re: Do any of you have war stories shared by your parents or grandparents?

Tons of stories. A lot of them were funny. Guys who faced death everyday did some goofy shite for a laugh. Not all of course were funny. Two that stood out:

My great uncle was a B-17 pilot. He was in the flight line, waiting for his turn to taxi out. Then he saw a guy walk out onto the flight line, just walking aimlessly. Walked right into a prop on a B-17 across the flight line. Guy just snapped and couldn’t take another mission and just killed himself.

Neighbor served on a battleship. A kamakazie came in and slammed into the ship. He was manning a 20mm antiaircraft gun. He said when the plane hit, to him it was like time slowed down. He was able to focus in onto a piece of shrapnel coming right at him. He was strapped into the gun, and leaned back as far as he could. The shrapnel passed right in front of him, giving him a deep cut across his chest. He said as soon as it passed, he snapped out of whatever kind of trance he was in and was back in “real time.” Said it was the weirdest damn thing how his brain was able to zero in on that one piece of shrapnel in all the chaos of fire and smoke.

My dad passed last year. He never really talked about the bad things too much, just that it was tough. One thing he told me was that the Turks were toughest men alive. He said they were all huge men( my dad was 6’3” himself )anyway dad and his buddy was at a bar ,the Turks were there. The Turks all carried these huge bayonets. My dads buddy ask him could he look at it, the Turk pulls it out and let’s him look at it. When dads friend hands it back the Turk cuts his own hand on purpose. My dad ask him “ what are you doing ?” He tells them it’s a Turkish rule.... If they pull it out before it goes back in there must be blood on it

My grandpa helped make the engines for the Doolittle raid.

I wish I would have asked more questions.

FIL, WW II, said precious little

Our son, 2 tours, must ask and he'll talk

Returned to the Middle East this weekend

I would say. Google Korean War records and in some military or national archives an get you started.

My great uncle was on the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor. He was one of the ones below deck when it rolled, he spent hours in pitch black waist deep water and everything was upside down. He was one of the lucky 32 men that they cut out and rescued. Cant even imagine what that was like

Yep, gramps was with 5th air force in the pacific. Bad duty, shot at on an almost daily basis.

quote:

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“war is hell son, hope you never have to go through it”.

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This. My Dad told a lot stories about funny things that happened, but none of the dirty details. About the only story I heard from about actual combat was that they policed up about 250 dead Chinese after having fired all night. (He was a mortar gunner).