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As it's Father's Day I went round and had lunch with my parents today.

We were sitting in the drawing room having tea and I saw on the other side of the room what seemed to be a photo of a tank. I couldn't make it out in detail, but it seemed a strange thing to be on my parents' sideboard.

On taking a closer look I saw it was a photo of a Valentine tank of WW2, with three men standing in front of it. The explanation was that my mother had been clearing up old archives and found this photo of her father, my grandfather, with the crew of the tank he drove in WW2 in the western desert war.

I had known he had been a tank driver, but I had never seen a picture of it, and this photo made it all real. Kind of a weird feeling, seeing the evidence of WW2. I have already seen a photo of my grandfather in WW1 uniform with his two brothers.

The next time you see a newspaper article about young people today having a high unemployment rate, think about the fact that our grandfathers fought in two world wars and the Great Depression too.

Yup. I remember growing up in the 60's with all the anti war protests going on and the hippies saying that our parents and grandparents didn't have a clue what it was for a young person to have to go off to fight in a war.
I couldn't wrap my 10 year old brain around that concept since my father and a lot of his friends went through World War 2 and Korea.

My dad's dad flew with the RAF and was part of the force that liberated/returned the POW's from the Far East. He never forgave the Japanese for that.

My Mom's dad was a GI and fought in Western Europe. I never met him, that's all I know of him.

Great Grandpa was with the 5th Marines in France for WW1, Grandpa the 1st Marine Division for WW2, my other grandfather for Korea, and my Uncle for Vietnam.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
As it's Father's Day I went round and had lunch with my parents today.

We were sitting in the drawing room having tea and I saw on the other side of the room what seemed to be a photo of a tank. I couldn't make it out in detail, but it seemed a strange thing to be on my parents' sideboard.

On taking a closer look I saw it was a photo of a Valentine tank of WW2, with three men standing in front of it. The explanation was that my mother had been clearing up old archives and found this photo of her father, my grandfather, with the crew of the tank he drove in WW2 in the western desert war.

I had known he had been a tank driver, but I had never seen a picture of it, and this photo made it all real. Kind of a weird feeling, seeing the evidence of WW2. I have already seen a photo of my grandfather in WW1 uniform with his two brothers.

The next time you see a newspaper article about young people today having a high unemployment rate, think about the fact that our grandfathers fought in two world wars and the Great Depression too.

I had a similar experience years ago, seeing a picture of my grandfather with a Hawaiian Lei in a service uniform. He went island hopping in the pacific after the draft. I was too young to ask him any questions about it when he died, and my mother tells me he would never talk about that time "over there."

 Kilkrazy wrote:

We were sitting in the drawing room having tea

How quintessentially British.

Very cool story, though. It's very easy sometimes to write off some of the stories older generations tell us as "old-people stories," but realizing the magnitude of many of the events they experienced and lived through can be quite astounding. You never really think much about grandpa's WWII stories until a photograph or some similar artifact makes you realize, "Wow, at the same age I was getting drunk at school and bemoaning term papers, he was fighting in the bloodiest war in human history, and I'm only here because he survived." It's pretty arresting.

I remember getting to see the bomber my grandpa flew. It was a picture, but to see him next to it was awesome. Even got some pics of him flying it(My family wanted to throw them away but i saved them.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:

I had a similar experience years ago, seeing a picture of my grandfather with a Hawaiian Lei in a service uniform. He went island hopping in the pacific after the draft. I was too young to ask him any questions about it when he died, and my mother tells me he would never talk about that time "over there."

Its interesting how different people would talk about war. My grandpa would not be quiet about it. He told me about how he sunk the first german U-boat for the americans before we officially got into the war.

My dad found a picture of his father in infantry uniform from WWII and it had a similar effect. Partially because it was the the only photo of him in uniform, but also because it is one of the only photos of him period. My mother's father was in the navy in WWII but we have no pictures of him at that time. I have several pictures of my dad in Vietnam.

As for personal familial ties to the war:

My great grandmother (mother's side) was in her early twenties living in the countryside in Latvia with two children. Their family were relatively prosperous landowners and had owned and farmed the land they lived on for generations. When the German and Russian forces met, they met essentially in their back yard. They had hid in the cellar once the fighting started, but the house caught fire and they had to escape. My great grandmother took her children (my future grandmother and great uncle; she had all her hair and eyebrows singed off saving them from the fire, and to this day (she is 92, going on 93) she wears a wig) and hid with them in a pond behind their house for hours as the bullets and grenades went flying over their heads.
They were able to eventually escape Latvia to refugee camps in Germany and there she was separated from her husband, promising to find each other in the States. She lost her teeth in the camps because she gave almost all of her rations to her children, and wears dentures to this day because of it. Eventually, as the war was about over and the U.S. and Soviet forces were meeting, she found herself on Russian side of Germany. She took the children and a butcher knife and everything they could carry and tried to get to a place where they could cross over into the Western occupied territory. At the line, she was confronted by a Russian soldier, and when she brandished the butcher knife the soldier almost shot them, but an American patrol happened on them, and knowing very little English, she called out to them and and American soldier forced the Russian at gunpoint to allow them to cross over. Eventually she made it to the U.S. and found her husband who had also made it, and so the story goes. She now lives on a farm in Wisconsin, and between my junior and senior years of high school I spent the summer with her helping her on the farm. The stories she told me were unforgettable, and enough to fill a book.

Why I always put name, date and place on all my hard copy pics. Same on my digital pics. My dad has the family pic of my Great Grandfather, Grandfather, him and then me. Separate pics, one frame, different wars.

One story I will never forget is two parted. it was this old women who spoke about her holocaust ordeal.
1: She faught with another girl over a shoe, she so badly wanted to have a matching pair of shoes in the camp, to make them feel human.
2: When she left her home town in poland she left her fiancee behind. She eventually was released from the camps. She returned to her home town, to find her fiancee was.............
Still there 5-6 years later waiting for her and they where still together when she spoke, I nearly cried at that part.

If you want stories go down to your local VFW or American Legion post, hang out and buy some beers, you'll usually get one or two stories at least. It's sad that no one pays much attention because these stories are the oral history we're forgetting or ignoring, and as time marches on, slowly losing. These men are the absolute best primary source you can ever have for learning or understanding something because they were there.

One if the best parts of my job is being able to sit down and talk the breeze with crusty old vets.

When I was visiting my grandmothers house in Germany three years ago I was going through old photo albums and found an album her dad made her for her 16th birthday (in '44 I think). It was just old black and white pictures of her and her friends trying to do the things that teenage girls would do. Except that these were pictures of my grandmother standing in a bombed out city. It had a handwritten note about how he was sorry he couldn't give her a better birthday but "hopefully the crazy man will be dead soon and the war will be over".

My grandfather from my fathers side was with the British forces in Burma in WW2, and fought with the Ghukha. I never knew him, but my grandmother had a few stories she liked to repeat from his service days.

My grandfather from my mothers side was Dutch, and was put in a work camp. He didn't tak about it at all, which was perfectly understandable.

Ghurka eh? Those are some hard core troops there.

Yeah, some funny stories about that as well. He even nearly smuggled in a kukri on his way home, but for some reason it wasn't allowed. But people smuggling home Lugers? A ok.

Well grandfather I didn't make it back from the Pacific. Grandfather II I only have vague memories of, but lots of stuff from him. None from the war though (he had two ships blown out from under him in the Atlantic. The merchant marine had terrific casualties). He had an album of pics from what the Japanese were doing in China before the war. I have Dad's dress blues in the closet and his old M1.

 Jihadin wrote:
Why I always put name, date and place on all my hard copy pics. Same on my digital pics. My dad has the family pic of my Great Grandfather, Grandfather, him and then me. Separate pics, one frame, different wars.

That sounds like a wonderful piece of family history, Jihadin.

My Grandfather 1 was a machinist on a Destroyer in the Atlantic.

Grandfather II was kept out of the war and stayed on the homefront as a mechanic and bus driver. I can't recall why he got to stay home.

 Easy E wrote:
My Grandfather 1 was a machinist on a Destroyer in the Atlantic.

Grandfather II was kept out of the war and stayed on the homefront as a mechanic and bus driver. I can't recall why he got to stay home.

Probably unfit for combat or something.

My cousin was putting together a scrap book in dedication of my grandpa last year, and she came across a bunch of photos of him when he was in the service. He RARELY talked about his time in Italy, but the one story I can remeber was when he was on patrol with one of his friends, and someone threw a grenade into his jeep. His friend saw/heard it, and pushed both of them out, saving both of them.