem to remember) and chased off the aggressors. The next day he was summoned to the local Wehrmacht barracks and told that he had actually saved a lesser German prince from being beat up, and that he could therefore pick and choose his preferred posting.

    He chose to be posted as the adjutant of a well-known German general. I told him, ah, a plush job behind the front-lines? No! - The general was actually a rather crazy fellow who roamed along the lines plugging them with his forces where necessary, so it turned out that he was often in the thick of the fighting! - Still, it proved a much more survivable posting than just sitting on the frontline somewhere, waiting for the Russians to attack.

    Mainly my acquaintance was on the Northern Front, so that's where he saw most of the fighting. He told me that the frontlines were stretched incredibly thin, so often it wasn't really clear where the front was, and there were often identification problems, because the Germans had many allied forces plugging the holes, and they often didn't look like German soldiers, so could be taken for Russians. He did come across some Danes once, who were in the wrong postition and about to be shelled by the German artillery. Only because my acquaintance knew some Danish did they avoid a friendly fire incident.

    According to him, the German allies were considered crap by everybody in the Wehrmacht. Especially the Rumanians were despised. The only category who was more despised by frontline troops were the soldiers in the rear guard. The frontline troops blamed the rear guard for all the trouble with partisans, saying that it was because of the crimes committed by the rear guard that the local Russian population had been turned against the Germans.

    We also talked about the military hardware, and I remember that he told me that the older machine gun, the MG-34, was much better than the newer MG-42. That really surprised me, because it went against what I thought I knew, so I asked him why. Well, because the MG-42 shot so fast that the ammo was spent in no time! Just BRRRRRRRRD, the sound of ripping a piece of cloth, and it was gone. What's the fun of sitting on the frontline with no more ammo? The older gun was much better in that respect!

    About the Russian soldiers. He spoke of them with great respect. Very cunning and hardy. Not so positive words about the Russian officers. He had lots of stories of NKVD standing behind the Russians' backs and pushing them into suicidal assaults. I asked if that was what the propaganda said, and he told me that he had experienced human wave attacks coming towards himself, and had witnessed bodies piling up in front of his MG.... (This was late in the war).

    During the retreats of 1944 he especially delighted in one story. He was guarding a pontoon bridge and was told by his superiors that only men and the most important materiel should be let across. At some point a huge German column arrived at the bridge carrying massive amounts of loot on horse carts etc. A heated discussion resulted, and only stopped when he ordered his men to turn a Flak-Vierling on the column and blow it all to pieces, which they did!

    As the German soldiers were pushed back to the old German frontier, it became more and more common for them to be harangued by German women: Don't pull back! - He told me that women often manned the trenches together with the soldiers and helped fight off Soviet attacks. From German propaganda (and not just that) they knew what they were in for.

    In 1945 he was captured by the Red Army. He spent 10 years in prison camps (Segezha, near Murmansk) and had a lot of stories about that period, but that will be for another posting!

    When he came back to his parents he was the last of three brothers to come back. All 3 came back, miraculously. The neighbours asked his mother how come she got all her sons back, with an implicit criticism, but she just replied, well, you all willingly gave your sons into the custody of Herr Hitler, see what you brought on your own families!

    When the three brothers were back, their father sat them down, told them "I have now twice in my life experienced that Germany has gone to war. I will have part of it no longer, so from today we renounce Germany and join the Danish minority." They learnt Danish (already knew it somewhat) and as members of the Danish minority in Germany quickly managed to get Danish citizenship and move to Denmark. One brother became a farmer, the one who had flown a Bf-109 in the war became a librarian in Copenhagen, and the last brother to come home, my acquaintance, became a business school teacher in German. Here is a picture of the brothers, my acquaintance is the one on the right: http://www.cykelkurt.com/hist/ohf/jf-2009/LUX-1777.jpg

    It was tremendous to meet this guy. He was very critical of Nazism, Hitler etc, no nostalgia there, or secret admiration: he made it very clear that Hitler had been a calamity to Germany.

    He told me lots more, but this gives you an idea of the meeting. I lapped up every word he said and felt amazed to meet a person who personally took part in a part of history I had only read (a lot!) about. History just came alive, and that is fantastic.
    Last edited by Oersted; May-24-2016 at 14:00.

  36. #25
    ATAG Member ATAG_Flare's Avatar
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Wow! What a story! He sounds like he would have been a great man to talk with. Interesting story about the machine guns! And I didn't realise that the Russians held the Germans captive for such a long time after the war! Wow!

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    I recently annotated and self-published my grandfather's personal war diaries. He was a chaplain (honorary Captain) with the Canadian Armed Forces - Royal Regiment of Canada. England - France, Belgium, Holland, northern Germany.
    There were some stories in there.... like being bombed by RAF heavies during operation Tractable at Haut Messil quarry. Not good.


    Cheers,
    Flatlander

  38. #27
    Team Fusion JanoD's Avatar
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    This is the story of my grandpa. It's google translated,because it's written in slovak. I don't know the man who has wrote his story, but at this is first time I'am starting to understand all those stories which my grandpa told us when I was young boy.
    He died quite few years ago, but I remember him as a very principled, strict but yet very kind man.

    https://translate.google.com/transla...-text=&act=url

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Quote Originally Posted by ATAG_Flare View Post
    Wow! What a story! He sounds like he would have been a great man to talk with. Interesting story about the machine guns! And I didn't realise that the Russians held the Germans captive for such a long time after the war! Wow!
    Eric Hartman, Herman Graf, and several other aces spent 10+ years as "guests" of the Russians.
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  40. #29
    Supporting Member breeze's Avatar
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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    My dad, 3 campaigns Marine 1st Div. Guadacanal, Pelelieu, Okinawa, My friend Mr. Tafoya Survived the Batann Death March, the Hell ships, and coal mines of Japan, My neighbor Mr. Watkins flew C-47 pulling gliders first wave D-Day and went back and flew a glider over later in the day...

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    Re: Who here has met WWI and WWII veterans?

    Quote Originally Posted by 71st_AH_badfinger (XR-B) View Post
    Eric Hartman, Herman Graf, and several other aces spent 10+ years as "guests" of the Russians.
    Hartmann was sentenced to ten years in the camps for the bullets he fired during dogfights perhaps hitting civilians on the ground, i.e. a "war crime". Yup, no love lost between the Germans and the Soviets...

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