war storys from gramps
 

hello everybody, been reading this forum for a while finnaly decided to chime in

all this dogfighting talk makes me remember my grampa telling me a few of his old war stories being a pilot in ww2 and pearl harbor survivor. anyone got any good ones?

My favorite from my Gramps who was in the army air corps was when he was a bomber pilot on a mission over italy(i think) and the first time he got shot down and luckily lived, he told me he was RTB about 10 min after they dropped their bombes and got jumped by some fighters attacking out of the sun, he thought he must have been the first plane hit because suddenly he plane rocked and pitched violently to the right, after fightingt the controls to try and keep her level he finnaly noticed that almost half of his wing was missing and the engine was gone, he said he somehow managed to keep the plane level enough and slow enough for the entire crew to bail out, he said by the time he was about ready to jump out he was already too low to deploy his parachutte, despite that he knew he didnt stand a chance if he stayed with the plane so he hopped out at what he guessed was somewhere around 800ft i think he said. he pulled his chute as soon as he made his way out and before his chute opened all the way he hit the ground. he said he must have laid there for what seemed like forever believeing he was probably horably wounded. after finnaly taking stock of his situation and moving a little bit he founf out he was just a little banged and bruised as he called it. someone he had managed to land in a thick garden of some sorts which must have cushened his fall along with his half deployed parachutte. he was lucky to be alive and turned out to be even luckier later in the war being shot down 2 more times through the war, once more in a bomber and later as a p-51 pilot. ill share those stories as i can remember them.

id love to hear any of you have, my gramps really never did like to talk about ehm but i loved to hear them when he did. oh yeah and man did that man hate japanese, probably due to the fact that he was at pearl harbour when it was attacked. needless to say he ended up flying aginst the germans in europe and he actually held some respect for german pilots ( ie whenever he saw a german plane shot down he said he always hoped to see a parachute pop out) he had the oposite reaction to japanese, he never did fly against them but when talking about them he said it was a shame any jap pilot ever lived after being shot down, i guess pearl harbor affected him that bad.

for the record i do not hate japanese or any race

Well, both of my grandfathers were in WW2. But the only one who liked to talk about it was the one who always said at the beginning of a speech at family gatherings, "Mussolini had some good ideas, but his way of being Hitlers puppet in North Africa didn't help his situation. And that's probably why me and my friends flew, and got shot down." So from that, I guess you can tell he flew on the Italian side. He always talked about it, for him I think it was a relief to talk about it. My other grandfather thought differently, and clammed up when you tried to talk to him about it very much.

The only story I can think off the top of my head that my Italian Grandfather talked about, was when he was in Italy, fighting over Malta. He said that he and a flight of about five other Macchi's were heading to defend a group of Italian torpedo planes, that had attacked a British convoy, and were being attacked by Hurricanes and Spitfires. Well they flew the two hour or so flight there, and found that out of the ten or so torpedo planes they had known about, only six were still flying, he could see that one crew of the torpedo plane had ditched into the water, and were already sitting and waiting for a rescue. But while the others attacked the Hurricanes and Spitfires, he stayed up above, wait for a lone Hurricane or Spitfire to make a wrong move. Well I guess that wrong move was towards him, because next thing he knows, a Hurricane is climbing towards the clouds, going to try and surprise him. Well he took action, following the climbing Hurricane, and with his machine-guns and cannon, he opened up and hit all along the fuselage. The Hurricane stopped its climb, probably loosing speed he said as it tried leveling off, but the pilot couldn't keep his air speed up and he had to bail out. Then after taking out the Hurricane, my grandfather saw another Hurricane unhindered, and busy attacking one of the torpedo bombers. He quickly dived on the Hurricane, but before he could get any rounds into the plane, the Hurricane broke off its attack, and tried getting away. Luckily my Grandfather was quick enough, and made a move before the Hurricane pilot did, and was in gun range. That was my Grandfathers like 3rd kill or something like that. His fourth was a British Spitfire, but his 5th was undetermined as I guess three of his other squadron buddies, claimed to have shot the same plane, and so none of them got credit for the kill.

That's my Grandfathers story.

Wow, what an interesting story!

Glad to know your grandfather survived three crashes!:grin:

Hope to hear the rest if you can recall them.

My gramps joined RAF bomber command at 17, lying about his age to join up....


he joined 50 squadron based at skellingthorpe, lincolshire flying lancaster bombers. He was a rear gunner, or as we come to know it - tail end charlie.



He was assigned to his crew and flew a couple of missons (nothing to eventful) before his pilot lost his night vision, the whole crew got split up and posted to different crews. It turns out by wars end that my grandad was the only survivor of this original crew, all others becoming KIA (this upsets him deeply).


With his second crew, at skellingthorpe he completed an entire tour over enemy territory seeing, before getting posted to another squadron as a gunnery instructor, he did this for a while before asking to go back on active duty, thus joining another squadron as a rear gunner this time on halifax bombers, his second tour with an australian squadron, flying as rear gunner to the "boss" as it were.

in all he did two tours,


on with 50 squadron flying lancs, and another with a diff squadron (australian) flying halifax bombers. Though to this day he protests his love for the lanc calling her the most graceful, dependable, joyeful and gorgeous aircraft he'd ever seen.

He recalls his most terryfying experience of the whole war while flying with bomber command.....

he was flying a misson from skellingthorpe to a target over italy, en route he encountered little resistance, and they bombed the target with ease. On the way back they also had little resistance...

but halfway home they ran into an eletrical storm..... he said this was the most scared he'd ever been on any mission. He could see the storm all around and felt in no way able to defend himself from the elements, he felt that if getting attacked from a 109 he could at least shoot back and try his best, but this eletrical storm scared the hell out of him. Unable to defend himself while watching it all around him from gis rear turret scared the life out of him, like god himself was toying with them all up their.

Its amazing when you think about it how different things must affect different men.


In between squadrons, while an air gunnery instructor he was unfortunate to be ina crash twice!! both times flying wellington bombers.


As it is today, of his second crew with 50 squadron only my grandad (rear gunner) and the mid upper gunner (a man named "tom! who lives in canada) are the only two survivors of that crew. stil lin regular contact with each other.


He may be old myt grandad, but my god he has more guts and more nerves than i will ever have!! a legend if ever their was one!!!

Interesting stories!...it's always awesome to talk to a vet. I have so much respect for anyone who risks their life for their country. I had a new respect for my father when we sat down and he told me some of his Vietnam stories...anyway those really wouldn't apply here but some of my favorites I've found online about WW2 airmen are the ones below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRWrAP_b3vY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKBNw4kfwNM

I remember seeing those on the History Channel. Very interesting stories and experiences.

I also have a Vietnam vet in my family as well and I'm apperently the only person who my uncle shared his experience with after 30 years.

Although the wrong era, I'd certainly still be interested in the Vietnam stories. I don't think anyone's going to complain - we're all here because we love planes! :)

EDIT: Forgot to thank the other posters too. Great stories. I never get bored of hearing personal accounts. Extraordinary experiences.

I remembered another, this was when my Italian Grandfather got shot down for the first time.

He told me that it was North Africa, and he was just starting out. It was only his fifth or so sortie on the continent, and he hadn't got any kills yet, so he was always talking to those who had, getting ideas. Well I guess on this sortie, he and six others including his flight leader took off and were going just for a little training/hunting sortie. Well as they flew over the desert, they kept their canopies open since it gave them better visibility and kept them cooler.

Suddenly he said that as he scanned the skies above, he spotted a flight of Hurricanes, and they seemed to be heading back to their base. Well he called the flight leader, and they waited to see what the Hurricanes were all about. But I guess one of the green horns got a bit jumpy, and started towards the Hurricanes, not wanting to avoid them. Well I guess what my Grandfather didn't see, or anyone else, was that above the Hurricanes, was another smaller flight of Hurricanes. And as the green horned pilot went in to attack, the Hurricanes above swooped down and they shot him down. Luckily the guy bailed out, but was captured by British troops, and I guess became a POW. Well as the already attacking Hurricanes came down, the flight leader told my Grandfather to stick with him, and make sure everything stayed o.k. And so my Grandfather, not having that much experience did so, but quickly saw another one of his friends who died in the crash, get shot down and just plummet to the ground in a smoking wrecked plane.

Then he usually went on about how he missed his friend, and was glad that when he was shot down, his plane didn't completely lock up on him, allowing him some ability to keep the plane going. Anyway, I guess as my Grandfather followed the flight leader, a Hurricane got on his tail, and hit him with some .303 rounds. I guess he broke off, and tried to evade the Hurricane, that as he used to say, "KEPT PUMPING HOLES INTO MY GODDAMNED GOOD PLANE!" I guess as the chase continued, my Grandfather looked back and saw that a huge hole had been torn in to his fuselage, and that there were hundreds it seemed of little holes from the Hurricanes machine-guns. But since he wasn't fully taught in how to evade or something, he made the wrong move of trying to climb, giving the Hurricane a perfect shot at him. Lucky for him, the bullets landed around him, and not in him like he thought would surely happen since the Hurricane had peppered his fuselage. I guess the Hurricane pilot was really trying to kill my Grandfather, but his guns jammed or something and he had to break off, leaving the fight. And as my Grandfather looked around, seeing his peppered plane full of holes and tears, he started for home. He never said he was afraid that he would be killed, but that he never had time to be frightened, but I think he really was, and that was just his Italian macho getting in the way. But anyway, as he flew away, he got out of the combat zone fairly quickly, but it seemed that the Hurricane had damaged his control panel and none of the numbers seemed right etc. and once again as my Grandfather used to say. "I must have looked like I was flying some swiss cheese, but I in reality I was flying a brick." And while he flew back towards base, he started getting the idea to bail out as the engine started to make a terrible noise, and he knew he was loosing oil pressure. But when he looked down towards the ground, he realized that it was to close, so he decided that it was best to lower the landing gear, and just try to get back with what he had. Unlucky for him, his gear wasn't working, and only one wheel came down. So he was forced to bring it back up, and belly land.

He used to always tell me that when he belly landed, it was like driving down a seriously bumpy road, with no ability to stop with the breaks or steer in any direction. Well after he belly landed, he hurried from his plane, realizing that he was leaking oil, and that the plane could explode at any minute. 24hrs later or so, he was back at his airfield, sun burned like nothing before, and with him nothing but his torn aviator hat that he wore just around all the time. He was told that he couldn't fly for a few days, that his sunburn was fairly bad, but back then Italian guys didn't care. So my Grandfather wrote a letter to his future wife/my Grandmother, asking for a light thin shirt. I guess it helped, because his sunburn was still bad, but it wasn't irritated by his other shirt.

Love hearing stories involving the hurricane!!


always over looked and not respected as much as it should be. It was much much better than people think ;)

I guess it wouldn't hurt. Like I said, I was the only one he had ever shared his experience with. I even had to tell my dad(his own brother) about it.

Forgive me for I do not have any aviators in my family. I am the first and currently only one.

He was a sniper back in Vietnam. I do not know what platoon or group he was in.

He told me how him and other group of snipers where counter sniping over a villiage one time. He saw a Vietnamese sniper light a ciggarette and took him out very quickly. Then a few seconds later, a sniper got him in the hand. He said he didn't flinch and used the angle of the bullet wound to locate the other sniper and got a head shot before the other sniper could fire a second time.

Another story he told me was when he and his platoon across were returning to camp and had to cross a creek on the way there and were quickly being surrounded by enemy troops. He had to stay behind for the night and quickly dug a hole in the mud with his helmet and covered it with bamboo and leaves. He told me about how he could hear troops walking over his hole and their shadows dragging across the moonlight shining over him. He could hear them talking and laughing to each other and that at one point, the troops stopped and rested over him. One of the troops walked directly over him and stopped and it seemed to my uncle that the soldier looked down directly into his eyes. He waited all night and they eventually left and he returned to his base unharmmed.

Another thing I need to mention is that on his mission that got him a ticket home, he and his whole platoon were ambushed and were all lined up and shot and he and another soldier barely survived. He was shot in the hand(again), one in the chest, one in the leg, and another scraped his head.

These are the only stories I can recall right now.

Interesting stuff Nike! It's a real trip talking to someone who has fought and killed in times of war. To me it's unimaginable to take a life...I would only hope I had the courage to make such a tough decision. I find it mesmerizing hearing from others that have experienced war though. It's hard to imagine that anyone from the homeless guy you pass on the street corner everyday to the closest family member may have literally gone through living hell for their country. You just never know. I know yours was a vietnam story and another poster asked for a vietnam story.

I don't have anything really good so ... the videos below are the most interesting I could remember watching on Vietnam vets . It's from a documentary called "first kill"....the section I've posted is pretty disturbing. I'd recommend watching the FULL video on youtube parts 1-8 to anyone interested in the psychology of war...kinda gives you a different perspective on things.

Anyway, watch from about (3:12 - end) of the first posted video. and then from (beginning - to around 4:55) of the second video. Then imagine having this vet for an uncle!!!!

(you have to turn the volume way up the audio levels are low)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5wG7...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_HX-...eature=related

awsome stories!! keep em coming and i dont care what war or what kind of fighting, hell my uncle ( diff side of the family than my gramps) was a cobra helicopter pilot in veitnam, he also was shot down 2 or 3 times and survived.

one of the few stories i can remember from him was when he and his flight were on a search and destroy mission following the trails through the rivers and rice fields ( he said becase of all the rice fields after the VC would move a supply line of boats through you could litterally follow their trail to them in the water the wider the trail the fresher) when they came upon a little manhole sized concrete bunker as he called it, and right as they got up to it a Vietcong popped out with an AK and shot up his heli enough that he was forced to crash land i think it was about 500 yards from the little bunker. he said he imediately pulled out his fire arm ( which was a thompson that he carried in the cockpit) to try to fight them off till he and his gunner/co-pilot could get picked up as he could already see more VC climbing out of the small bunker and coming towards them, but his wingman was able to hold them off long enough for another flight of cobras and hueys to neutralize the bunker and the VC before my uncle was in serious rick from them that day, and rescue the downed pilots

ill post more of my grampa and my uncle as i recall them correctly

and thanks for all the replys guys, keep em coming

My Grandfather and his twin brother both fought in WWII. He was already in the TA when war broke out, so was sent to France as part of the BEF. He was still in France when the Germans took Dunkirk, and was chased all the way to the port of Brest, where he was evacuated.

Being a Royal Engineer, he never saw any frontline action, and his scariest moment came in North Africa where he was mobbed by the locals in a town who prefered the Germans. Luckily an American general was passing through the town in his Jeep and got him out of there.

Next he was in Italy, where he remained until the last few days of the war. His brother spent all his war on the frontline, though I don`t know with which company. I do know that they were both re-united on an airfield in Greece right at the very end of the war and having spent a good few years apart.

Hi,

its always nice to read stories like this, but we should not forget that WW2 was not all funny and exciting stories.

My grandfather fought on the Russian front for 4 years, ending the war as a member of Sturm-Batallion AOK 11 (Assault Battalion), 11th Army (Steiner) in the defence of Pommerania and later in the West in the Harz mountains in Germany.

He was wounded 3 times, buried in a dug-out which collapsed after russian shell-fire for nearly 2 days (resulted in a bad case of claustrophobia). He never, only in a very few instances, talked about the war. And if he did it was never those funny "gramps war" stories. "War is hell", is what he told me, he did not even want me to play with tanks and toy soldiers.

When he returned from the war he became an alcoholic. He managed to get rid of his alcohol problem in the 1960s but he still woke in the nights screaming and covered in sweat up until his death in the late 80s.

I guess most german infantrymen who fought as frontline soldiers had the same experiences. At least many of the ones I know and talked to.

We should never forget what war is, and what killing and fighting does to a human being. War is hell. Never forget.

Cheers Rob

Hi guys,

as I am very interested in military history since I was a young, I research the military career of my grandfather from the mothers side.
My other grandfather was in the Wehrmacht, too. But I don´t know anything from him!
The other one took part in the whole Blitzkrieg, Poland, Netherlands, France and Russia until the battle at the Ladoga Lake (Leningrad), there
he was seriously wounded and removed from service. In Aug 44 he was back in charge in a replacement company of the famous
Windhunde "116 Panzerdivision" and was proably at Arnhem, in the Reichswaldbattle and the Ruhrkessel and finally get in soviet captivity in the Harz area.

He never talks of the war, nobody in the family know anything, the only person he talked to about it was his little grandson (me). That is my obligation to clear
his military records, I spent a lot of time with research, talking to veterans and communicating with international researches like my mate Scott from australia.
(www.defendingarnhem.com)

I don´t think that any german soldier enjoyed the war and if there are "funny stories" there is although the horror of war in the next sentence. Remembering a
former colleague of mine, who was since 43 at the Heeresflak and talked about the shooting down of a Tempest over France, the Pilot bailed out on tree level
and got impaled by a fence. No fun at all... he show me a piece of the bloodstained cord of the parachute from this sad guy.

Even if we enjoy this game a lot, we should not forget that the truth was no fun at all and there was nothing else than terror and dead.

In the last autumn I spent some time on the Rheinberg war cemetery, where most of the killed air crews over europe are buried (except US).
Read the tombstones, think of the guys and there cruel dead, feel a piece of guilt as german, the urge to apologize to each of them and to thank them for there
sacrifice.

Cheers
Stefan

Another Conflict
 

Since we are sharing our grandfather's stories and they don't need necessarily to be from WWII here's one from my grandfather who was a medic in the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974) wich is quite an unknow conflict but at the same time very brutal, it was a sort of portuguese stile Vietnam with three major fronts, Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau.
My grandfather told me that portuguese fighter pilots flew hundreds of ground attack sorties during the war.

One of the stories he tells me is when his company was pinned down by a group of rebels,armed with mortars,who were entrenched in a cave on a mountain and so they called for an airstrike and the the pilot managed to place a rocket inside the cave thus wiping out all resistance in one shot.

If you want to know more about the portuguese colonial go to wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_colonial_war

my apologies if the topic came off as "fun" war stories. by no means did i mean to imply that these are fun stories, mostly my gramps and my uncle never talk about them unless they get around other veterans, which was the case with my gramps, got to spend some time luckily with him at his local vfw (veterans of forein wars) and got to hear all types of interresting stories. i only wish i had a tape recorder as i was too young and dont remember most of them, i just remember at being in awe of the horrors endured by these ordinary men that were put into extrordinary curcumstances. every one of them will tell you that they are not a hero, the only heros of war are the ones that didnt make it through alive.

i like to hear and share stories of these brave men who died and made it through these horrible wars so there sacrafice is not forgotten.

I remember researching that war, while in High School. It only ended 4 years before I was born. And it was a pretty bad war from what I know.

Kind of like the P-40!

No problem, I think in the most cases it's the same on both sides. Ahh, I think they would have preferred to drink a beer together, than to shoot on the each other...;)

Cheers
Stefan

agreed, my gramps told me when they saw a plane going down they always hoped to see a parachute meaning the pilot was able to get out safely, no matter what side he was on,

when he got his first kill in a fighter, i beleve it was in a p-51, i remember he said how disapointed he was that the pilot never was able to bail out. he said it suprised him how much it affected him. said he had dreams about watching the smoking one winged plane plumeting all the was down to earth ending in a fireball. not only did these brave men risk their lives in combat but were plagued the rest of their lives by the memories of the horrors they had committed and witnessed.

Yeah, I think the sensation of a dogfight is birds vs. bird; not human vs. human. That may be what they felt.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6af_1251582089

kool gun cam shootings of migs, i know it not ww2 but still kool

I don't think either of my grandfathers felt much when they were dogfighting, only probably the fact that they wanted to get home again?? I know for sure that my grandfather who flew against the Japanese, seemed to have no remorse for those he shot down. (His brother was killed when the Japanese attacked the Philippine Islands.) I think my grandfather who flew for Mussolini felt sadness, but he never really mentioned it or said anything in his stories about feeling bad, he just felt the need to get back alive like any other pilot I guess?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=873_1251325369

ww2

It saddens me deeply to see gun cam footage of the hurricane getting shot down!! im sure im on a site where everyone is anti hurricane!! are you all sh!tfire fan boys?? lol.

The hurricane (in my eyes) is and always will be the most amazing aircraft ever designded and built. She's a beauty.

i dont like the spitfire too but the p-51 and p-47 are in my opinion the most beautifull planes ever made

Its not that i hate the spitfire, its an iconic aircraft, flies well and look right!! but its just not the hurricane!! the hurricane is a work horse, she will look after you and do the job thats needed. It just annoys me when -

a) its always over looked in favour of the spitfire "which saved us in 1940" which is rubbish, it was a team effort, but if you want stats then the hurricane got more kills than all other land/air combined (granted the hurri was in greater numbers)

b) someone says the spitfire is better than the hurricane, the huricane is rubbish...then have no arguement to back it up! they just go on what the read/see/hear etc.


lol i guess im a hurri fan boy.


I agree with the P51 looking good, its a nice bird, with a mighty fine engine i might add ;) just something about a P51 with D-DAY stripes that looks superb. The P-47 though.... not feling that one. The "jug" just doesnt do it for me. Nice beefy engine though. Nothing personal, its a great plane!! it just doesnt appeal to me.

I think the Hurricane is a great plane! I mean I like it just as much as the Spitfire, and at times am interested in knowing more about one over the other, but (in my eyes) nothing is more sleek and beautiful than a Yak-3 :cool:

But I do like the Hurricane, and what it did. But over the years, it just got over lapped by newer better performing Hawker fighter/bombers.

Interesting story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090904/...s_buried_wings