I remember meeting a guy who landed on Omaha Beach when I was playing some poker in Vegas. I told how grateful I was to him and how much I admired him - even watching the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan nearly made me piss my pants. He was a good guy. I remember him complaining about the French though - how they had rolled over for the Nazis so that he ended up have to risk his ass in France.
When I was a kid my next door neighbor was from Germany. He emigrated to the USA in 1936 and joined the army in 1941. He landed on Omaha Beach but rarely talked about it. He was an inventor who held the patent on the Spiedel expansion bracelet and got a check every month. He had a full machine shop behind his house and taught me about metal and a million other things. Once, when it was about 10, I asked him about his service and he said he didn't talk about it because he was embarrassed with his homeland. He was a part of the Greatest Generation.
^^^ I did meet a custodian who was an anti-aircraft gunner in the Pacific Fleet during the war. When I asked him about the kamikazes, he walked away and said he didn't want to talk about it.
One of my friend's neighbors when I was in high school was from Germany and had fought in the Wehrmacht. Understandably, he didn't want to talk about it at all.
My father didn't participate in the D-Day invasion. His tank regiment had been killing Nazis in Italy for over 11 months by the time of the Normandy invasion.
Like every combat veteran that I have ever met, my Dad never talked about his war service with me. It is only my own research that has led me to discover just exactly what a steely-eyed, cold-blooded Nazi killer my old man had been.
There are very few heroes that I hold in high regard. My old man is right at the pinnacle of my list.
I've known a couple of WWII D-Day Vets. Only one talked about it and he held back the worst of it. But he was a proud Irish American and tough as nails. I miss our visits since he has passed. I am still in awe of what that generation accomplished across the globe.
Art, I would have enjoyed meeting your old man too. Seems like those Canadians were hard chargers and unfortunately don't get as much attention down here as they deserve.
Everyone should make a trip to see the beach at Normandy and pay their respects at any of the America Military Cemeterys they can get to.
^^^ My mother was 15 in Marseilles when the Germans arrived. She told me a young German soldier got fresh with her and her friend and she slapped him. He pulled out a knife, but an older German officer took it from him and started chewing his ass out. He told my mother and her friend to get lost.
My daughter was in our church choir when she was in high school. Their European tour included singing at a service in the American Chapel in Normandy. She was selected to sing a special duet. When she called me on her cell phone from Omaha Beach I was moved to hear her impressions and her appreciation for the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation.
My Grandfather was a Marine in the Pacific, either a Staff or Gunnery Sergeant. Though not one of his favorite subjects he always implied he hadn't seen combat and that his purple heart was for Malaria. After his death I was told different stories, as much as I would like to know the truth I've never dug deeper out of respect for his privacy.
He had a close friend who fought in Europe and on one occasion showed me where he had taken shrapnel which would occasional surface in tiny pieces. It wasn't until after his death that I read his short self-published autobiography in which he described how he had killed, and held as others killed, German sentries in Italy and France. Amazing sacrifices these men made.
My dad was in the D-Day invasion, and he fought in France and Germany. He was wounded and lost some sight in one eye and some hearing in one ear. The government sent him a $35 check every month for the rest of his life.
My grandfather never talked about his time in Italy. It's very understandable WWII vets (and other vets as well) didn't want to 'relive' the horrors they experienced and recall the friends and brothers who weren't lucky enough to come home alive. It's so important for future generations to 'never forget'... but most stories were never passed down.
My second entry on D-Day: Traveling back to my home in Detroit from New Mexico, I wound up seated on the plane next to a woman who told me that she was the first female ordained Lutheran minister in the U.S. She also told me that she had been charge of training nurses for D-Day. Her stories were fascinating portaits of Eisenhower, Gavin, Bradley, Ridgeway, Patton and Montgomery. She went ashore on D-Day plus one, saw Churchill on her left as she went in. Her "girls" patched the wounded after the first day of fighting.
My dad was enjoying married life in El Paso when his new Brother-in-law was getting a free ride to Omaha Beach a couple of hours after his tank sank. My Uncle walked ashore after the ugly brutality of first two landings had finally managed to clear the bluffs above the beachhead. It took my uncle over three weeks to get another tank the he was reassigned to Patton's Army. That uncle always claimed his Silver Star was just a mistake - someone said German tigers were coming and he ran the wrong way!
Dad had already done his 25 missions - twice - bombing Japan from Aleutian airbases with the 11th Army Air Corps. (Most people don't know our B-24s could and did reach Japan as early as the fall of '42) Dad thought (like a lot of people at the time) that the Normandy invasion plan was a political choice - the smart move was to land in Southern France where the Germans did not have strong defensive positions along the beaches (which we later did).
My Dad volunteered and flew Grumman avengers towards the end of the war. He finished his training just as the war ended and never saw combat. Probably a good thing for me since the death rate for torpedo bomber pilots was pretty high. He died about 5 years ago.
I hear the stories about WW2 and marvel at the courage of those men and women. Hitting the beaches at Normandy and Iwo, flying bombers into Germany when mortality rates basically guaranteed that you wouldn't make your 25 missions, or sailing on a freighter in a convoy. I often wonder if I could have done that - I hope that I could have.
I was reading my hometown's newspaper online and there was a story of an 88 year old man who was a construction machine operator with the Army's 238th Engineer Combat Division that landed on Utah Beach.
When I saw his picture and name I realized he had been our next door neighbor for 20 years. I never knew. I doubt my parents did either.
^That's one of the ways how you know. The guy who doesn't miss a chance to talk big about all his feats of prowess and all the key missions whose succes was owed to him singlehanded, is the one likely to be BS'ing. From the guys who were the real deal, you'll have to insist in asking to at best get a very modest account. Battle experience is not easily shared with someone who does not have a common frame of reference, and especially in that generation they felt part of the deal was to spare those at home the nasty details.
By now, we are left with those who were at the time the lower-rank enlistees and junior officers. All the "A-list" historic figures, the famous commanders, the notorious leaders, the kings, presidents, ministers, generals, are gone. We have little time left to share with and hear from those boys from city neighborhoods and country farms who crossed oceans to keep the Darkness from engulfing a world.
Your words are spot on. I was dying to get my father to tell me of his war experiences but he always dismissed my enquiries. He developed Alzheimer's disease late in life and died without saying a word to me (or the rest of his family) of anything but platitudes about his 5 years in the Canadian Army during WW II.
I spent considerable time during my retirement delving into my Dad's army career. I found several of his surviving buddies who were willing to talk to me about my Dad. I read the original DND citations for his valour medals. I have explored all the battlefields in France, Italy, Holland, and Germany where he fought. I believe that I even found the spot on a mountain road near Florence where Dad performed the actions that won the first of his valour medals. This July I will be touring the areas of England where his armoured regiment was based and where the regiment trained.
I now have a very clear picture of my father as a soldier and just exactly what he did during the war. It is a very different picture from the quiet farmer whom I considered to be aloof and distant as a father.
My father fought in the South Pacific,flying the B-25 J Mitchell.Its a low level strafer/bomber.He also never talked about his service,he would merely mumble that he had a job to do.Then as a kid I find a box of his recon photos.The carnage he reaped on freighters,rail yards and fuel depots was outstanding,earning him the Distinguished Flying Cross medal.
I remember growing up as a kid in the 60's and 70's,at neighborhood get-togethers all the Veterans would huddle and talk about their war stories and as soon as a civvy would approach they would change the subject.These were the days when nobody locked their front doors,kids could play outside without fear of abduction and everybody knew every one.Then there was my neighbor Igor Jerezen who escaped Nazi persecution in Hungary.You never,never heard all of the above bitch and moan about anything.
A while back my father said to me"Boy,I wouldn't want to live in your life time for anything".This coming from a man that survived the Great Depression and WWII.About six years ago I finally figured out what he meant.
In the end I feel it is true that we will never see a Greater Generation as the aforementioned.
My father was on a battleship in the Pacific on D-Day. His oldest brother, after whom I am named, was killed on Omaha beach. My mother's father, so wmigrsted from Germany in 1924, volunteered for work in what passed for veteran's hospitals in those days.
I know one Omaha beach veteran personally. He is a hell of a nice guy. And won't talk about that day, but you can see the haunted look in his eyes when someone asks about it. I wasn't in combat in Desert Storm, just a REMF, but I met a number of those who were. There are good and sufficient reasons for them not to talk about it.
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Like every combat veteran that I have ever met, my Dad never talked about his war service with me. It is only my own research that has led me to discover just exactly what a steely-eyed, cold-blooded Nazi killer my old man had been.
There are very few heroes that I hold in high regard. My old man is right at the pinnacle of my list.
Art, I would have enjoyed meeting your old man too. Seems like those Canadians were hard chargers and unfortunately don't get as much attention down here as they deserve.
Everyone should make a trip to see the beach at Normandy and pay their respects at any of the America Military Cemeterys they can get to.
He had a close friend who fought in Europe and on one occasion showed me where he had taken shrapnel which would occasional surface in tiny pieces. It wasn't until after his death that I read his short self-published autobiography in which he described how he had killed, and held as others killed, German sentries in Italy and France. Amazing sacrifices these men made.
Dad had already done his 25 missions - twice - bombing Japan from Aleutian airbases with the 11th Army Air Corps. (Most people don't know our B-24s could and did reach Japan as early as the fall of '42) Dad thought (like a lot of people at the time) that the Normandy invasion plan was a political choice - the smart move was to land in Southern France where the Germans did not have strong defensive positions along the beaches (which we later did).
I hear the stories about WW2 and marvel at the courage of those men and women. Hitting the beaches at Normandy and Iwo, flying bombers into Germany when mortality rates basically guaranteed that you wouldn't make your 25 missions, or sailing on a freighter in a convoy. I often wonder if I could have done that - I hope that I could have.
When I saw his picture and name I realized he had been our next door neighbor for 20 years. I never knew. I doubt my parents did either.
Those guys never talked about D-Day much.
By now, we are left with those who were at the time the lower-rank enlistees and junior officers. All the "A-list" historic figures, the famous commanders, the notorious leaders, the kings, presidents, ministers, generals, are gone. We have little time left to share with and hear from those boys from city neighborhoods and country farms who crossed oceans to keep the Darkness from engulfing a world.
Your words are spot on. I was dying to get my father to tell me of his war experiences but he always dismissed my enquiries. He developed Alzheimer's disease late in life and died without saying a word to me (or the rest of his family) of anything but platitudes about his 5 years in the Canadian Army during WW II.
I spent considerable time during my retirement delving into my Dad's army career. I found several of his surviving buddies who were willing to talk to me about my Dad. I read the original DND citations for his valour medals. I have explored all the battlefields in France, Italy, Holland, and Germany where he fought. I believe that I even found the spot on a mountain road near Florence where Dad performed the actions that won the first of his valour medals. This July I will be touring the areas of England where his armoured regiment was based and where the regiment trained.
I now have a very clear picture of my father as a soldier and just exactly what he did during the war. It is a very different picture from the quiet farmer whom I considered to be aloof and distant as a father.
I remember growing up as a kid in the 60's and 70's,at neighborhood get-togethers all the Veterans would huddle and talk about their war stories and as soon as a civvy would approach they would change the subject.These were the days when nobody locked their front doors,kids could play outside without fear of abduction and everybody knew every one.Then there was my neighbor Igor Jerezen who escaped Nazi persecution in Hungary.You never,never heard all of the above bitch and moan about anything.
A while back my father said to me"Boy,I wouldn't want to live in your life time for anything".This coming from a man that survived the Great Depression and WWII.About six years ago I finally figured out what he meant.
In the end I feel it is true that we will never see a Greater Generation as the aforementioned.
I know one Omaha beach veteran personally. He is a hell of a nice guy. And won't talk about that day, but you can see the haunted look in his eyes when someone asks about it. I wasn't in combat in Desert Storm, just a REMF, but I met a number of those who were. There are good and sufficient reasons for them not to talk about it.