BEFORE AND AFTER D-DAY: RARE COLOR PHOTOS

[PunkKitty]

In Germany towards the end I've read that they were throwing young children and the oldest of old men and women into uniform as they ran out of recruits of the standard ages.

My mother was drafted. She couldn't have been older than 16 at the time. When she reported to the recruiting office she found that it had been blown up. So she went home to the German countryside and waited out the war with her family. I'm proud to say that my mother was a draft dodger.

My parents rarely spoke of their experiences during the war. It's too painful for them to recount. About a month before he died, my father told the story of how he was captured in France. He was the only one from his high school graduating class that came home alive. I lost 2 uncles in the war. And several members of my extended family were killed.

 

[BB123]

Cool stuff. Both my grandfathers were in WWII. I believe one in Europe and the other one signed up to be in artillery...and they made him a cook.

 

[Mark Wein]

My mother was drafted. She couldn't have been older than 16 at the time. When she reported to the recruiting office she found that it had been blown up. So she went home to the German countryside and waited out the war with her family. I'm proud to say that my mother was a draft dodger.

My parents rarely spoke of their experiences during the war. It's too painful for them to recount. About a month before he died, my father told the story of how he was captured in France. He was the only one from his high school graduating class that came home alive. I lost 2 uncles in the war. And several members of my extended family were killed.

Most folks who were "in" the war for real that I've met generally don't like to discuss it. Like I mentioned above my father rarely spoke of it until towards the end of his life. It was a matter of pride but not something to be discussed lightly even with his non-combat experience.

 

[Tig]

My mother was drafted. She couldn't have been older than 16 at the time. When she reported to the recruiting office she found that it had been blown up. So she went home to the German countryside and waited out the war with her family. I'm proud to say that my mother was a draft dodger.

My parents rarely spoke of their experiences during the war. It's too painful for them to recount. About a month before he died, my father told the story of how he was captured in France. He was the only one from his high school graduating class that came home alive. I lost 2 uncles in the war. And several members of my extended family were killed.

Wow, that's really haunting. Growing up in the US, we see only one side of the story. We only lost people who were sent to over to war, not the relatives that were simply living and working every day. The soldiers and civilians lost by Germany and Russia were astronomical.

 

[BoomBoomBigelow]

My grandfather and my uncle served in that war. My grandparents had a Gazetteer of WWII at their house. Whatever that was. It was, more or less, like a Time-Life Books pictorial account, with photos and maps and accounts, from the battlefields, both Europe and the Pacific. Pretty horrifying, with dead soldier filled trenches, aerial shots of hundreds of bombs dropping, tanks rolling, Howitzers firing, flamethrowers in action, bombed out cities, prisoners, deathcamps and at the end were the color photos. I spent hours looking at it, many many times as a boy. They neither objected nor encouraged me. No comment, basically. Spoke for itself.

 

[Elias Graves]

From our memorial day trip today. RIP Loyd.

 

[Tiltsta]

I've posted here about my great uncle, Oscar, who flew his 25 B17 missions, then re-upped for more. He even landed one in the English channel after sustaining severe battle damage. Oscar survived the war, and I remember him from when I was a young kid. My grandfather (Oscar's older brother) was declared 'unfit' for service due to his strong German accent and being a naturalized citizen. You hear a lot about the horrors of Japanese interment camps, but you rarely hear about the discrimination against German Americans during the war. I guess it has a lot to do with race and all that, but my grandfather was Frisian, not German, but his country of origin was Germany on his documents, and his accent would be called German by most, so he couldn't volunteer for service. His brother, Oscar, with the same immigration docs, but no accent served his adopted country.

Oscar served in the 303rd bomb group, 360th bomber squadron. He flew 16 missions as a pilot, and 25 as a co-pilot. He was promoted to pilot after the pilot of his plane was KIA. He had 7 co-pilots and 8 bombadiers during his 16 mission, all casualties. He was a 'fill in' pilot, and flew most of his missions in B17's named "Mary Cary" and "Miss Liberty".

Wife's grandfather was a marine in the pacific. He still has a pathological fear/hatred of asian people from his time in the war. Maybe racist, but more likely deep war wounds, or more likely, a bit of both. He rarely talks about the war, just dismissing it saying that 'it was so long ago', but every once and a while he will go on about the details, and I get a glimpse of why he holds on to all that anger.

Here is a pic of Oscar from way back.

Here is his first B17, Miss Liberty...and a shot of it crashed in Allied France from battle damage. It was the planes 93rd mission. His second plane went into the English Channel from battle damage, and he was assigned to several different planes after that, mostly 'bad penny' and 'old bison'.

 

[jelloman]

My grandfather's brother was a member of the Dutch resistance...he took a huge risk one night by calling on his fiace at her home...the Germans found out somehow that he was there and raided the house...he managed to evade them and spent 2 long cold days hiding in a drainage ditch with his legs in ice cold water...he lost toes on one foot and more than that off the other...watching him walk LOOKED painful...he had to have wooden shoes made special and shipped here because they were the only thing he could stand up in...ballsy phucker was a dairy farmer for forty years here...

 

[Phil513]

My Father flew 55 missions during WW2 as a tailgunner in a B24.

I'll try putting up his memoirs in a blog here sometime this weekend, if i can find them in the box i moved them in.

 

[Foo]

My uncle was also lost at St Lo in Sept 44.

Our mom talks about him all the time.

 

[Foo]

Thanks for sharing these, Mark.

One of the photos is of a group of Germans captured by the Allied troops. That photo really struck me. My father was about that age during the war. He served in the German army and was captured by the British. Getting captured saved his life.

One of those guys looked like he was smiling.

 

[Foo]

My dad fought at Hollandia in '44 and the Philippines at Lingayen Gulf in '45. He was an anti-aircraft/artillery gun crewchief (corporal) on a 90mm gun.

He was there when General Yamashita surrendered to some U.S. troops, his gun actually fired on the generals small group several times before they surrendered. His gun was just doing fire by map coordinates and they had no idea they kept targeting, purely by accident, General Yamashita and his staff

My dad was in an AA battalion and was a radio operator. He was a T-5 at the end of the war. If he had stayed during the occupation after the war he would have been a sergeant.

 

[Foo]

Grandfather on my dad's side was in the Phillipines. He survived the Bataan Death March. He would never speak of the war, unless he had a lot of booze in him. Then it was lookout cuz grampa is drunk and angry.

I've always been fascinated with WWII. Partly because of my grandfather, partly becausse it created so many other things. Nuclear weapons, the Cold War, Rockets, Jets...

Thanks for sharing the pictures

....and a whole lot more. I wrote a history paper on the new technologies of wwII and there was a bunch of stuff.

 

[Foo]

I'm always amazed by stuff like this. My dad forged my grandfathers signature to join the navy while he was still underage and ended up in the Sea Bees in the Pacific theater. Even though he wasn't a combat troop apparently he was in enough combat zones that he had extra points at the end of the war and was able to go home after only 14 months. He told me the only time he was ever really shot at though was by MP's in the Phillipines for being out after curfew.

He was incredibly proud of his service though and while he didn't talk about it too much until the end of his life he had a ton of papers and other items in his belongings that we found after he passed. It's amazing how young so many of the troops were in that war. My dad was 16 when he entered boot camp and not even 19 when he left the Navy. In Germany towards the end I've read that they were throwing young children and the oldest of old men and women into uniform as they ran out of recruits of the standard ages.

I seem to remember dad telling me how hard it was to have to shoot at Hitler youth or having some little kid (12-14 yrs old or something, it's been a long time)coming at him with a gun that was bigger than he was.

 

[Foo]

My American Hero--My dad--Jerald Mack Holt

Taken in Texas before deployment to Europe.