What Are The Best WW2 Stories Your Grandparents Have Shared With You?

serious what stories about World War II did your grandparents tell you and or what did you find out about their lives during that period something sweet my grandparents saved all their love letters sent back and forth during that time they had just met and had fallen in love before his departure so they carried on their romance and developed the relationship through beautifully written letters those letters expressed every emotion from the realities and horrors of War to the abiding hope they'd be reunited safe and sound they were married not long after grandfather's return my great-grandparents also kept their letters they were young I believe he forged his birthday so he could join a year or two earlier and not married yet I now have their letters I love reading them they don't have too many negative things in them so they are mainly full of love my grandfather was pretty rich from Real Estate in the coastal province of XI Jong in China until the Japanese invaded he and his family relocated to the Inland wartime capital and worked as a telegraph operator for the war but the Japanese took everything from everyone back then and Nothing Was the Same afterwards coupled with a civil war right after and things were pretty crappy my grandpa very rarely talked about it but he was in the Pacific in World War II he caught malaria and was sent to a hospital ship to recover and the Japanese sunk the ship so he floated for like 10 hours clinging to the wreckage with active malaria before finally being rescued and after all that he reenlisted and fought in the Korean War also what a badass he never said much but he did talk once about throwing explosives of some kind in a river to catch fish he was in the South Pacific as a marine I just remembered another one he did not smoke so he traded his cigarette till he had enough for a typewriter so he could type his letters to his wife and my mom his daughter who was born after he went to war my grandfather joined up in 1943 when he turned 18 years old he was stationed on a Pacific island where he basically became a radar O'Reilly his family were Mennonites so he was a conscientious objector he was a medic clerical worker cook ditch digger driver and anything else that he was asked most of his time was spent cleaning up after everyone else and watching for Air Raids by the Japanese Air Force my grandfather befriended a German family during the war they would cook him meals and the mother would wash his clothes one day he loaded up a box with eggs and used toilet paper to make sure they didn't break the the next day there was a note in his laundry thanking him for the eggs but an even bigger thank you for the toilet paper they hadn't had any in years grandfather was drafted broke his femur in basic training spent the entirety of World War II behind a desk in Oklahoma processing Logistics and Supply Chain management requests my grandfather would talk about the training time with his unit while being transported but mostly about a little kid he was helping feed in China After Japan surrendering he would just think aloud about what happened to him and if he was all right he never talked about combat I didn't walk into his house once and the History Channel was on showing a USMC graveyard on Okinawa and he was crying my grandfather lost his twin and his mother in a German bombing raid during the blitz he was 15 at the time and an alcoholic for most of his adult life my great aunt told me she and her friends used to play in the bombed ruins of buildings near their home in West London in retrospect she realized how dangerous it was to be three stories up a crumbling building but at a time they didn't care at all I feel bad for your gramps just imagine finding the body someone who looks almost exactly like you dead my grandpa stormed the beaches at Point du hawk in Normandy and lived to tell about it afterwards when things calmed down and they had left France he ran off for about a week to another country and had some fun I went back to point du Hawk with him for a Rangers reunion with my family several years ago now that was powerful standing in the same area with your grandpa and family where he stormed the beaches I like 225 Rangers stormed those Cliffs and 90 remained unwounded by the end of the day respect Grandpa and Grandma were out in Austria grandma was super pregnant with my aunt they were stumbling through the forest when they met five Afro-American soldiers might have been the first time they've seen black people one asked Grand Papi to come closer no common language just by using hand signs they both thought that that's the end they are done it's scary to run into guys with big guns in the forest turns out they got a bunch of eggs in exchange for some hope at a nearby farm and when they saw Grandma's big belly they thought she'll be needing the extra calories more than them so they put it all into pars hat and pointed on Grandma smiling best dudes ever my grandmother's cousin saw a black person for the first time during World War II too apparently she had no idea they existed and in the Bible white is Angel and black is devil so she freaked out thinking she had just seen the actual devil my grandfather was a kid during World War II he was born in 1931. he lived in Rouge and walled which used to be part of Germany today it's Poland near the city of schatzin his dad had to fight for the Nazis even though they were not particularly fond of their ideas my grandfather had to go to Hitler Youth where they would make all sorts of week-long trips through forests learn how to handle Guns Etc he wasn't able to visit school for some time due to Germany losing the war my great-grandfather obviously fought the Russians on the Eastern front but he was captured on a mission in Russia and kept as a war prisoner where he had a really bad lung infection and it was becoming clearer that Germany will be losing this war he was released from prison and was able to spend three more days with his family before he passed then it was my grandfather's turn to try and earn some money as he was the only son they had and his mum had to take care of his youngest sister when Russia took over the whole area they gave the Germans in the area the chance to leave for Western Germany they provided one train and said whoever could get on there was free to go the rest would stay there my grandfather made sure that his family got on the train but he didn't have any space himself so he rode the Train by standing on the metal bar thing that connects two train wagons for part of the journey luckily the train didn't run too fast once Hitler came to my grandfather's Hometown earlier in the wartime and he said everyone was so excited to see this man people literally camped by the train tracks to await his train apparently he came by train for some reason there's plenty more since my Grandad basically had to flee his hometown and had never returned he asked me and my dad his son to take him there a couple years back since he would love to see how it's turned out he was already over 80 years old of course we were happy to go and we spent nine days there some of it was quite emotional for him and he told me many stories of his childhood it was really interesting to hear his point of view as he was a child for the most part as I understand that Hitler had his entire command structure in a train in the early years of the war and they'd move close to wherever they were invading next so the lines of communication were shorter my great-grandfather never talked about the war until he had his stroke we knew he had a purple heart and a bronze star but we didn't know how he got them he was just a private and he'd had enough of the military when the war was over after the stroke he seemed to loosen up he laughed about citing rifles and by shooting at chickens he showed us pictures of him in front of the Eiffel Tower turns out he was occupation Force ended up occupying an area near Berlin that became involved in the Battle of the Bulge apparently while he was fighting some sort of explosive blew off his buddy's leg so Grandpa did what anyone else would do and threw his body over his shoulder to get him to the mid tent this included running across a field in the line of sight of a German Machine Gun Nest he was shot in the leg and some more shrapnel ended up in his chest somehow Grandpa and his buddy survived we thought he was embellishing it but the Bronze Star paperwork included a report that we found after he passed away too high signed that the story was true so I guess I have to believe it he told us it wasn't that big of a deal and that he didn't deserve all those medals for what he did what a badass R.I.P Gramps ended up occupying an area near Berlin that became involved in the Battle of the Bulge that area is 700-800 km from Berlin sounds like Gramps was a badass nonetheless my grandpa went to Annapolis during the war and ended playing piano for the Uso it might not be bad but but it's still kind of cool got two stories grandmother on my mom's side told me this story I remember first time when the Germans came into my Village I was outside playing with my cousin when my mom came and pulled us into the house and said SSH they silent the Germans are here we stood by the window that had a little opening and saw how German soldiers walked on the road with tanks and knocked on people's doors and pulled some of them out I saw my neighbor get shot on the spot I was five years old and still remember it clearly grandmother on my dad's side we live just by the Danube and I remember seeing the Germans on the other side of the stream they started to board some small boats to cross the river after some minutes they started to Shell and shoot towards us and I took my little brother in my arms and started to run for my life I was nine years old and my brother four inches they didn't care how we look like or not they hated us because we are Slavs and not Germans did my grandmother on Dad's side was redhead Irish redhead my grandmother on Mom's side was blonde and green blue eyes two stories that stuck the most Pacific Theater southeast Asia Japanese Occupation Granddad was a small boy at the beginning of the occupation he didn't know he has to bow to any soldiers he passes one day the soldier called him over gave him one tight slap across his cheek and ear he went permanently death deaf in that ear my grandmother was a child in Guam during the Japanese Occupation one of her stories that stood out to me was that she was forced to stand in a circle and watch people dig their own Graves and if you showed any form of emotion they would beat you my grandfather served on a destroyer for the U.S and saw action in the Pacific Theater and career one story I vividly remember is him telling me they had to assist in recovering downed U.S pilots from the ocean he said many times the pilots were already dead and had been mutilated by sharks he said he would never forget pulling those men out of the water I had a patient who worked in Salvage operations after the great tsunami in Southeast Asia he had similar stories about pulling people out of the water half-eating by sharks and other Critters a PTSD is real the only thing my grandpa ever said about the war was how he made his engagement ring out of a quarter using a tablespoon I assume he saw some crap I did however meet a Nazi airplane mechanic 90 years old and dude still had all his wits about him interesting convo American quarters were mostly silver back then so that would actually be a pretty decent engagement ring and I imagine silver is soft enough to work with a tablespoon that's pretty freaking resourceful my father was a medic in World War II and was part of the Normandy invasion where he had to do what he could with pieces of soldiers it must have been horrifying on his deathbed he admitted that he stole two small bars of silver from the body of a German soldier somewhere in France he wasn't proud of it and in fact he was quite ashamed of his actions even 60 plus years later when he returned home he sold the silver and in a small way it helped him purchase a small trailer in which he and my mom lived while he finished College the Bars were probably stolen by the German guy too it's not like people bring their precious metals to war my great-grandfather died in the Netherlands fighting when my grandpa was one year old my great-grandmother never spoke about it even up until she died and it was only cleaning the house my grandpa found the Purple Heart and other memorabilia tucked away she never remarried recently my dad and I went to the Netherlands and got the chance to visit the American cemetery there to see where he was buried it was touching and sad my dad had never met his grandpa and his dad could never make it over there at this point we rubbed sand into his name on the gravestone and planted Flags talked about him he died in 1945. my grandfather a six foot six inch red-headed Irishman from New York was a lieutenant in charge of an anti-aircraft battery at Normandy that's not the interesting bit though as the Allies Advanced into Europe they took a number of prisoners who all spoke German obviously my lieutenant grandfather was put into a private's uniform and stationed outside the Pow Camp why because my six foot six red-headed Irishman from New York grandfather was the son of a German immigrant and spoke fluent German he got a lot of Intel from the prisoners who spoke German freely in front of the American light-hearted story my grandpa was an MB military police when the soldiers got in bar fights and they needed to call the MP he would get sent out to break it up load them into the Jeep and take them back to base he said they would drop them off at the gate if they were sober enough to walk back to barracks on thyron they were free to go if they were too drunk they would have to take them to the brig these soldiers were under a lot of stress I think it's a pretty cool thing that he bent the rules for some of these guys my grandmother was a Jew in a Nazi concentration camp she was pretty much certain to die because she didn't have a job and she wasn't cunning enough to survive on her own it was rough one day some local farmers in Russia bought her to work for them during the day so she would go to the farm to work during the day and come back at night the farmers would feed her and clothe her they also helped her sneak food into the camp often I don't know how she would sneak soups into the camp to give to her friends and family the farmers were endless in their kindness and helped her survive until the Nazis were defeated and everyone was released my grandmother was reunited with her family and lived a long life until she died last year without the farmer's kindness I don't think I would be here today your grandma is a hero she could have survived just fine without any risk of getting caught if she didn't sneak in soup for her mates but she did anyway dutt meddling when you don't need to is the essence of being a hero Ellen Einstein 1000 764. my grandmother was in Auschwitz so nothing good she and her oldest sister moved from Lithuania to Poland under fake identities but were later arrested and identified when her sister and her husband were caught forging documents for French prisoners of war and a friend sold them all out she went into the camps a young woman with two parents four grandparents and six siblings and left with virtually no living relatives I was just talking to my grandmother recently she's alive and in her 90s about her grandfather who was a high-ranking member of some military or another and was under a lot of pressure at one point to essentially change his last name to something not Jewish sounding and convert himself and his family to Christianity in order to continue his peaceful and prosperous existence but he refused not really thinking about it I said imagine how much trouble it might have saved you if he had she's Jewish on both sides of her family so I don't know how that would have worked exactly but again I wasn't really thinking about my work Angie laughed a bit and said I don't think so in Russian there's an expression and then she paused a moment as if considering how to translate it and said you get punched in the face not the passport bayad poem or die Cyrillic letter on I purposely my Jewish Grandma also says that when discussing War times my great-grandfather commanded a battery stationed in France for a period of time they were tipped off about a German Supply train that would be passing through the area they ambushed the train and captured 150 German soldiers injured 30 killing 25 in the fight some tanks and other equipment was destroyed or taken all members received a bronze star and my great-grandfather also received the croydogaire awarded to those soldiers who distinguish themselves by acts of heroism involving combat with the Enemy you know now that I think about it I don't remember my grandma ever telling me about World War II and her life through it I know my dad was born a year after so she must have done some celebrating when it ended LOL same the only thing I know is that my grandfather Australian came back with a pair of katanas which my sister a weeb has claimed he wouldn't say how he got them and never spoke about the war my grandmother didn't like to talk about the war she lost several Brothers to this day we don't know where exactly two of them are buried she told me that life was pretty much normal especially in the first years and continued to be normal until the bombings started she lived in west of Germany a small town Farm life has to go on war or no war she did tell small things though for example she saw a friend of her pick up a grenade not knowing what it was the girl lost both hands or how they hid in the woods when the sirens for air bombings started the first black person she saw was a Tommy most of them were friendly and asked for water or some potatoes when they arrived came though her town she was afraid though the Germans had lost after all the soldiers carried gun stories about the brutality of the Russians had reached her and they didn't understand each other due to the language barrier my grandmother was born in 1938 so she was young seven years old when the war ended if she told me she remembers being scared to death when there were blackout drills even if the Germans were going to bomb the U.S her small town in North Carolina would have never been a Target but I can see that a young child wouldn't really understand that and she remembers her mother telling them that the war was over she said she was excited because admit they could get tires for their bicycle they had a bike but no tires for it since so much rubber was being used for the war effort my great-granddad was along with his Soldier mates captured by the Germans in North Africa he was german-born himself but his family emigrated to Britain in the early 30s so he could converse with his captors the German guards had to leave the area I think he said cave they were detained in because an alarm went off and so my great-granddad and the others ran out and stole a car making it back to Friendly lines LOL the African front is such a weird front compared to the Europe front my Grandad was a baby and his mother was walking with him down the street when a Messer smitched 109 came flying down opening fire down the street a butcher dragged them both into his shop for cover and they survived apparently my grandparents were eight and five when the Japanese attacked Nanjing my grandpa told me he remembers his dad taking him and his mom running away two days before the raid happened my Grandma's family was pretty well off they owned a few restaurants in Nanjing her family had to basically give up everything to not get violated or killed my grandfather polish was only about 12 when Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany he was from a poor small farming village where most of his family lived and worked at the end of the war he moved to Dachau and signed up to be a guard at the dark out concentration camp under orders from the U.S army the dark out concentration camp after the war held all the Nazi SS and other war criminals who were awaiting trial so I'm sure he experienced some inhumane things being done there but he never spoke about it I recently received my polish passport and in doing so had to dig up a lot of old photos and information about him the only thing I could read in English was his enlisting documents at Dhaka by the U.S army accompanied by a photo of him in the uniform it's a great photo my grandmother German was from a wealthy family and lived in a town near the Czech border her uncle was a lawyer for one of the Communist party members and was taken away and never seen again after the war all of their land possessions and properties were given to the Czechs and they were told they could only take with them what they could carry my grandmother left for Munich to find work dark how is near Munich my grandparents met fell in love and after a couple years got married and moved all the way to Australia with no money or possessions something they were probably used to by now there they moved them with a family where my grandma did housework for keep and my grandfather went around collecting scrap metal to sell he ended up building a very successful business from this that has provided for their children and grandchildren I'm very proud of them my grandfather passed away in 2014 and my grandmother passed away in March this year they had a long and happy life R.I.P Jaja and Omar one of my grandfathers German but not Nazi told me about a time he and his family was hiding in the basement of a building in Leipzig chair American planes were flying over the city and he was the one looking up the chimney and every time he heard the sound of bombs dropping he shouted run to decomp Knockin get down another one is coming he is still alive and I love to listen to World War II stories first hand these memories are so expensive I don't know the details very well so I'll let more knowledgeable War historians fill in the blanks for me my grandfather was a random farmhand in central France about 20 when the French government surrendered a couple years later he joined the resistance not knowing how long the war was going to last turns out he joined at the end of 1943 so it was only a few months later that the U.S army ended up whining the French territories back when the U.S forces arrived near my grandpa's Countryside his Mackie resistance group essentially offered their services as Scout's reconnaissance since they didn't have much Firepower but they were quite good at sneaking around they ended up making their way through Eastern France and into Germany liberating various small towns on the way although my understanding is that the Vermont was essentially fleeing at this point Enter the small town of Van wheeler in Germany my grandpa is making a reconnaissance round when he hears a Patrol coming around and has to hide quick quickly he knocked on a random door and asked in broken German to be hidden inside this techmage they accepted and in that house my grandpa met the daughter of the family just three years younger than him her name was Anna they kept in touch and he came back with his hat in his hands a couple years later and asked for her hand they settled in Lorraine a region that historically got passed around between France and Prussia Germany and where a French German couple would not be judged quite as harshly 60 years of marriage six children and a gaggle of grandkids and great-grandkids later they passed away a few months apart from each other they're buried in the tiny graveyard of the Church of the village where I grew up what my grandma told me one of the things that mx-great-grandfather told her my great-grandfather served on the Eastern Front later in the war they were encircled on the Crimea Peninsula they ate the melons which grow there later he got into Russian captivity and came back in 1948 I think he got really lucky some German soldiers didn't return until 1955. my grandfather was shot through the testicle in a small gun fight in Poland he was nursed back to health by nuns then captured as a prisoner of war where he spent the entirety of the war in A POW Camp When The War finished he was released and came back home to Scotland he then proceeded to have four children with one testicle I wrote a paper on him back during high school and won a trip to Belgium and France to visit World War II sites it was great my grandmother was told to hide under the bed when the gestopo came for her father as a perceived spy for the French Resistance I was the first person my grandfather-in-law showed his World War II photos from when he served in the Pacific as a marine it was a bunch of Japanese guys smiling in their bunkers while eating drinking Etc I asked him what the heck was with the photos and he said ha that's from some Japanese sucker I killed him and stole his camera when he was older he took all of the photos and put them in a beautiful book hoping one day the photos will find their way into the right person's hands we too have a stack of photos from the pockets of Japanese soldiers my grandfather was also a Marine in a lot of major battles it really is sobering it would be nice to be able to return those photos I wonder how many more families out they have photos as well my history teacher told us about how he jumped out of a plane broke his leg in a tree and was still fighting my grandmother tells me about going to the country to stay alive posted this already in another thread some time ago my German Grandpa fled from what is now Poland he's born in 1937. his dad owned a larger Farm estate and there were some of the wealthier farmers in the region they owned a car for instance which was a luxury when worst came to worst in 1944-45 his dad was drafted in the Volks term Nazi recruitment of children and elders but because he was a stubborn farmer he said Frick the nuts isn't hid out in a forest nearby one day the Red Army arrived and my grandpa who is still alive right now recalls it that they literally parked in front of the main house knocked down the door and yelled and broken German to them to pack their things in 10 minutes and leave her they'll all be shot also my grandpa about seven or eight had to flee with barely anything they marched four weeks through war-torn wastelands burning Villages all while artillery and tanks were roaring in the distance and warplanes flew over their heads he recalls playing with some gas masks they had found on their way probably next to some burned out Vehicles they rejoined the larger streams of refugees and made it to East Germany where my grandpa's dad was re-educated into socialism and lived bitter and angry until his death my grandpa eventually fled East Germany in the 1950s with nothing but his rusty bike and the stars above his head to the west to this day my grandpa refuses to visit Russia my grandma always wanted to go to Saint Petersburg he doesn't hate on the Russians as a people but he has never lived down this childhood trauma comma with nothing but his rusty bike and the stars above his head to the West this is beautiful my father was an orphan who joined the army at age 16 with a forge birth certificate in January 1944. he was sent to the Pacific with a crew of Seabees he ended up in a Japanese POW Camp after the tiny Island where they landed to build an airstrip was a secret Japanese face he lost two finger tips and several toes to frostbite he said it was mostly extremely boring punctuated by horror my grandfather was radio operator on a ship of the South African Coast when an English ship showed up they sunk their own and resigned they came in a camp for war prisoners where he lived five years during that time he graduated high school a group of teachers giving lessons and had a really good time my dad not my grandfather he had me in his late 40s was a lieutenant commander in the Navy and he flew a Catalina plane also known as a pby he had heard about his sweet gig in Hawaii and asked his Commander if he could be transferred there next his Commander said sure but I would like you to finish out the basketball season first since you're the team captain my dad agreed that was fair if it hadn't been for my dad's athletic abilities he would probably have been one of the pilots running out to their planes when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor I'm glad he was good at basketball or I might not exist truly ball is life all I know is that my grandfather fought against the Nazi regime and got shot during the Battle for Berlin he was a Soviet Soldier survived thankfully only to pass away in the 70s not my grandparents but remembering interviewing a women about her experience during World War II when she told me she loved it as her father and brother was away she got to run her family Shoe Shop in London and she felt she had a real sense of purpose for the first time in her life that's rather interesting take on the war time my grandmother was a German and obliged to be Hitler Youth she and her parents helped a number of Jewish people to escape from Dusseldorf once she did that she herself escaped through Prussia as it was and was violated as a teenager by soldiers she got pregnant with my uncle who is a few years older than my dad I very much doubt that anyone will read this but here it is you have been visited by the cook dog comment without food there is no Paradise so that you never burn the stakes like And subscribe you magnificent person [Music]

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Id: CS5iJarJzkc

Length: 30min 10sec (1810 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 08 2023