war storys from gramps

[butterfield]

Originally Posted by xNikex

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

[JWkegger]

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

[IIJ0SePhXII]

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.

[Gilgenbach]

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

[shackenb]

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

[He-111]

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

[JWkegger]

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.

[Soviet Ace]

Originally Posted by He-111

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

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.

[Swagger7]

Originally Posted by FOZ_1983

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

Kind of like the P-40!

[shackenb]

Originally Posted by JWkegger

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.

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