Grandpa's War Stories | People Stories #205

who had grandparents fight in world war ii and what stories did they share grandfather was in an amphibious division in the pacific theater he left us with little snippets of his time a camp was pitch black because they didn't want to be visible from above a guy in his cabin went to the outhouse and sat down to do his business when he heard something he pulled his lighter out and lit it a python was dangling down staring him in the face he and another man were walking on a beach and the other guy just got shot through the head from a sniper and that sniper's decision led to my existence general macarthur showed up and gave him a promotion along with a few others they took a video of macarthur shaking the hands of a line of soldiers and used it for a pro-american propaganda film to be played before movies in the us my grandma saw it and freaked tf out and the theater owners gave her a copy of the photo my grandpa was in the army he never spoke about his service but he was shot in the ankle and captured he spent years in of our hospital once he returned to the states i heard second-hand stories about the power camp specifically how the guards would smoke cigarettes and then intentionally flick the butts just out of reach of the prisoners inside the fence but he and his buddies devised a tool to reach out through the fence and grab the butts when the guard turned their back they'd then pass the butt between them to get a tiny path he was a very kind very quiet very intelligent man who had a very bad drinking problem that last sentence reminds me of my maternal grandfather who was a pilot in the rcaf during world war ii thanks for sharing your his story my grandfather was a trained medic not front line but where they took immediate survivors the germans were known so sabotage train bridges and it was standard protocol to stop and inspect them before crossing well his conductor was drunk and not only didn't stop but was speeding into the bridge when it exploded my aunt has the pictures but let's just say the rubble he was found under wooden trains don't just derail they shatter especially off a bridge was crazy he described it to me and i wanted to cry he lost many friends have a letter from my grandfather it was short because it was female but he basically says a friend of mine was killed by a bomb hidden in a cow carcass germans were vicious mofos with a bombs i think grandpa saw some crap because he never talked about it and we later found out that he was lying when he said he never saw action it's really sad how that generation suffered in silence men were taught not to show weakness and it always makes me sad that soldiers didn't receive the help they needed to cope none at all my grandpa went to europe as a teenager and it must have been messed up because he never talked about his experience all the way up to his death he came back with three medals and nobody in the family knows what he did to get them my dad's father was the same he served but didn't talk about it my mom's dad served in the korean war dude was a boxing champ in the navy and happily talked about whatever you wanted my grandfather was in the resistance in holland he never spoke about the war to his wife children or grandchildren if asked to relay stories he'd reply i will not be responsible for the nightmares of another would turn his hearing aid off and nap in his chair myopa never spoke of the war either he was sent to the work camps he returned once somehow on foot but was sent back omar didn't speak of the war but right up to her death in 1990s she would spit if she saw german my uncles only remembered the starvation and that they mustn't talk they were too young for anything else to stick this story was told to me as a child by my grandfather who spoke more italian than english and some details are a bit fuzzy here or there but it's my favorite and one i remember fondly my grandfather like a lot of italians was conscripted by the brown coats to fight for misolani in the italian army he was sent to fight in the african campaign toward the beginning of the campaign he was struck by lightning and pronounced dead while on a long march during the monsoon season at the time they were on march to a port or city the story was a bit hazy here alongside a column of tanks and artillery when he was struck he was not examined immediately just presumed dead and drown onto a truck carrying casualties it wasn't until about a day later when they reached their destination that he was properly inspected he had been laid out with other dead when one of the men assigned to prepare the dead for burial noticed him twitching a doctor was called over and he was found to be alive and sent to be evacuated and treated along with other wounded before he could be evacuated someone high and the command changed his orders thinking he was a good luck charm they ordered him to stay with the honor guard for the rest of the war in reality it ended up being his own good luck charm as he avoided seeing major combat the rest of the war when we were kids he used to get a kick out of showing the wound to us when the lightning struck him it hit him in the head and exited from his calf leaving a hole in his leg the skin had grown over it so you wouldn't know anything was off except maybe a scar but where the lightning bolt exited he could put a finger in his leg down to the knuckle we all used to ask him to show us and we'd react like it was the grossest and coolest thing every time i loved him he was a great man who after the war made his way to america to ensure we had every opportunity in life tldr my grandfather was struck by lightning in the war and thought dead only for them to realize he was alive days later he rode out the rest of the war as a good luck charm for the command and made it home to his family to later bring them to america imagine how terrifying it would be if he woke up in a cart full of dead people both my grandfather served in the u.s army air force one was a waste gunner on a b-17 he caught some shrapnel from a german a gun one mission and almost bled out on the return trip while he was in the hospital his plane was shot down the other was an mp who would tell us about busting heads in bars my grandfather was a flight engineer top turret gunner on the b-17 he was very tight-lipped about his service i joined the army after he had passed and my aunt gave me an album of pictures from his time in europe it was pretty eye-opening to his experiences my grandpa on my dad's side was 17 at the time and lied about his age to get into the navy he played saxophone and the navy band aboard ships in the pacific i don't think he ever saw action though aside from that sick sax action of course my paternal grandfather landed on omaha on d-day that's it that's all he ever shared we know he spent the duration of the war in europe but whatever he saw or did was too much to ever tell my grandmother dad aunt or uncle my grandad was in world war ii in a tank destroyer unit he never talked about it but when i got back from a trip to paris in high school he asked if it was still all blowed up over there and said the last time he was there it was a big old mess that's funny your granddad asked if it's still a mess my grandpa used to give my dad crap because my dad got sent to germany in 69 when my grandpa was there everything was bombed to crap he would say my pops had it made because the base had roofs by the time my dad got there grandfather trained in canada with british officers before flying to britain went to italy was almost killed when his jeep drove off a cliff to avoid capture by nazis was taken back to britain to heal looked up the family of an officer he knew officer's sister became my grandmother grandfather was a u.s sniper in the pacific one of the best stories was of a cocky officer who showed up and lined all the infantry up on the beach to tell them they were a bunch of pansies and he was going to whip them into shape these men had been seeing hand-to-hand combat for months the officer finally said if there's a man on this beach that thinks he can whip my butt take one step forward every man took a step forward immediately the officer didn't say much after that we had something like that happen after my first deployment the whole company got together and we were able to call out anyone for a grappling match one of our ssgs called out our company commander who was possibly insane and was not entirely loved by the company the ceo whipped the absolute crap out of the ssglol my austrian grandfather was drafted into the vermont and his unit was integrated into the ss in 1944 he was wounded in january 45 in the battle of the bulge whilst carrying out an attack on a u.s position but he got patched up by the americans whilst the german officer wrote a letter home that he was missing in action he still has the original letter he was a prisoner of war in france from then on and had to stay until 46 or 47 as he was captured as a member of the ss and they were held longer than regular vermont soldiers he still holds a grudge against the nazis for stealing his youth and still has some shell or bullet fragments in his chest as far as i know cheers to the americans for saving him really interesting since most of these replies are from americans thanks for sharing in short my grandpa was made prisoner was sent to germany for work volunteered to work in a farm he knew nothing about farming but though food would be easier to come by he didn't know german either became friends with a little girl there that was a bit older than his own kids she started viewing him like an older brother he attended her wedding once the war was over she had a baby boy he had a third and planned child too those became friends attended each other's weddings then they had kids me and one of the german kids decided to learn each other's language then we studied in each other's country for a year thanks erasmus program i attended her wedding last year we don't talk much anymore i'm sorry to report we're not that good at keeping in touch from afar but rest assured we're trying whatsapp might be a good option it's how i text my friends abroad especially those in germany my grandfather's friend has a story about a guy who said he was deaf so that he wouldn't go to the war the guy choosing the people tossed a coin in the floor besides him and he immediately searched for it he was sent to the war that's cold when my grandmother died we helped my grandfather move out of his house into an apartment i had found a mason jar filled with old shiny rocks in his basement when we looked closer we realized it was gold teeth aka kills from the war that's when i learned my grandfather was a sniper he served on the pacific side fighting the japanese he died a couple of years ago at the age of 99 well into his 90s though he could still shoot a squirrel with a gun and a slingshot from a pretty long distance he met up with the men in his unit every year after the war until they all died my grandpa was in the navy and was a real gunner on a plane he was still training when the war was finishing up but the story goes that he was trying to shoot a target on the ground for training he was adamant on hitting it so he unbuckled himself to get a better shot because of this he got pulled out of the plane and was hanging on only by the rear gun eventually he was able to pull himself back into the plane surprisingly he probably never tried that again my grandfather lied about his age and joined the marines went to iwo jimaran got his thumb shot off came home and rode shotgun for wells fargo armored trucks my grandpa lied about his age to join the marines too and family legend added that he was a handful of men from being sent to okinawa or something he ended up in china where he didn't have anything to do but jump ditches in his jeep but hey he came home and had a family so huzzah for his boring deployment my grandfather enlisted when he was 14 served in india for some years but got shot by a sniper and was shipped back to uk my grandfather fled his home in austria as a 12 year old because he was jewish he and his parents were sent to the viennese ghetto where he convinced two nazis to let them flee under the cover of night they eventually made it to genoa where they caught the second to last ship leaving the port there he lost his sister to the chamber unfortunately biddy and his parents fled to japanese occupied shanghai china where they lived in the slums for around eight years he worked as a snake catcher black market trader and eventually as a foot messenger for the us army consulate there he was also either the sole survivor or one of very few survivors of a us-led bombing at a radio station there there was a bombing and a friend of my grandfather was hiding under the table but it collapsed on him leaving him with a brain injury that would give him flashbacks from time to time where he again thought bombers are coming to not get hit again he always started to run out of the building he was in the once he jumped out of the second floor of a building because of it and that was it for him dang that's sad my grandfather was in world war ii and then was called up for korea he told my mom that he was in special forces and that his primary weapon was the garat he refused to tell her any stories and he committed suicide dang those guys must have suffered so much in silence not my true grandparents but my grandma's oldest brother he fought in the pacific through a heck and back he went by pearl harbor the day after and the arizona was still on fire one island he landed on had so much opposition that he had to use the guys in front of him bodies as meat shields one funny story was that everyone at the base knew he didn't drink or smoke since his father was a raging alcoholic so his bunkmates hid their booze under his bunk whenever the officers would come by an inspect camp i unfortunately never met him but hearing about his stories really fueled my interest in stories from throughout modern wars from world war one to iraq my grandad was on the arizona at pearl harbor he was a gunnersmat the only reason he survived was because it was hot the night before so the captain let them sleep on deck when the bombs hit that morning they jumped off ship and had to swim under the burning oil not grandparent but great-grandfather he joined tito's partisans in 1942 and fought mainly in eastern croatia northern and western bosnia and herzegovina he got very sick in early 1943 and almost died due to dysentery what influenced him the most however was the hunger and the cold they had to endure this led to him always stockpiling on food and firewood and always needing to be sure that everyone also stockpiled on food and firewood as much as possible my grandparents were holocaust survivors they never talked about it despite us asking every week often multiple times a week they'd bring a ton of food by each of their kids and friends homes us grandkids would often complain to our parents never to them that they bought old ppl food but we've never truly known hunger both grandads and the navy greyton survived a concentration camp no one says anything ever world war ii was like fight club apparently both grandfathers both survived both only ever spoke about it to anyone on at most two occasions each the only thing either of them ever said to me as part of a larger family collective about it was that the only thing you need to know about the war is that the people who didn't leave their corpse in the field left their soul instead those were the prices for coming home and someone else decided which one you paid that's an amazing quote thanks for sharing this is probably late but my grandfather was a kibby a nice a japanese-american who was born in the u.s but raised in japan he finished high school in the us then went on to college and eventually became the first minority to graduate from his law school at that point he was drafted into the us army right before pearl harbor the army didn't know what to do with him so he was shuttled around a few places he was stationed in the south pacific for a little while he said that his clothing would go missing occasionally he thought it was hazing by the other soldiers that's his racism but he found out later that there were downed japanese pilots in the jungles nearby so he later concluded that they were stealing his clothes since his were the only one who had clothes that fit them he was later sent to the japanese language school to teach and again reassign to the pentagon that was where he met my grandmother he said that the line i work in the pentagon was a great way to pick up girls once the war was over he married my grandmother and then was volunteered to join the staff supporting the japanese reconstruction in japan he was first assigned to macarthur's staff translate the captured war documents however when he heard that the military was looking for people who could speak japanese and had a legal background for the war crimes trials he requested and was granted a discharge to join jag because he could speak japanese he served in jag as the defense attorney for several of the third-tier war criminals he joked black humor that he was a terrible lawyer because his first six clients were all executed he said more seriously that everyone knew that his clients would be executed but that it was his job to make sure that they received a fair trial once the trials were completed he stayed in jag helping with the reconstruction effort he assisted in writing the japanese constitution and later acted as a liaison between the japanese government and the army we still have a certificate of recognition signed by the emperor of japan recognizing the work that he did with setting up the japanese legal system my uncle was tasked with pulling bodies out of the ocean after d-day he was supposed to be in the invasion but his officer reassigned him due to his age he then became personal details for eisenhower due to more people looking out for him well my father and uncles all fought in world war ii i had two aunts who were also in the service a grandfather fought in world war one i grew up on the stories and his stories were the most upsetting the way the command just threw everyone's lives away with the suicidal charges from the trenches 67 years later those stories still haunt me one uncle was in north africa papa one uncle and two uncles in law served in the pacific one uncle the youngest was on omaha beach and helped liberate a small concentration camp near what would become east germany his stories are the ones i remembered best the stench that hit the american convoy about a mile from the gates the walking skeletons the half decomposed bodies and the dogs eating them unlike movies war is not pretty and rarely does it have any happy endings my grandfather served in the 101st airborne division field artillery kind of like band of brothers there were a few parallels in the storyline but he did it with the howitzer he was dropped into france at night his only story was about hiding in hedgerows and knowing what cigarette the german soldiers had by the smoke smell as they walked by it took his unit over a week to find that gun later he was dropped into bastogne battle of the bulge he would later attend an annual dinner to commemorate the nuts to you reply the american general gave to german orders to surrender he got his chance to tore eagle's nest a couple weeks after it was taken by the allied forces before shipping off for home he was proud of his service and very proud to be part of the 101st but as stories to his grandchildren go they were rare the hedgerow tale was one of a lot of things i'd rather not remember part of the honor guard at his funeral saw the two jump stars on his airborne wings and an awe almost no one these days has won and your grandfather has two i was airborne for seven years i saw one person with a single combat jump and guys basically kissed the ground he walked on he was currently serving to c2 has been unheard of since vietnam basically your grandfather had some stones to make combat jumps twice my grandma was in the merchant marines and stationed on lake michigan she was in charge of a navy shipping yard she said the hardest part was getting the men to look up from her chest then she got a master's degree in occupational therapy and worked for the veterans affairs my one grandfather refused to ever talk about the war with anyone both of mine actually served in world war ii but i never heard any stories same here mom's side served in japan dad's side in europe i know that my dad's father was a parisian and a figure in the french resistance but he refused to ever discuss what he actually did my grandma would say that he kept everything bottled up because for years it meant life or death for him to keep his mouth shut my great-grandfather who never had an education beyond fifth grade was discovered to be a math prodigy by the army he was made a aviation engineer and if it wasn't for his poor eyesight could have been a pilot he was stationed in india and as a corporal was the subject matter expert for the manufacturing of aircraft officers and senior cos had to refer to him when it came to technical matters he also was allowed to test fly a lot of the airplanes since he rather have it fail on him than someone else shortly after japan surrendered and the war was ending a new captain was put in charge and forbade my grandfather from test flying as he wasn't a full-fledged pilot enraged my grandfather took a plane one early morning and started flying the noise caused everyone to come out from the barracks and when all the officers came out he fly dive down and flew close to their heads that they all dropped to the floor and covered their heads for that stunt he was discharged from service and went on to start his own mechanic shop which he ran with my grandfather his son-in-law for 30 years had an uncle who was crew on a bomber in europe who got shot down over germany and spent the rest of the war as a pow he never talked a whole lot about his experiences as only him and one other from his crew survived i am half german my grandfather was in war i never had the chance to talk with him about world war ii because he didn't like to speak about it and later also got ill so i hadn't any chance only think i know from my uncle is that he was a sniper he went to war i think in 1945 when he was 18 years old when it was already clear that nazi germany will lose this war he was somewhere in east europe and got caught like many others by the russians so he was a wall captivity but he managed to escape by jumping off a driving truck where he and many other captives were sitting on and the russians didn't notice or noticed when it was already too late he was then a few days on the run he sleeped in the forest till he got back to germany to the house of his grandmother where he hided till the war was over because he was deserter normally he had to go back to war i hope you could understand it sorry for my bad english understood perfectly your english is great thank you for sharing my grandfather was drafted into world war one he was from a ranching family in wyoming and very skilled with horses but he didn't want to end up in the mule artillery he lied to the army and told them he worked in a dry goods store so they made him a supply clerk he was eventually put on a ship to france and arrived just as the war ended he said all the soldiers went awol and parted for several days i suspect it was an eye-opening experience for a country boy if you are new to the channel you can subscribe i publish new videos every day until then check another video [Music] bye for now

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Id: QOaEc3rUgd0

Length: 24min 37sec (1477 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 06 2021