NUTS
80 years ago it started
- Thread starter RC44Mag
- Start date
NUTS
My friend Sgt Chuck Hensel was in the 291st Engineer Batallion during the Battle of the Bulge. He and 12 other men blew the bridges at several locations in the area to trap the German Panzers on the roads. He was also involved in cleaning up the Malmedy Massacre and was featured in the show "Against the Odds" on American Heroes Channel in the episode "Those Damned Engineers"
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Cofaler
Blackhawk
I spent some time in and around Bastogne and Malmedy while I was stationed near Kaiserslautern in the mid 90s. Veyr humbling experience.
OP
Saw the show several times. Great show. Horrible about all the men butchered at Malmedey. Many don't know the German commander Peiper was captured then on trial at Nuremberg he was sentenced to death but it was commuted and he did about 7 years ? And released and went back to the Fatherland and he was hired at Porsche. He was killed at his home and house burned. Don't think they know for sure but Mossad are the ones who are said to have eliminated him but I like to think it was our guys that got the payback for what he ordered that day in Malmedey
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While Bastogne gets a lot of 'press' the entire front was quite large. The initial German artillery offensive was across an 80 mile front.
contender
Ruger Guru
I once heard it described as "Hell on Earth" by a WWII vet.
Bastogne is on my bucket list.
Dad was Third Armored Division. Part of Patton's Third Army. After the word of Malmady spread they quit taking SS prisoners
After Buchenwald some quit taking any prisoners.
After Buchenwald some quit taking any prisoners.
OP
We were at Normandy this past June for the 80th. The friends and family who we were with this year are planning for the 85th with stops in Belgium, Hurtgen and Ardennes and of course Bastogne.
Anything related to this battle always resonates with me.
The following is something I posted on a different gun forum back in February 2023.
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Many here have family that answered the call in World War II.
In my case my Uncle Bill is much in my memory today.
Bill dealt with a lot in his service, and like most spoke of it but little. I had tracked down various pieces of information such as unit, timelines, camps, etc. Then for years I lost all my handwritten notes before I had saved digital versions.
My wife found them a few hours ago.
William Jacob Welle
106th Infantry Division
423rd Infantry Regiment
2nd Battalion
Company G
MP Battalion at Fort Lewis WA
also, Camp Chaffee AR
Went overseas October 1944.
Billeted in the Cotswolds area, about 75 miles west of London, England.
Boarded ship and crossed the channel to land at Le Havre, France December 1st, 1944.
December 8th boarded unheated trucks and covered 270 miles in two days to arrive at St. Vith, Belgium.
December 11th they left St. Vith in trucks to take position on the line.
December 14th & 15th the troops settled into their positions.
December 16th the Germans attack, kicking off the Battle of the Bulge.
On or about December 23rd the 106th division surrendered.
The division had fought under extraordinary hardship and disadvantage for an entire week with only the food and ammunition they carried into the line. Relief counterattacks and efforts to resupply by air were all called off or simply bungled beyond comprehension.
The winter of 1944-1945 was one of the coldest European winters, with temps regularly below zero fahrenheit. In order to dig in, some troops used grenades to loosen the frozen topsoil. When marched away as POW's many American troops had some of their clothing and in some cases even their shoes stolen by German troops.
Bill was listed as MIA in Belgium on December 24th, 1944.
Captured the day before Christmas he was in and out of four different camps before being freed sometime in April 1944.
My mother said the German language was used regularly in the household all the way through high school. Bill was able to converse to an extent with the guards. That meant the frozen turnips that their prison camp hut received were not quite as rotten.
Once returned home my mother was struck by how gaunt he was and the haunted look in his thinned face. Bill married his sweetheart and they had a bunch of kids for whom he was more than happy to work two and sometimes three jobs so they'd have it better than he did.
His POW time was hard on his body, especially his heart. I was pallbearer at his funeral in the early 1980's.
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Thanks for your patience, just felt like sharing this.
The following is something I posted on a different gun forum back in February 2023.
*******************************************
*******************************************
Many here have family that answered the call in World War II.
In my case my Uncle Bill is much in my memory today.
Bill dealt with a lot in his service, and like most spoke of it but little. I had tracked down various pieces of information such as unit, timelines, camps, etc. Then for years I lost all my handwritten notes before I had saved digital versions.
My wife found them a few hours ago.
William Jacob Welle
106th Infantry Division
423rd Infantry Regiment
2nd Battalion
Company G
MP Battalion at Fort Lewis WA
also, Camp Chaffee AR
Went overseas October 1944.
Billeted in the Cotswolds area, about 75 miles west of London, England.
Boarded ship and crossed the channel to land at Le Havre, France December 1st, 1944.
December 8th boarded unheated trucks and covered 270 miles in two days to arrive at St. Vith, Belgium.
December 11th they left St. Vith in trucks to take position on the line.
December 14th & 15th the troops settled into their positions.
December 16th the Germans attack, kicking off the Battle of the Bulge.
On or about December 23rd the 106th division surrendered.
The division had fought under extraordinary hardship and disadvantage for an entire week with only the food and ammunition they carried into the line. Relief counterattacks and efforts to resupply by air were all called off or simply bungled beyond comprehension.
The winter of 1944-1945 was one of the coldest European winters, with temps regularly below zero fahrenheit. In order to dig in, some troops used grenades to loosen the frozen topsoil. When marched away as POW's many American troops had some of their clothing and in some cases even their shoes stolen by German troops.
Bill was listed as MIA in Belgium on December 24th, 1944.
Captured the day before Christmas he was in and out of four different camps before being freed sometime in April 1944.
My mother said the German language was used regularly in the household all the way through high school. Bill was able to converse to an extent with the guards. That meant the frozen turnips that their prison camp hut received were not quite as rotten.
Once returned home my mother was struck by how gaunt he was and the haunted look in his thinned face. Bill married his sweetheart and they had a bunch of kids for whom he was more than happy to work two and sometimes three jobs so they'd have it better than he did.
His POW time was hard on his body, especially his heart. I was pallbearer at his funeral in the early 1980's.
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Thanks for your patience, just felt like sharing this.
BIgMuddy
Blackhawk
Thank you Rum River. We’ve all probably heard the history of “The Bulge” but stories of an individual’s experience make it much more real for me.
Dan
Dan
My Dad may have served with your Dad, My Dad was with Patton's 3rd Army, 7th Armored Division. My Uncle was also there but he was one of the guys trapped and surrounded at Bastone. Both made it out alive and not even wounded, just frozen up a bit.
A lot of people today do not know that about everything in the U.S. was rationed during WWII, including tires for your car. You could not buy a new car during the war as the auto companies were all making military vehicles.
My Father told the Oldsmobile dealer that when he got back from the war that he wanted the 1st new Oldsmobile that the dealer got in. The dealer remembered and called him up when he got back. My Dad then proudly took his new car to a dance in Alliance, Ohio. When he came out of the dance he saw a big crowd of people standing all around his new car and he panicked and thought some drunk must have crashed into it. In reality the people were all just gawking at the 1st New Car they saw since the war had begun.
In the war my Dad's armored car broke down so he hitched a ride on a Sherman Tank. The Tank Commander got so tired from lack of sleep he asked my Dad to take over and drive it. My Dad said," I do not know how to drive a tank". The Tank Commander said "Do not worry its easy and he briefly showed him how to turn right or left and then the Tank Commander collapsed and passed out.
My Dad now driving the tank then had to make a sharp turn on a narrow street with the tank but he cut it too sharp and knocked out a corner of a house. In a panic he shook the Tank Commander awake and screamed , "I screwed up I just knocked down some guys house". The Tank Commander opened one eye and said "You are doing just fine, just keep on driving".
My Dad refused to speak much about liberating the Concentration Camps except to say the bodies were stacked chest high and the smell was so bad you would pass out if you breathed through your nose. He did say he walked into a barn and saw a bunch of children machine gunned to death by the Germans. He only told me this on Christmas when he was very drunk otherwise I do not think he ever would have told me about this.
Once my Dad was clearing out a house and his buddy had to use the toilet. When his buddy sat on the toilet it had a grenade wired to it and blew up and killed him.
My Dad drank a lot and never gave a crap so he was always asked to drive the Officers. One time an 88 artillery shell blew up against the side of a building and as bad luck would have it my Dad was parked alongside the building. The shrapnel bounced off the side of the building and killed the officer sitting next to him. My Dad did not get a scratch by some miracle.
Another time my Dad was driving an armored vehicle and pulled up across the street from a Post Office and a bunch of German Cars and officers were just getting out of their cars. The U.S. Officer on by dads armored vehicle panicked and grabbed his Thompson and was in the act of jumping out of the vehicle to run for cover but that would have left my Dad helpless sitting in the driver's seat so my Dad reached up and grabbed the barrel of a Browning 50 cal. machine gun and swung the gun around hitting the Officer in the chest and bouncing him back down into the vehicle. The Officer then grabbed the Browning and shot up all the Germans and their Cars across the street and he then became a big hero to all the other Officers.
My Neighbor who was also in Europe was walking across the camp when a couple of German Messerschmitts started strafing the camp. My Neighbor then ran like hell while my Dad who was on guard duty started shooting at the Messerschmitts with his Thompson. The Neighbor then dove head first into the nearest ditch not realizing he had just dove head first into the latrine trench. He then later crawled out and asked my Dad "Did you get those planes John"? My Dad was laughing so hard he could hardly say "No they got away".
Once my Dad came into contact with some Russian Soldiers. They had not eaten in days. The Russian pointed at a bar of soap my Dad had so he gave it to him thinking he wanted to take a bath. Not so, the Russian ate the bar of soap. Later that night the same genius Russian was working on his vehicle and when it got dark he lit a barn on fire for some light to work by. My Dad decked him helped put the fire out as it would have drawn German Artillery fire down on everyone.
Once my Dad wanted eggs for breakfast. The only problem was that the eggs were in a barn next to a farm house that they had seen two German Soldiers take cover in. By that time hundreds of U.S. troops were streaming down the road and the Germans playing it cool and safe did nothing but keep hiding. My Dad then calmly and quite drunk strode across the yard to the Barn to get his eggs while his buddies had thought he lost his mind but my Dad said "If those Kraughts had not opened up by now they were not going to commit suicide and open up with all those troops coming down the road.
When coming home aboard ship you were only allowed 2 souvenirs with your paperwork. My dad had 6 pistols, one of which was a 1911 which was forbidden to take home. My Dad's buddies also had forbidden 1911 souvenirs so they then panicked and threw all the 1911 pistols overboard before the ship docked. And my Dad, now worried about the other 5 pistols, none of which had capture papers got off the ship the MP's never searched anyone, they just screamed "get off the ship quick". go, go, go. So my Dad threw away his 1911 for nothing.
Once my Dad saw a German coming down the road on a motorcycle. My Dad opened up on him with a Browning .50 caliber Machine gun and blew off one of his legs and the German just kept on going on the motorcycle. My Dad said that maybe the German thought the one remaining leg was all he needed.
One one of my cousins walked into a house and the entire family was sitting at the dinner table but they were all dead. An Artillery Shell had blown up and the concussion had killed the entire family without putting a mark on any of them, they were just all dead. It was decades later before my cousin could talk about it. He said he thought no one would believe him anyway so why say anything.
A teacher of mine was bombed by the Germans while hiding in his fox hole. When he reached up out of the hole the bomb had landed right beside him and the explosion had caved in his forehead. He was taken to a nearby farmhouse where two Russian slave women (captured female soldiers by the Germans) took care of him until the Medics came to take him away. He had to have a steel plate put into his head for life. The teacher said he saw numerous times when the Germans came out holding up their hands and his fellow Americans just gunned them down. Considering how many people the Germans murdered in WWII no one thought any of them had a right to go on living.
One gungho American was sitting in a ditch with his Thompson when they heard Germans talking in a barracks. The Germans were sitting down to eat. The U.S. Soldiers had not been told to attack so they just sat there playing it safe. But the Gungho guy with the Thompson decided to play hero and attack the barracks all by himself. He just walked in and cut down every German in the barracks.
And lastly a sad story. My Dads group was on top a hill looking down at a German Town. My Dad said "We had better get the hell off this hill because those German people will tell the German Soldiers to shell us". About that time that is exactly what happened. My Dad dove under his Halftrack and when he looked up he could see the trees swishing back and forth because the 88 shells were timed to go off before they hit the ground. My dad had stolen a fresh cabbage from a garden and had it sitting on his halftrack and a huge piece of shrapnel cut the cabbage into 2 pieces just like a knife would have done. My dad thought "that could have been my head.
Unfortunately three G.I.'s were killed on that hill during the barrage and after the war my dad decided to visit the Father of one of the guys that had been killed that day because his Dad lived in the same town my Dad did. My dad was 3 days too late as the Father of the slain U.S. Soldier was sitting there grieving over the loss of his son while staring at his son's picture and then he took a pistol and blew his brains out. My dad always regretted not being able to get there to see him in time maybe to prevent him from killing himself.
When my Dad returned home he was shocked to see that during the War the average American who was sitting at home did not even act like a war was going on. Except for rationing that is about all they knew or cared about the war. They all wanted the war to end so they could buy consumer goods again. Many men got war deferments because the worked in war related industries. They made a ton of money on overtime and seduced a lot of women who had entered the workforce because of the shortage of men workers. Many women also divorced their husbands who were away at war and married the guys that got the war deferments'. My Uncle was one of the men who lost his wife to a war deferment worker while he was in the Far East. This history usually never makes it into the history books for obvious reasons.
My Uncle when in the Far East during WWII had a job stringing telephone communication lines. He was driving a jeep with his buddy and had just about crossed a bridge over a 100 foot gorge. Before he got off the bridge a bunch of Chinese Soldiers pulled up in an army truck and started motioning for my Uncle to back clear up back across the bridge. Now my Uncle was pulling a wagon behind the Jeep and could not back up. The Chinese soldiers started cocking their rifles as if to shoot my Uncle and his buddy and my Uncle pulled out his .45 1911 not realizing what his buddy was doing behind his back. The Chinese panicked and backed up letting my Uncle drive his jeep and wagon off the bridge and my Uncle thought "Wow those cowards all backed down when I pointed my pistol at them". His buddy then started laughing his butt off. He told my Uncle that when he was busy playing hero waving his 1911 around that he had held up a grenade and the Chinese solder's were afraid the whole bridge might go down if the grenade was thrown.
Another time my Uncle was stringing some communications wire all by himself without his buddy. It was getting dark so my Uncle headed back to camp in his jeep. My Uncle was unarmed as he was miles behind enemy lines. As my Uncle was driving down a very, very, narrow dirt road just big enough to get the jeep through in the jungle he saw the reflection of 2 eyes staring at him. My uncle thought it must be one of those darn cows. As he got closer he about fainted as it was a Bengal Tiger and my Uncle had no weapon. So my Uncle pressed down on the accelerator in his "open top" jeep and sped past the tiger. My Uncle said he could have reached out and touched the tiger on his nose. The tiger just sat there and watched my Uncle drive by.
My Uncle said when the war ended with the Japanese the Communist Chinese and the Nationalist Chinese immediately began shelling each other.
My Uncle was glad the war was over and was riding in a rickshaw and when the rickshaw momentarily stopped a beautiful Chinese Girl just jumped into the rickshaw and wanted his money for you know what.. He said no, as he was afraid of catching a disease if he had intercourse with here so he threw her out of the rickshaw and she chased him down the road yelling her head off at him. He said he laughed about that incident for years. He said it was the only time in his life he turned down a willing woman.
During the war my mother was still single and dated a guy named Noel (first name). One day she about fainted when she was reading the Canton Repository and no less on the front page there was a big picture of her boyfriend. He had a beard and at first my mother did not even recognize him until she read his name in the newspaper article. The article was about him knocking out 25 Japanese pill boxes. He also said at night he tied himself up high in a tree so he would not fall out of the tree when he was sleeping. He did this because the Japanese used to sneak over to the American lines at night and stab to death the American soldiers while they slept. It was a form of terrorism.
My Father told the Oldsmobile dealer that when he got back from the war that he wanted the 1st new Oldsmobile that the dealer got in. The dealer remembered and called him up when he got back. My Dad then proudly took his new car to a dance in Alliance, Ohio. When he came out of the dance he saw a big crowd of people standing all around his new car and he panicked and thought some drunk must have crashed into it. In reality the people were all just gawking at the 1st New Car they saw since the war had begun.
In the war my Dad's armored car broke down so he hitched a ride on a Sherman Tank. The Tank Commander got so tired from lack of sleep he asked my Dad to take over and drive it. My Dad said," I do not know how to drive a tank". The Tank Commander said "Do not worry its easy and he briefly showed him how to turn right or left and then the Tank Commander collapsed and passed out.
My Dad now driving the tank then had to make a sharp turn on a narrow street with the tank but he cut it too sharp and knocked out a corner of a house. In a panic he shook the Tank Commander awake and screamed , "I screwed up I just knocked down some guys house". The Tank Commander opened one eye and said "You are doing just fine, just keep on driving".
My Dad refused to speak much about liberating the Concentration Camps except to say the bodies were stacked chest high and the smell was so bad you would pass out if you breathed through your nose. He did say he walked into a barn and saw a bunch of children machine gunned to death by the Germans. He only told me this on Christmas when he was very drunk otherwise I do not think he ever would have told me about this.
Once my Dad was clearing out a house and his buddy had to use the toilet. When his buddy sat on the toilet it had a grenade wired to it and blew up and killed him.
My Dad drank a lot and never gave a crap so he was always asked to drive the Officers. One time an 88 artillery shell blew up against the side of a building and as bad luck would have it my Dad was parked alongside the building. The shrapnel bounced off the side of the building and killed the officer sitting next to him. My Dad did not get a scratch by some miracle.
Another time my Dad was driving an armored vehicle and pulled up across the street from a Post Office and a bunch of German Cars and officers were just getting out of their cars. The U.S. Officer on by dads armored vehicle panicked and grabbed his Thompson and was in the act of jumping out of the vehicle to run for cover but that would have left my Dad helpless sitting in the driver's seat so my Dad reached up and grabbed the barrel of a Browning 50 cal. machine gun and swung the gun around hitting the Officer in the chest and bouncing him back down into the vehicle. The Officer then grabbed the Browning and shot up all the Germans and their Cars across the street and he then became a big hero to all the other Officers.
My Neighbor who was also in Europe was walking across the camp when a couple of German Messerschmitts started strafing the camp. My Neighbor then ran like hell while my Dad who was on guard duty started shooting at the Messerschmitts with his Thompson. The Neighbor then dove head first into the nearest ditch not realizing he had just dove head first into the latrine trench. He then later crawled out and asked my Dad "Did you get those planes John"? My Dad was laughing so hard he could hardly say "No they got away".
Once my Dad came into contact with some Russian Soldiers. They had not eaten in days. The Russian pointed at a bar of soap my Dad had so he gave it to him thinking he wanted to take a bath. Not so, the Russian ate the bar of soap. Later that night the same genius Russian was working on his vehicle and when it got dark he lit a barn on fire for some light to work by. My Dad decked him helped put the fire out as it would have drawn German Artillery fire down on everyone.
Once my Dad wanted eggs for breakfast. The only problem was that the eggs were in a barn next to a farm house that they had seen two German Soldiers take cover in. By that time hundreds of U.S. troops were streaming down the road and the Germans playing it cool and safe did nothing but keep hiding. My Dad then calmly and quite drunk strode across the yard to the Barn to get his eggs while his buddies had thought he lost his mind but my Dad said "If those Kraughts had not opened up by now they were not going to commit suicide and open up with all those troops coming down the road.
When coming home aboard ship you were only allowed 2 souvenirs with your paperwork. My dad had 6 pistols, one of which was a 1911 which was forbidden to take home. My Dad's buddies also had forbidden 1911 souvenirs so they then panicked and threw all the 1911 pistols overboard before the ship docked. And my Dad, now worried about the other 5 pistols, none of which had capture papers got off the ship the MP's never searched anyone, they just screamed "get off the ship quick". go, go, go. So my Dad threw away his 1911 for nothing.
Once my Dad saw a German coming down the road on a motorcycle. My Dad opened up on him with a Browning .50 caliber Machine gun and blew off one of his legs and the German just kept on going on the motorcycle. My Dad said that maybe the German thought the one remaining leg was all he needed.
One one of my cousins walked into a house and the entire family was sitting at the dinner table but they were all dead. An Artillery Shell had blown up and the concussion had killed the entire family without putting a mark on any of them, they were just all dead. It was decades later before my cousin could talk about it. He said he thought no one would believe him anyway so why say anything.
A teacher of mine was bombed by the Germans while hiding in his fox hole. When he reached up out of the hole the bomb had landed right beside him and the explosion had caved in his forehead. He was taken to a nearby farmhouse where two Russian slave women (captured female soldiers by the Germans) took care of him until the Medics came to take him away. He had to have a steel plate put into his head for life. The teacher said he saw numerous times when the Germans came out holding up their hands and his fellow Americans just gunned them down. Considering how many people the Germans murdered in WWII no one thought any of them had a right to go on living.
One gungho American was sitting in a ditch with his Thompson when they heard Germans talking in a barracks. The Germans were sitting down to eat. The U.S. Soldiers had not been told to attack so they just sat there playing it safe. But the Gungho guy with the Thompson decided to play hero and attack the barracks all by himself. He just walked in and cut down every German in the barracks.
And lastly a sad story. My Dads group was on top a hill looking down at a German Town. My Dad said "We had better get the hell off this hill because those German people will tell the German Soldiers to shell us". About that time that is exactly what happened. My Dad dove under his Halftrack and when he looked up he could see the trees swishing back and forth because the 88 shells were timed to go off before they hit the ground. My dad had stolen a fresh cabbage from a garden and had it sitting on his halftrack and a huge piece of shrapnel cut the cabbage into 2 pieces just like a knife would have done. My dad thought "that could have been my head.
Unfortunately three G.I.'s were killed on that hill during the barrage and after the war my dad decided to visit the Father of one of the guys that had been killed that day because his Dad lived in the same town my Dad did. My dad was 3 days too late as the Father of the slain U.S. Soldier was sitting there grieving over the loss of his son while staring at his son's picture and then he took a pistol and blew his brains out. My dad always regretted not being able to get there to see him in time maybe to prevent him from killing himself.
When my Dad returned home he was shocked to see that during the War the average American who was sitting at home did not even act like a war was going on. Except for rationing that is about all they knew or cared about the war. They all wanted the war to end so they could buy consumer goods again. Many men got war deferments because the worked in war related industries. They made a ton of money on overtime and seduced a lot of women who had entered the workforce because of the shortage of men workers. Many women also divorced their husbands who were away at war and married the guys that got the war deferments'. My Uncle was one of the men who lost his wife to a war deferment worker while he was in the Far East. This history usually never makes it into the history books for obvious reasons.
My Uncle when in the Far East during WWII had a job stringing telephone communication lines. He was driving a jeep with his buddy and had just about crossed a bridge over a 100 foot gorge. Before he got off the bridge a bunch of Chinese Soldiers pulled up in an army truck and started motioning for my Uncle to back clear up back across the bridge. Now my Uncle was pulling a wagon behind the Jeep and could not back up. The Chinese soldiers started cocking their rifles as if to shoot my Uncle and his buddy and my Uncle pulled out his .45 1911 not realizing what his buddy was doing behind his back. The Chinese panicked and backed up letting my Uncle drive his jeep and wagon off the bridge and my Uncle thought "Wow those cowards all backed down when I pointed my pistol at them". His buddy then started laughing his butt off. He told my Uncle that when he was busy playing hero waving his 1911 around that he had held up a grenade and the Chinese solder's were afraid the whole bridge might go down if the grenade was thrown.
Another time my Uncle was stringing some communications wire all by himself without his buddy. It was getting dark so my Uncle headed back to camp in his jeep. My Uncle was unarmed as he was miles behind enemy lines. As my Uncle was driving down a very, very, narrow dirt road just big enough to get the jeep through in the jungle he saw the reflection of 2 eyes staring at him. My uncle thought it must be one of those darn cows. As he got closer he about fainted as it was a Bengal Tiger and my Uncle had no weapon. So my Uncle pressed down on the accelerator in his "open top" jeep and sped past the tiger. My Uncle said he could have reached out and touched the tiger on his nose. The tiger just sat there and watched my Uncle drive by.
My Uncle said when the war ended with the Japanese the Communist Chinese and the Nationalist Chinese immediately began shelling each other.
My Uncle was glad the war was over and was riding in a rickshaw and when the rickshaw momentarily stopped a beautiful Chinese Girl just jumped into the rickshaw and wanted his money for you know what.. He said no, as he was afraid of catching a disease if he had intercourse with here so he threw her out of the rickshaw and she chased him down the road yelling her head off at him. He said he laughed about that incident for years. He said it was the only time in his life he turned down a willing woman.
During the war my mother was still single and dated a guy named Noel (first name). One day she about fainted when she was reading the Canton Repository and no less on the front page there was a big picture of her boyfriend. He had a beard and at first my mother did not even recognize him until she read his name in the newspaper article. The article was about him knocking out 25 Japanese pill boxes. He also said at night he tied himself up high in a tree so he would not fall out of the tree when he was sleeping. He did this because the Japanese used to sneak over to the American lines at night and stab to death the American soldiers while they slept. It was a form of terrorism.
Thank you for the recollections it is obvious Providence decides who makes it and who doesn't. Dad was in the water tower 168 feet up in the middle of the attack but never saw any action the rest of the war. He was on a sub tender. Went to Korea and his supply ship got too close and got raked by shore batteries.
powder smoke
Hawkeye
My dad was a WW2 Vet a Navy Veteran he never talked about the war!
Facts are he was permently damaged and was never the same!
