What a great man - that entire generation deserves our utmost respect. I envy your experience of hearing his stories. I sure wish I hd asked more questions. My dad never made it into combat in WWI but my FIL was wounded twice - but he never talked about it - found out about it after he died when we found his Purple Hearts. So sad that I don't have any tales from him.

Treasure those memories.

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Posted by Redbone

my castle

Member since Sep 2012

19124 posts

Posted on 12/7/16 at 11:09 am to ChineseBandit58

Dad never wanted to talk about it other than to make a joke once in a while about none combat activities. His first action was in north Africa. He made it all the way into Germany but was severely injured in Germany 4 months before they surrendered.

That ended his war and ended a promising sports career.

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Posted by bhtigerfan

Baton Rouge

Member since Sep 2008

30959 posts

Posted on 12/7/16 at 12:06 pm to ChineseBandit58

quote:
I envy your experience of hearing his stories. I sure wish I hd asked more questions.

Yeah, we were sippin' on some bourbon outside our house during the Christmas holidays and I asked him about the war. He spoke pretty "matter-of-factly" about it. He was neither bragging or emotional about it. Guess so many years had passed that it didn't bother him.

I was a teenager and was a big WWII buff, so I wanted to know about his experiences.

He told me about the first time he killed an enemy soldier. Said they were trying to take a hill, and he was crawling up the hill on his belly hiding behind boulders and rocks. There were 8 German soldiers in a trench above them firing at them. Apparently they weren't trained to not keep coming up to fire in the same spot repeatedly, or didn't have enough space. He said during a lull in the shooting, he aimed his rifle where one guy kept coming up and shooting, and when the soldier came up again to fire, he shot him in the face. About 30 seconds later, one of them started waiving a white rag on a stick, and they all threw their rifles out of the trench and came out with their hands in the air. 7 prisoners. They were actually Italians in German uniforms who were forced to fight. Hence the lack of training and will to fight.

They did come into combat with Germans solders also, and every time he mentioned them it was "Those German sons-of-bitches".