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I recently learnt about some of my family war history.

My Great Grandfather fought in WW1 at Gallopi, France and Belgium.

He manage to survive a musterd gas attack which left him with only one lung and survive the war.

His Brother in law fought as well but sadly died when his force was ordered to go over the trenches.

He never spoke about the war which is understandble, Which is why I had to go through the NZ military archives to find infomation about him.

My great great Uncle happen to have been in the 2nd Boer War as a Bodyguard of the head general of the New Zealand forces deployed over there.

So does anyone else on Dakka have any family who have fought in a war(s)?

Attention I in no way am glorifying war I'm mearly interested in the stories of familes who had fought in wars in the past.

one of my great-grandfathers died in WW2. For the wrong side though (germans), another one of them returned.

Yet another one of my great grandfathers got to stay at home and farm, he was quite lucky.....

My grandad was a soldier in ww2. Luckily, he came away unhurt. Saddly, he died 2 years ago.

MrMerlin wrote:one of my great-grandfathers died in WW2. For the wrong side though (germans), another one of them returned.

Yet another one of my great grandfathers got to stay at home and farm, he was quite lucky.....

I'm not going to say thier is a wrong side in War as often it has people fighting people not people fighting villains.

Only group that I think is not counted as people would be the Waffen SS.

My great grandfather on my mothers side was a Conscientious objector, who although refused to pick up a weapon and fire at the enemy, served as a ambulanceman in WW1, and recieved commendations and a medal for collecting wounded under fire.

I think my fathers Grandfather served as well, but in WW2, would need to look into that.

Both my grandparents were in "the war", and more or less everyone on my dad's side was in the IRA fighting the British (this includes my grandfather who fought both for and against the British Empire).

I have people in nearly every generation in my family that fought in wars.
I have a stack of Civil War letters a couple inches thick from some great uncles that fought in it.
One of them was in a forced march where soldiers were dropping out from heat stroke and left by the side of the road to be retrieved later.
He ended up dropping out and saw local families coming out and cutting the throats of those laying by the road. Fortunatly for him, a family took him in and hid him until he recovered.

Oh this is fun. Relatives fought with Napoleon. Shortly thereafter bailing for New Orleans.
Relatives, including some of same, fighting the British at batlle of New Orleans.
Relatives fighting on both sides of the Civil War. I found the marker for one of the units at Shiloh. Creeeppppy.
Grandfather and his three brothers in WWII.
Other Grandfather died in the Pacific.
Uncle and Dad in Korea. Dad stayed on and effectively served in first part of Cold War.

Relapse wrote:I have people in nearly every generation in my family that fought in wars.
I have a stack of Civil War letters a couple inches thick from some great uncles that fought in it.
One of them was in a forced march where soldiers were dropping out from heat stroke and left by the side of the road to be retrieved later.
He ended up dropping out and saw local families coming out and cutting the throats of those laying by the road. Fortunatly for him, a family took him in and hid him until he recovered.

Quite a story.

That would be quite a family treasure having letters of the American Civil war.

I wish I was able to to get some old war letters in my family unfortunately alot of those are either in the New Zealand war archives or have been lost or destroyed.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:Oh this is fun. Relatives fought with Napoleon. Shortly thereafter bailing for New Orleans.
Relatives, including some of same, fighting the British at batlle of New Orleans.
Relatives fighting on both sides of the Civil War. I found the marker for one of the units at Shiloh. Creeeppppy.
Grandfather and his three brothers in WWII.
Other Grandfather died in the Pacific.
Uncle and Dad in Korea. Dad stayed on and effectively served in first part of Cold War.

WOW both sides of the Civil War! and fighting with Napoleon!

I wish I could trace back my family war history that far hopefully I will ieventually

keep it up people these stories are amazing

Great granddad fought in WW1 though I am fuzzy on which side
Grand dad fought in the pacific in WWII
Other Grandad fought in Korea
Two Uncles in Vietnam
1 Uncle in Desert Storm
1 Cousin currently in Afghanistan

The attestation paper of 26051 Gunner T O'Shaughnessy RGA, my Great Grandfather,


We also have a copy of his citation for bravery at Ploegsteert wood somewhere back in the UK.

And his son, my Grandpa George's medals


‎1939-45 star, Africa star, France and Germany star, 1939-45 defence medal, 1939-45 medal. GSM with Palestine bar

My grandpa was a MP stationed in Italy during WWII.

Sadly, he died almost two years ago due to heart problems.

I have a great-uncle who started out in WW2 (towards the tail end), did 20 years in the Air Force, retired, turned around and did 20 in the Army to retire as a One Star. Funny thing is, when he retired, he basically took off his uniform, and went back to the same desk, doing the same job.

Another great-uncle did 20 somethin' years in the Navy. His only claim to "fame" is that the ship used in the opening scenes of Top Gun (when the jets are taking off) was the ship he was stationed on, however shooting took place a mere 15 minutes after his shift was over. He was the poor sod who kneels behind the blast shield, which has been rated in the top 5 most dangerous jobs in the DoD for many many years.

A great-grand-father of mine served in WW1. Allegedly his service was in some sort of "intelligence" field, because around half of his service and valor medals were in fact, German military decorations.

My grand father was also in the Navy during Korea, was with the Navy "Blue Jacket" choir, as well as also being on a carrier during some pretty hairy storms, typhoons and the like.

As of right now, we have traced our family back to around 1000ad, in various German states, so I'm sure that someone somewhere fought, especially given my family crest.

And right now, I am the only one of our known family that is currently in the military (excluding my wife, because she married into my family)

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT

Great grandad won the MC in ww1 for using a battery of fieldguns at point blank range (i think less than 100m) to repel a large scale german attack. He had a guy helping him but he was missing an Arm. As a librabrian he didnt even have to fight in the war.

My grandad on the other side also won an MC in WW2 for killing a bunch of entrenched germans with the pintle machinegun of a Knackered Sherman tank.

My other grandad volunteered to check for limpet mines placed on his ship (by Italian frogmen). he worked out the best way to do it was to crawl through the maintenance shafts tapping on the hull. He would have won a medal but one of the mines went off while he was in the vents sinking the ship. Somehow he survived.

Not quite a VC lol

The only people in my family that are veterans are myself, and two of my cousins. My older cousin and I were both US Army Infantry in Iraq, and my younger cousin was Marine Infantry in Afghanistan.

I refuse to believe that anyone existed before I was born and just assume all this is part of one big Truman Show like backstory you have all made up.

My dad has served in: Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Panama.

My mom served in Panama.

My grandfather (dad's side) served in Vietnam and Korea. My great grandfather (mom's side) served in WWII.

Beyond that I have no idea. My mom's family has been in the US (supposedly) since the May Flower landed and goes all the way that far back and probably has members who served in the French Indian Wars, the Revolution, War of 1812, and the Civil War. My dad's came from Italy in 1920's and there are so many crazy stories about them I have no idea what is or isn't true.

urm lots

my grandfather served in Burma, and Indochina with the Gurkhas. all that's known is he liberated pows there he refused to talk about it, all he brought back with him was the units pet mascot, a cat who survived to like 20

his farther was a tank commander in ww1

my great uncle ran off top the Spanish civil war, won a load of medals then, vanished

my other great uncle ended up dieing in Auschwitz after running of to Poland to fight the Germans

my other grandfather served as a battery gunner for the raf

his father was a pigeon carrier who got a lung full of mustard gas, after he was delivering a message to command during the Somme (his pigeons were all dead)

his father served in the boar war, and in afganistan

theres other records of one of my ancestors being in the Napoleonic wars, and another during the American war of independence, fighting for the us

Great-Grandfather fought in WW1 and won some medals for Gallantry/Bravery when he cleared a section of German trench

Great-Uncle was hit by a shell on D-Day

Grandfather left officer school right at the end of WW2 and went on to become a diplomat in Japan

Ahtman wrote:I refuse to believe that anyone existed before I was born and just assume all this is part of one big Truman Show like backstory you have all made up.

gak guys, he found out about it. What are we gonna do now? lol

MrMerlin wrote:

Ahtman wrote:I refuse to believe that anyone existed before I was born and just assume all this is part of one big Truman Show like backstory you have all made up.

gak guys, he found out about it. What are we gonna do now? lol

Well he is a flaw that must be fixed sooo.....

Mother assisted combat operations in desert storm while serving aboard the USS Holland (ie, pumped fuel into ancient non-nuclear subs )

Father Served aboard an attack sub that's name escapes me. Don't know too much else. He was a diver and Weapons Systems machinist, apparently.

Great-Grandfather was an army photographer in the pacific campaign during WWII. We have some pictures left. I'm sure my grandfather has them.

Step-Father served in Iraq with the Marine Corps on embassy detail from 2002-2005 (I think? maybe 2003-5) and was a reservist before that since 1998.

Grandfather was a draft dodger in Vietnam. He was worried they'd send a small guy like him down into the cong-caves.

And... I'm enlisted in the Navy, so I'll be able to add myself to that list soon.

Great-Grandfather served in the IVF in the Somme, he later served in the BEF and was shot in the hand during Dunkirk.

Great-Unlce was a tail gunner for an RAF bomber. Survived 2 years of that before being assigned to Scandinavia for the rest of the war.
That's it... well that's all that anyone tells me.

my grandfather and my father were both soldiers, my great grandfather was just a farmer, and my grandmother was a nurse for the military.

Great great grandfather was in the Spanish American War, Great-grandfather was in WWI, Great Uncle was in WWII, Grand Father was in Korea and Vietnam, my Father served in The Cold War (Mom hinted he did some sort of classified missions), and I have a Cousin who is in Afghanistan right now. My earliest known ancestor was a British Soldier, but we know nothing about him, so who knows.

I too have family on both sides of the Civil War, kindda funny because on the Jarrell side of my tree, that family is split in half, one side hates the other. Makes me chuckle.
As far as I know, no one fought in WW1, had a few in WW2. My Pawpaw was a gunner on a Battleship (I cant remember the name, though it was famous, Ill have to ask my dad) in the Korean war, and saw alot of action. My Grandpa was also in the Korean war, but he was Airforce and didnt actually see any real action.

Couple Uncles in Vietnam, 1 Uncle went back into service to trail some Marine Recon groups in Desert Storm, and again in the start of the Iraq war. So as a Marine, hes a hardass, but as a person, he is a total jerk off. Anywho, couple more cousins in the Iraq war. That makes it pretty current

Yak9UT wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:one of my great-grandfathers died in WW2. For the wrong side though (germans), another one of them returned.

Yet another one of my great grandfathers got to stay at home and farm, he was quite lucky.....

I'm not going to say thier is a wrong side in War as often it has people fighting people not people fighting villains.

Only group that I think is not counted as people would be the Waffen SS.

he was not in the ss, but he was still fighting for a bad cause......

edit:

well, they made him fight for their cause, he didnt volunteer.....

My paternal grandmother was a WAVE, while my paternal grandfather was a 90 day wonder that did some combat engineering in the pacific in the last months of the war. My maternal grandfather fought in the Phillipines and Iwo Jima, collected some medals, and stayed a reservist until the 70's. His brother crewed a heavy bomber over Europe that never came back.

I try and explain that to people when the topic comes up, about Germans and the war. They werent ALL kill squads and mass murderers, its was mainly a few groups that were responsible for that. But it only takes a few rotten apples and so on

Maybe its off topic but I honestly hate when people push all the blame for Nazi Germany's war crimes on the Waffen SS (or the Nazi's for that matter). Not that I think they're innocent but I see what happened the SS vets after the war and it disgusts me. More war crimes were probably committed by members of the Wehrmacht than members of the Waffen SS and most German soldiers, regular and SS, never committed any war crimes.

Good job washing their hands of their own complicity though they got a free pass, pensions, veterans service, while SS soldiers got nothing for just being more connected to the Nazi party than other soldiers were.