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>>64902978
I had a great uncle who was a Tank Commander in the Guards tank regiment in ww2.
>He was given the choice of two battalions, one with Shermans, the other with Churchills.
>When he asked the officer what was the difference, the officer held up his hand and saId "Sherman has armour this thick (showing two inches) and a Churchill has armour this thick (showed four inches)" - my uncle chose churchills.
>He told me how tanks are cold at night, dust and rain leaks in everywhere.
>When advancing on long drives in the tank, they broke up the bordom by chasing rabbits across fields and through hedges.
>in a farmhouse, they found a record player with a single record - Marche Funèbre by chopin, they played it and it upset the Sgt Major so much he kicked the player out the window.
>Their driver was a mechanical engineer and after fine tuning the engines of the squadron they managed to get a bit more speed out of their sluggish ride, so after a day's driving, when they reported their position, HQ didnt believe them because "A churchill can't go that fast".
>During one advance they came across a german airfield with planes taking off and hanger crew driving away in vehicles - they charged and took pot shots at a couple of transport planes trying to take off (downing one of them).
>They found a german staff car at the airfield, so when the area was secured, they took turns doing dohnuts and racing it up and down the airfield, before it was confiscated from them by an officer - they later saw their Regt Commander driving it and later again some general, it being confiscated by a higher rank each time..
>They had a ND when a new crew member was climbing into a turret and hit the 2 pounder fire lever with his foot - the shell luckily bounced off the back of the tank in front (early churchills were seriously undergunned but heavily armoured).
When they freed Belgium he befriended the family that he was billeted with, visiting them again in the 80s.

>>64903106
>2pdr Churchill in France 44
Decent story but I call bullshit on that.

>>64902978
It isn't really a military story, but my grandpa was part of a pretty fancy aviation club as a younger man here in sweden and met göring through it in the 20s. According to gramps, göring was a real douche. Rip you old fart.

I don't know too much about my great-grandfathers' service in World War II except that one was killed in Ukraine in 1943 and the other was drafted to become a pioneer either in late 44 or early 45 before getting captured and spending some time in a PoW camp near Brest. But an old lady who used to live next to me gave me some of her father's photos when she heard that I was stationed at the same base as he used to be. Give me a minute.

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>>64903218
Training

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>>64903223

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>>64903226
Inspecting wreckage. Any idea what it might be? I thought it might be a burned put barrage balloon.

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>>64903228
More wreckage

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>>64903232
Paris

>>64903228
>>64903232
looks like a Wellington

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>>64903236
Bonus: Peeling potatoes on base.

>>64903137
You shouldnt get all your research from wikipedia, you know? Quite a few were deployed, but gradually replaced as they wore out. My Great Uncle's squadron had a mix of old and new ones at the start. The British army tended to do that, as we didnt have the manufacturing ability of the yanks and tried to use things for as long as they worked.

>>64903397
You got pics because what you've just described would rewrite history.

>>64902978
Great uncle (bomber pilot) talking about how his squadron got surprised by new british model AAA when bombing Leningrad. Plane (JU-88) got severly damaged and he had to crash it into some swamp in northern Russia. Somehow the entire crew survived without a scratch.
Months later they were bombing the same area and got shot to shit again, crashing the next plane basically in the same swamp. This time only he and the radio operator survived, both severely injured. They both spent the better part of a year in hospitals before being fit for service again. By that time the Luftwaffe was suffering from fuel shortages so that bombers saw very little action for the rest of the war, which very likely saved their Lives. Those two were the only guys of the original 1939 crews in that particular squadron who survived the war.
They met every year to celebrate their second birthday and both eventually died in the same year.

>>64903236
>CO gets to show off his bitch and sidepiece
Neat

>>64902978
Not a family member but a family friend was in the Marines during Desert Storm and was there when they were bulldozing over Republican guard in trenches and shit. Never got too specific but from what he said it was pretty fucked.

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>>64902978
binlan
>1756
>my ancestor who is 19 years old at the time.
>lives in the same village as a 28 year old girl (important for later)
>Sweden enters the 7 years war and intends to get a "quick easy win in Pomerania"
>Pomeranian war
>Due to incompetence and corruption and straight up sabotage, the military is hilariously underfunded, rotten uniforms, rusted muskets, laughable logistics etc.
>My ancestor ends up in Pomerania
>most of the force dies of hunger and disease
>meanwhile the 28 year old girl moves to some manor and works there
>He is in Pomerania for 1-2 years then sent home (I think he also became sick, but survived)
>in the same instant the girl moves back to the village and they marry instantly
>Pomeranian war ends in status quo ante bellum after 30 000 casualties (again mostly to disease)

Granpa once got to shoot at russians with a 7,35 mm Carcano. He said he was sure his aim was good(he was a hunter and game ward) but the shitty carcano shot everywhere but where he aimed.

>>64903420
No photos, but at his funeral I met a few of his surviving collegues and they mentioned many of these events as well.

No need to rewrite history, just change your understanding of how slow wartime supply chains were back then, as well as the need to squeeze every bit of use out of everything they had, no matter how old or outdated it was.

There is a similar story of old tanks still in use after their supposed obselescence in J Foley's book 'Mailed Fist'. He takes over a Troop in April 43 and finds that his squadron consists (at first) of a single rusty Mk2 armed with a 2 pounder. You have to understand tha just because a new model is invented/manufactured on a certain date, it doesnt mean that every single tank in the world suddenly goes 'bing!' and is upgraded instantly like in a computer game. It takes time for the new stuff to filter down and the old stuff replaced, especially if there is a war on and the old stuff still has some use left in it. 'Make do and mend' was a byword in those days.

It has always been like this. When I served in BAOR in the 80s/90s my unit still used 7.62mm SLRs and LMGs, dispite the SA80 being issued to Infantry units a decade earlier. We still had Chieftain tanks in use in 1991, dispite the Challenger coming into use in 83. My unit was still using a few Bedford RL trucks from the 60s.

It used to take time to upgrade everything, with the old stuff having a tendency to stay in use alongside the new long after new stuff has been brought in to replace it.

>>64902978
>Poland 1939, first week of WW2
>my grandparents wake up in the middle of the night to a fuck-huge loud noise in the house
>they run to the kitchen
>there is this gigantic fucking bomb that fell through the roof in the middle of the kitchen
>a dud
>o kurwa, o kurwa, o kurwa
>the entire family quickly leaves the house and goes to a family next town over
>they come back a month later to get their stuff
>the house is gone, a crater is where the kitchen used to be
Incredible luck.

>>64902978
>grandpa works the lathe in a factory
>war starts
>grandpa works the lathe in a factory making shells and bombs

>>64902978
My grandfather worked on the B-52 that almost nuked North Carolina.
My other grandfather was on a destroyer that was torpedoed in the Mediterranean. He never told any stories of being in the Navy. I didn’t even know exactly what he did.

>>64903106
> Their driver was a mechanical engineer and after fine tuning the engines of the squadron they managed to get a bit more speed out of their sluggish ride, so after a day's driving, when they reported their position, HQ didnt believe them because "A churchill can't go that fast".
Bullshit

>>64903520
Reason say does rewrite history is there is zero evidence of the 2pdr MK I or II Churchills in Normandy and it would drastically change how certain battles would be analyzed since equipment that people actually had does play a huge factor into that and there is a huge world of difference in capabilities between a 2pdr vs a 6pdr or 75mm armed vehicle. Usually there is also documentation of which tanks and models were which as part of each battalion hence why we know there were a scattered MK I's in Italy being used as a specialized close support unit.

>>64903513
If his carcano had it's barrel cut short it sure as shit didn't shoot straight, they had progressive rifling so a shortened barrel meant unstabilized bullets, especially in cold weather.

>>64903533
B'ish engineering, please understand.

My grandpa was a Navy flight engineer in Vietnam. His sub-hunting plane accidentally wandered into the no-fly zone and was being actively intercepted by MiGs before they managed to cross back over.

He also got put on body-retrieval duty from that fire people liked to blame John McCain for.

>>64903533
They painted them red and they go faster. I seriously don't doubt that some modifications were made because the Bongs made some crazy changes to their vehicles having once strapped an 18pdr to a Stuart.

>>64902978
I know nothing about my grandfather's experience as a naval officer in Korea, save that he lost all hearing in one of his ears from the ship's guns. Sadly he died before I was old enough to really know him.

>>64903533
NTA and I'm not exactly a mechanic myself (nor an expert on Churchill or WW2 tank engines), but if I were to guess, it seems likely that the engine could have been not tuned as high as it could have been for the sake of reliability: possible reasons include ensuring that it won't knock itself to death if it gets a bad batch of fuel, and/or to make absolutely sure the internals don't get overstressed due to excessive torque/RPM
If that was the case, then it's not implausible that a bit more power could have been gained (as far as I understand, something like adjusting the carbs to let more fuel in, advancing ignition timing, and/or adjusting/removing the governor to let it rev higher), at potential cost of fuel economy and/or engine lifespan.

>>64903711
Modifications like strapping on extra armor or fuel cans, sure.
You’re not “fine tuning” engines in the field with the result of any noticeable increase in speed.

>be my great-grandfather in France in the 1940s
>part of the Resistance
>on a mission to plant explosives on a railway somewhere in the forest
>have to carry bags full of explosives through the forest at night
>come accross a road, random German soldier walking there finds 4 men carrying suspiscious bags on foot in the middle of the night
>Screams at them to stop and point them with his rifle
>Grandfather's buddy shoots him with an SMG
>this was not supposed to go this way
>shots fired, dead body in the middle of the road
>they decide to abort the mission, hide the bags in a ditch nearby and come back later to finish the job
>go back home for the night
>realize on the way that one of the bags had a tag with the name of one of them on it
>oh shit
>decide to go back for the bags
>arrive back on scene at dawn, German MP already there investigating the murder
>One of grandpa's buddy distracts the Germans with bullshit testimony while grandpa crawls around to the bags
>Finds bags, tears off tag
>Manage to exfil undetected

Thank god fingerprints and DNA were not a thing back then

>>64903745
>Thank god fingerprints and DNA were not a thing back then
They were just in their infancy though.

>>64903725
There are engineers whose sole job is to fine tune the machines used by the factory they work at, because every machine is just a tiny bit different even when they're the same model, even today. So I imagine a WW2 tank built on manual tooling could absolutely benefit from some optimization.

My grandpa fought in Korea. He never really talked about except for one time he mentioned there was a guy in his unit who liked to hunt Chinese with a recoilless rifle lol

When he died and my mom went through his stuff she found his diary/journal from the war and there was an entry about a night he stabbed a Chinese soldier to death who was trying to sneak into their trench.

My uncle (dad's brother) fought in Vietnam (also didn't talk about it), they had a cousin who was killed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive.

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>>64902978
My great-granddad was in the BEF and fought the Germans in France in 1940. He was evacuated from Dunkirk and while on the beach he was told to drop all his kit to make room for more men so he had to hide several packets of cheap French cigarettes under his helmet to get them home.
He fought in Italy after that. He was a big fan of poetry and I have an English poetry book that was given to him by the people of a village he liberated with a note inside. I can't find it right now but it says something like "to the brave English soldiers, a gift of books from the people of *Italian village* organised by *mayor's name*"
Pic related it's his Dunkirk medal.

>>64903228
>>64903232

Wellington P2515 of 37 Squadron RAF
(Vickers Wellington Mk. IA. / LF-H)

Took at 22:51 on 23rd from Feltwell for a recon mission over Germany with distraction of leaflet dropping raid.
Shot down by anti-aircraft fire - 24 March 1940.Delmenhorst, near Bremen, Germany.

Sergeant Douglas Warren Wilson 566477 : KIA
Flying Officer Philip Francis Templeman 39767 : died of wounds (31 March 1940)
Sergeant K R Say: POW
Aircraftman J A Burke: POW
Leading Aircraftman E Lawson: POW
Leading Aircraftman J R Clark: POW

My grandfather (he was extremely old when he had my mom) managed to dodge WW1 entirely and spent it in England where he sold horses to the army at ridiculous inflated, eye watering markups, became vastly wealthy and had multiple affairs. Eventually at the age of 70 in the 60s he married my grandmother who was 24 at the time. There's a huge bunch of pictures of him posing in uniform between like 1917 and 1960s, like dozens of them, and when my mom, who was into family history, had them looked at by a military historian they're all not right, like the cap badges and medals are wrong, etc.
He was in the home guard in WW2, so some of those are ok. The basis of the generational wealth that gives me a good life was a sharp dealing conman with a predilection for stolen valour.
I'm ok with this.

>>64903502
>you will never have 18th century ptsd before your brain is developed and an old maid/cousin bred by her employer to marry, only to ratio it out with your own 9 brats

>>64902978
I’m related to one of the pilots that are credited for the kill on Yamamoto, the master mind of the Pearl Harbor attack, in Operation Vengeance.

>Family friend of my grandpa served with Air Force intelligence during the 1944-45 Philippines campaign (Luzon).
>Is issued with a M1 carbine, expected to perform rear-echelon work.
>During the push to Manila, is stationed at a rear CP which is rushed by Japanese infiltrators.
>Several guys get grenade'd/bayoneted
>Grandpa's pal draws a bead on a Jap rushing him from the jungle, empties entire 15 round magazine on him.
>Jap is still rushing him
>Retrieves a officer's .45, fires a shot
>The Jap goes down immediately.
>Checks the Japanese body, counts 11 bullet holes on his torso.
>Switched to a M3 greasegun after that

Ended the war on a sad note, came down with polio and lost his ability to walk later in 1945. Did competitive shooting with handicap groups in the postwar (Paralympics? not sure).

>>64903745
Other story from my grandfather in Algeria
>be 21 years old French medical student
>war breaks out in Algeria, sand people want their country back
>be drafted as field medic
>wander over small villages in the desert to look for insurgents with his unit
>find an entire village slaughtered by the FLN (Algerian rebels) because its inhabitants were too nice to the French
>platoon gets ambushed two times, have to carry and treat the wounded while waiting for medevac for hours in the middle of nowhere, basically have to resort to WWI-era triage
>be sent on several bombing scenes to assist with the casualties
>one of his duties as a medic is to monitor POWs during "questioning"
>sign a few death certificates, apparently lots of Algerians have heart issues or bleed uncontrollably fast

Fast forward 40 years :
>sand people now have their country back
>but they don't like it so now they come to the country they kicked out in the first place
>the very same people who sent you to war now spit on you and condemn your actions
>you suffered, witnessed unspeakable shit, saw buddies die and risked your own life for nothing
>the people you fought against now roam freely in the streets of your hometown

And that's why I will never join the army. At the end of the day the politicians will backstab you and shake hands with the people they sent you to war against.

>>64902978
after my grandfathers funeral, my fathers uncle talked to my father and asked him if he knew what his father did during WWII. In the early days of the war, or even prior to it, he had a bad knee injury and infection that made him lose his leg from the thigh downwards. That's why he had to wear a prosthetic leg and was unfit for military service. So he could work on his small farm throughout the war.
During the later stages of the war our local POW camp was mostly filled with prisoners from the soviet territories that were forced to work under the worst conditions, mostly in coal mines. Tens of thousands died. So the other occupation of my grandfather was to use his horse carriage to deliver bodies to the local mass graves.
As far as I know he never talked about it, but it was something that bothered him throughout his life

>>64902978
Med Swarthoid here - great uncle was a war hero in ww1 - other great uncle was drafted into ww2 and got blown up by Greek Partisans when they ambushed his convoy

>>64903524
>the house is gone
Poles really do steal everything

>grand dad is doing maneuvers inna states
>has LT everyone hates
>LT is very up tight about inspection and tidiness
>LT goes to sleep
>grand dad and buddies steal LT carbine
>piss down the barrel
>return to tent
No war stories.

>>64902978
>post nam or late 70s army in europe
>uncle chilling as a young man
>they have a CGRI and fail it
>some general is fucking pissed and just yelling at his formation for some reason calling them pieces of shit
>at the end the general goes "does anyone have anything for me"
>near the back of the formation hear a slow low rising "fuuuuucccckk youuuuuuuuuuu"
>general goes "very well" walks away.

late 70s post nam army must have been crazy.

>Uncle was a green beret in nam
>operated alone past enemy lines for several months on end quietly tracking VC movements, cataloging positions, and occasionally rescuing downed American pilots that had been struck by SAMs
>he and a friend were sent in to help a company with a troublesome area plagued by snipers and constant VC attacks
>began searching for positions and committing night attacks against the VC, (that's a strong word, they pretty much committed serial murder)
>for ever kill over the course of about a week or so, cut all their ears off and put them on a necklace
>When they had enough ears, his colleague cut off his airborne patch and put it on the ring of ears, placed it in a highly trafficked area
>No more sniper attacks or vc reinforcements to that area after that

>>64902978
>Great grandpa too young for WW1 too old for WW2
>Grandpa too young for WW2 too old for Vietnam
>Dad too young for Vietnam, too old for Afghanistan
>I was too young for Afghanistan and will be too old for WW3

>be "dustoff" helicopter medevac guy
>inna hot LZ
>triage some wounded dudes and load them on helicopter
>bullets flying everywhere so yelling for pilot to take off
>helicopter not taking off
>look in cockpit
>pilot is dead "all over the place" he said
>next he remembers he's safe at base
>told that he climbed into cockpit and flew helicopter back
>he has no memory of that at all
>was in helicopters all the time and was familiar with them, but had never actually flown one before that

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>>64905072
>will be too old for WW3

My grandpa had a brother who landed on Peleliu, fell face first into the sand while climbing over the side of his lvt, aspirated a bunch of sand, and got sent home later because of nasty lung infections. His older brother was on a machine gun crew and killed by a mortar fighting at Monte Cassino covering a donkey train bringing wounded down the mountain.

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When my grandfather was stationed in Korea in the late 50s, they had a major problem with local boys sneaking onto bases and stealing everything that wasn't bolted down. American troops called them "slicky boys." He saw one of them take a motorcycle and carry it away on his back once. American brass didn't really know what to do about it because no matter how tight security was, some always managed to get away. One night, some poor, unsuspecting retard decided to steal from the Turkish soldiers based nearby. The Turks killed him and strung up his body on the front gate of their camp. American higher-ups were pissed but the Turks didn't give a shit. After that, nobody stole from them.

Had a grandmother, kind old lady who ran a corner sweet shop when I was a child. I found out from her just before she died that she spent the war working in a munitions factory making explosives. That was a big eye opener for me.

>>64905110
>Operator, can you temp load huey.air?
>Ok. But your brain won't be able to keep it in for more than an hour or two

>father claims that he helped develop some version of the 249.
>also claims a monkey ran around his FOB with a grenade, dragging it around by the pin.
My personal favorite was about a village getting sick from contaminated water, because their well had dead Russians in it.
Just to name a few off the top of my head

One of my great uncles served in Korea in the PLA. Supposedly he was one of 2 men in his unit to survive the conflict. All my other older male relatives did mandatory military service in Taiwan. My dad complained about how heavy the Garand was.

>>64904077
I call bullshit.

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>>64902978
>Gramps 25th Infantry Division in Korea
>On a escort mission to help move multiple wounded from field triage.
>Multiple ambulance only protected by a few jeeps with .30cals.
>Convoy comes under heavy fire, front escort jeep and one ambulance get hit.
>Men bail from the Jeep and ambulance.
>Both now block the entire convoy.
>Gramps, under fire, hops in the burning ambulance and pulls two wounded out.
>Gets in driver seat of ambulance, rams the burning jeep off the road as well as the ambulance.
>Convoy continues.
>Silver Star.
>No citation provided.

He was later shot in the chest 1/4innfrom his heart and lived till his 80s. Never but in for the purple heart. Never said a word about the war other than one time he told Grandma the silver star story. So I'm sure it's worse that what he told her.
Pic related.

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>be great-grandfathers brother
>finish out WW2 with 4 fucking Purple Hearts
>at this point, the family largely has no idea what 3 of them are for because
>one of them was given to him for getting shot in the foot because he was taunting a German sniper with said foot
>comes back from war jittery as fuck
>my great-grandfather nicknames him "Jumpy"
>dude's PTSD became his nickname with the family for the next 40 years

>Detailed to be acting NCOIC of an all black detachment in the occupation of Japan
>Japanese thought blacks were America's night fighters
>it was a supply unit
>Grandpa telling me about how it ran a huge "Black market"
>He's telling me this story at a family restaurant in the middle of the city
>Also one of the highest VD rate in the whole occupation

>>64908786
>one of them was given to him for getting shot in the foot because he was taunting a German sniper with said foot
Classic Jumpy.

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>>64902978
My great uncle Bob was a Marine and fought on Tarawa. He talked very openly about his time in combat - probably because it was so short. He told me he hit the beach and crawled around under fire for a few hours, then he& his buddy "flushed out" a Jap machine gun nest with grenades, and then with a great big smile he told me about how he and the same buddy "cut down" the 4 or 5 Japs that came running out of the machinegun nest. About 20 minutes later he took shrapnel in the back& thigh from a mortar, and that was that, his war was over. He spent some time on a hospital ship and then was discharged. He said it was the best day of his entire life - he killed the enemy& got a ticket home. He also said that a lot of the guys he was with who survived Tarawa later went on to fight on Saipan, and he always felt it was a blessing that he was spared from Saipan.
He later married my great aunt, funnily enough a half-Japanese woman, and he died back in 2015-2016. Somewhere my old man has a badass photo of uncle Bob smoking a cig and wielding a Thompson when he was a Sheriff's deputy in the 50's, but unfortunately I don't know where that picture is.
Anyways, thanks for killing those Japs, uncle Bob

>>64909044
PIc not rel, that is not uncle Bob

>>64908858

Thanks. And thanks to OP for reminding. I just filed the NPRC form to get the process started to get his medals to me. I'm almost certain he was buried with them Purple Hearts but I want them anyways to show my boys.

Heard this one alot
>grandpa was a sgt fighting in France in ww2
>their own mortar exploded and killed the guys in the trench
>grandpa's helmet strap was cut and guy behind him died instead

>be maternal grandfather in Korea, part of a US Army mortar crew
>his unit is stationed next to a South Korean unit one night
>he's awake for some reason, and suddenly he sees a North Korean soldier walk out of the fog as casually as if he's strolling in the park, no rifle to be seen
>Grandfather watches him, and the Nork soldier suddenly stops, looks down into a foxhole with a sleeping South Korean soldier in it, and nonchalantly takes out a pistol and shoots him dead
>Grandfather makes his presence known and points his rifle at the Nork
>Nork throws his pistol down, reaches into his jacket, takes out a small South Korean flag and waves it frantically
>Grandfather shoots him dead and for some reason keeps that flag until the day he dies
And at some other point
>be standing somewhere with a buddy
>suddenly feel a WACK on his arm
>assume his buddy punched him and turn around to go WTF
>his buddy isn't there
>realizes he just got shot in the arm

>>64903725
In ww2, it's not implausible, because the correct settings, fuel mix, etc were not universally known. I know it happened with aircraft so I don't doubt it might have happened with tanks

>>64903533
>t. It's unpossible to "overclock" your computer!!

>>64908660
>Matrix meets Johnny Mnemonic

>>64902978
>war
Granddad told me a fine story about ambushing badguys
Found out later from my dad that his dad was a terminal LARPer, was underage and got spanked by great-granddad for wanting to join the local anti-occupation insurgency, and never lived it down
Also, uh, he wanted to join the pro-Axis insurgents, and he changed the factions in the story he told me

A better story is one of his cousins, who did fight for the good guys in one of the immediate post-WW2 anti-Commie insurgencies around the world
>be platoon leader
>told to go out at night and do active patrolling, lay ambushes, do hearts and minds, all that shit
>lay an ambush one night
(He told me this story after I'd read about this myself, and his description of the layout was textbook)
>nothing
>repeat the next night, nothing
>radio back to base after a bit: "say, what do we do if we're outnumbered?"
>base: "trigger the ambush anyway, command wants bodies, don't worry you'll be fine"
>x to doubt
>after a while, sure enough one night, the Commies are here
>tons of them
>TONS
>THERE'S A WHOLE NOTHER COMPANY.webm
>actually probably a short battalion
>his squad leaders: "what do we do, do we trigger the ambush?"
>him: "no, shut the fuck up, lie down, and pray they don't stumble on us!"
>enemy goes march march marching away
>RTB
>"uh yeah another quiet night out there, boss, nope didn't see nuffin"

>Great grandpa was an Australian light horseman in WWI
>Only story he told my dad that when he was charging the enemy he ducked down and his best friend next to him who was still standing got killed
>Never said anything about the war other than that
>Get curious about him one day and look up his service record and unit diaries
>He fought Turks and Germans in several bloody battles (some with hand to hand combat) all the way from Cairo to Damascus
>In 1917 while in Palestine he received news his mother and younger brother had died
>Tried to sign up for WWII but was too old for active service
>Spent WWII in Australia's version of the Home Guard
>Dedicated his life thereafter to public service, serving as a councillor, mayor, justice of the peace, president of the local RSL branch (Australian version of the VFW)
>Died in 1970, hundreds of veterans from around the state lined the streets and formed a guard of honour for his casket (according to a newspaper article)
I wish I had some war stories to share but after reading his unit diary I can see why he never talked about the war.

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My great grandpa (picrel) was a sharpshooter in the French foreign legion with over 70 confirmed kills. He was in an international brigade in Morocco consisting mostly of American, his partner was a half black half injun dude. He was also polish so probably alcoholic. Never got to hear much of his stories because my great grandma would shut him up. He'd say he was a sharpshooter and grandma would tell him the only thing he could shoot were vodka shots.
I think he disappeared to America during WW2, probably to meet his American buddy, but he came back years later. Nobody really knew what happened. Found lots of files about him in archives and stuff. Sadly no exact war story.
My wife's side of the family has a few, she's Okinawan.

>be my wife's grandpa
>about 15 years old, WW2 just ended in there
>island is a wreck
>see GI snoozing, rifle sitting there
>fuckitwhynot.jpeg
>yoink the rifle and disappear into the brush
>don't want to merc people, just hungry
>see small pond with fish
>blast the shit out of it with. 30-06 like the ancestors intended
>works, living the dream
>MP who heard the commotions roll up
>caught red handed with stolen US weapon. Don't even speak a word of english
>They ask questions but I don't fucking understand. Only thing I can say is
>"Give me chocolate"
>MP looks at the rifle and my skinny ass, then at bucket of dead fishes
>pity look, actually gives me chocolate and lets me keep the gun
>now coolest kid in the block

Nowadays he does speak good English.
His stories about actual wartime are pretty hardcore though. He says he saw an actual river running red with blood, and also told of an event where the inhabitants if his city had to flee, and those that fled south all got fucking massacred.

>>64910261
>He says he saw an actual river running red with blood
>the inhabitants if his city had to flee, and those that fled south all got fucking massacred.
story please

>lets me keep the gun
that's Government Issue property, retard MP

my ex's ma is ancient and was actually a kid in WW2 and remembers eating C and D rations her dad was paid in for helping burger GIs do odd chores
she's still alive and mentally sound, amazingly

>>64902978
Had a Scottish grandpa in the RAF who was sent to Texas to train
>Be flying during a training mission, flying over the border with New Mexico
>engine fucks up somehow, too far to go back to base so he has to land it in a watermelon field
>gets out, helps himself to a watermelon because why not
>farmer shows up with a gun
>doesn't recognize the RAF uniform and doesn't know what Scottish people sound like, so he immediately assumes he's a German.
>frogmarches him back to the farmhouse
>he has to wait under gunpoint until someone comes to fetch him and explains he isn't a nazi
This was only one of two times he was held at gunpoint during his time in the states

>>64903223
>>64903239
Based.

>>64903502
>Marrying a 28 year old as a 19 year old o
in the 18th century
Your ancestor was a GILF lover.

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>>64910350
They're stories from Okinawa so it's naturally very fucked up
River of blood story is surreal but simple
>be my wife's grandpa
>13 years old
>go fuck around the river out of town
>it's fucking red
>blood red
>just another shitty day in my fucking life
>curiosity gets the better of me
>sneak upstream and reach a clearing
>mfw it's a fucking Japanese execution ground
>for some reason these fucking naicha aren't only killing people over there, they' re also killing pigs and dogs
>literal purge of anything breathing.
>lock eyes with one poor soul
>tfw I may become part of the river
>just sprint the fuck out of this place as fast as I can and hide for days
He has no fucking idea why they were executing random pigs alongside people.
I got something wrong in the second story, those that fled south survived and those that fled north died.

>US secure southern land pretty quick
>US army promises safety to those that flee south
>mfw almost nobody understands a fucking of english
>and half the town thinks it's a trick to line us and shoot us
>town basically splits in two
>family trusts the US and flee south
>other half flees to the north, deeper into the island
>American are actually nice, they give us food and water
>later find out what happened to the northern group
>Imperial army found them
>rounded almost everyone and forced them off a fucking cliff into the ocean

He also spoke of families being given grenades by the Japs to blow themselves up with (one grenade per family unit) in case American came. You'd basically surround it with your wife and kids and blow yourself up with it. Idk if he's seen it firsthand though.

>>64910350
>she's still alive and mentally sound, amazingly
That's pretty cool, my wife's grandpa is too. I think in that family everyone from that generation then started working on the military bases as cooks and stuff, kinda funny.

>>64911414
>no fucking idea why they were executing random pigs alongside people
scorched earth policy perhaps?
was this during the invasion?
>dogs
that's not uncommon

>rounded almost everyone and forced them off a fucking cliff into the ocean
>He also spoke of families being given grenades by the Japs to blow themselves up with
yeah that's well-documented in Okinawan history

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>>64902978
Just from what I've heard, my maternal great grandfather fought in the American Expeditionary Force in WW1 and was one of the survivors of the lost battalion that were encircled in the Argonne Forest, a family book was written documenting his life I'd have to go find it. My paternal grandfather was a USAAF fighter pilot in WW2 who, belayed to me by my father, got into a dogfight with an ME-262 (early jet fighter) and was able to lose it in the clouds and drop down behind it, downing the jet. I don't know much about the rest of his service besides he was later shot down over Holland around Christmas and spent a month there before being sent back to England.

>>64902978
grandfather served as a combat engineer in 1967 six says war and war of attrition, during that time i do not remember specifically when he did a night patrol and seen something moving behind a bush, so his friends and him spotlight the target and started shooting, after inspecting the site, there was a camel standing with couple of bullet wounds on it like it is nothing..

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>Grandpa’s grandpa gets shipped off to fight the Spanish American War
>Is in a relatively cushy rear line unit, issued a trapdoor instead of a krag, things going pretty okay
>contracts Yellow Fever
>SpanAm war ends, frontline units go home, hes left behind with the other rear line units
>Philippine War starts while he has Yellow Fever and all the elite units are gone, ends up being way more brutal and nasty than the planned SpanAm war, mass graves, civilians executed, Americans crucified and buried alive
>Comes home, keeps his rifle, basically never says more than ten words in a day for the rest of his life
>grandpa has stories of spending a week camping with him where hed literally never talk
Weve got campaign medals but we really have no idea regarding any of the specifics of his service besides how long he was in country.

>>64902978
I've got a granduncle that turned 18 and was drafted just before WWII was actually over. By the time the train trip for him to report in was over the war was too, they didn't really need him so they sent him back.

the oldest brother of my grandfather was in the SS and died during the battle for Orphan hill during the battle for Narva.
considering he joined in late 1941 he must have seen some shit.
sadly none of it got handed down due to my family having to burn his letters ect. to avoid reprisals.
my grandfather was very, very tight lipped about it.

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>Uncle serving on aircraft carrier during Vietnam.
>Fellow sailor gets outed as gay
>Gay sailor gets thrown overboard

>>64902978

Frenchy here, story of Grandpa Jean:

>1940's, war happend, air battle between fighter happening, Jean Pierre and friend look at it, Great Grand Pa - which survive WW1 as a Grunt from 1914 to 1918 - , goes outside and yell at Jean to get the fuck inside the cave, which promptly comply, friend mock him for learning it's father, litteraly 20 seconds later, 20mm ammo land where Jean and it's friend where, the friend ending up dead.

>1943 Be 16 y/o, send in germany because of STO ( Service du travail Obligatoire ), Jean end up in Munich, in a factory crafting vaccum bulb, Jean must install vacuum bulb for german torpedo and radios
>But since Jean learn about electronic on it's spare time, and no one know it, he tell it's supervisor that vacuum bulb don't end up being well fixed, which is bad for war, so ask if he can glue them, the supervisor being an incompetent italian, tell him to do so, what the italian doesn't now is, that the glue Jean use, make the glass porous after some weeks, and the whole system useless, the joke being that the factory end up creating new job, being russian prisonner nearby him, that received all defective vacuum bulb, and destroy them with hammer to recycle them.

>Later Jean's factory get visited by allies Bomber, a 1000 lmb bomb detonating around 100m from him, flying horizontaly 500m down the road, he ends up in a bakery, the daughter of the baker saving him, it took him 4 month to walk again and finally bang the bakery's daughter, he would often laugh that maybe I have cousin in Germany.

>>64912672
very based granddad

>In the end, the Italian hide leaflet under Jean bed, and straight called the Gestapo... Jean was given a free ticket to Dachau, where he goes from 60kg, to 25kg.
>Setting free, and send back, he arrived few hours after the factory was burned to the ground, fortunatly it's comrade where on another shift, and survived, and took care of him for few month
>Unfortunatly, the Italian was send on another Factory, and few month later, he was free by american troop, he get back up home, being welcomed by communist which wanted to hang im, but fortunatly, great grandpa arrived with it's veteran friend, and shoot at communist with it's 12 gauge charged with salt, and took him back home
> He end up looking for the Italin guy for 2 year, goign from Germany, to Italy, to Paris, but never find him


And here's the story of my great uncle, which was Alsatian, but I don't have lot of information about it, since he almost never talked about it.

>Since being Alsatian in 1943, uncle Pierre end up being forced draft, as every other alsatian, he think he is smart by asking to join the luftwaffe, to be a pilot, and desert with it's plane
>What he doesn't know, is that german don't trust alsatian, he did end up in the luftwaffe, but not as a pilot, since he went straight to Luftdivision
>His regiment being trained near "Reims", he plyed the dumb one, spelling "Reims" badly everytime he was asked where he was going, and telling he didn't know where it was, He travelled 6 month like this, finally, he meet FeldGendarm along the way, which took him, and tell him his regiment was in russia since 4 month, and was send straigth up there...
>Pierre never talked about the east front, just saying that two other alsatian tried deserting in Russian Line, and were badly tortured, which prompt him to not even tried...
>he was able to join the allies line in 1945, and surrender to english troop, which gave them to French troop, and was free after several month after the end of the war

>>64912672
> friend mock him for learning it's father

For listening, sorry for my broken english.

Last story

>Maternal grandparent
>1944, be child living in the same village in champagne
>German heer panzertruppen retreating, and giving food to them, several NCO's and officier gather the mayor and some people,and told them to go hide hide in the forest nearby for few days, because there are other german soldier in black uniform following them, but they are not nice one...
>Everyone gather possessions, and goes straight in the forest, save a few people which say "Never trust German!"
> few hours later, from the forest, everyone hear gunshot, tank firing, and huge smoke coming from the village
>Black uniform following the panzer truppen? SS panzerTruppen which killed people who didn't go into forest, and burned half the village

Grandpa didn't talk much ever, he was a very quiet man. All we ever knew about his service in the navy was the couple details he told grandma and a couple newspaper clippings. He was a radio man in a torpedo bomber in WW2 in the pacific. He specifically asked to be in the pacific because his middle name was Adolph, gotta love the German lineage. He was in charge of singing the national anthem, he always sang in church growing up, over the radio so the squadron knew when to pull up and release torpedoes. His squad suffered heavy casualties constantly, so much so they disbanded the remaining members to other squadrons because they deemed that squadron cursed.

Not family but here's the story of how the man the RCL's Branch 235 Chicoutimi is named after got his Military Medal.
>Be French-Canadian lumberjack in the late 40s
>Join the militia in the Régiment du Saguenay
>Learn about the Korean War, sign up fpr deployment
>Train in Washington state as a Van Doo to prepare for the hills of Korea
>Get to Korea as radioman because he spoke both French and English
>During a fight with the Norks, he ends up being the only guy with a grenade
>CO asks for someone to throw a nade in an enemy bunker's window
>Throws it, hits the frame and it comes back to him
>Picks it back up and puts it in window
>Dead Norks
His CO (still alive at 101 AFAIK) wrote the citation in such a manner so the grenade was an enemy grenade, not his own. We were interviewing the CO 2 years ago and he told us that part. They got to meet each other after 70 years. It made the news in Chicoutimi. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1983093/retrouvailles-guerre-coree-soldats?depuisRecherche=true
LCpl Gagnon died last year, aged 98. He was still charming the ladies at the Legion until the end.

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>>64902978

My Polish paternal grandfather served in the Austro-Hungarian infantry during WWI, while my Polish maternal grandfather was in the Imperial Russian horse artillery.

They might have been shooting at each other during WWI, then possibly fighting side-by-side against the Russians in the follow on Polish-Soviet War.

>>64914979
>how?
Hapas were all over the Empires in the Victorian era, anon
Kipling spent a lot of effort writing stories about how racemixing is a Bad Idea

>>64914979
>confederannefrankigger doesn't know what a quadroon is
fucking larper

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Not a veteran’s story, but still very much war-related

>be great-grandmother
>be little Jewish girl living in Warsaw
>Nazis invade, siege the city
>survive airstrikes, artillery barrages, even German soldiers randomly firing an MG-42 into the Jewish Quarter at one point
>house gets confiscated when Germans start forcing all the Jews into ghettos and shooting anyone they catch outside
>manages to avoid the roundup because she has deep blue eyes and they just assume she’s Aryan
>non-Jewish family friend took her in and had her pose as his illegitimate daughter
>it works because he’s a priest or something and everyone kinda just takes him at his word
>survive war
>FFW 44 years
>left Poland because Communists took over and surviving family moves to Argentina to live alongside escaped Nazis
>married dashing young gentleman from Panama and settled in Panama City
>has five kids and a nice house, the war is long behind her, Noriega is an asshole but so long as you keep your head down, it’s manageable
>Americans invade in Christmas 1989
>jets yeeting bombs everywhere
>artillery fire burning down half the neighborhood
>errant missile from an Apache takes out the garage and her family’s lovingly maintained Cadillac from the 50s
>Americans are all running around in German-style helmets and camo shooting at anyone so much as carrying a stick
>have mother of all PTSD episodes
>Army Rangers blow up her front door because someone told them there was an arms cache in her home (her husband had a collection of vintage 19th Century revolvers, all of which were stolen)
>one of them points an M16 right in her face
>basically spends the next few years a mental trainwreck (even after she recovered, she was a shell of her former self)
>contributed enormously to her early death
>husband spends the rest of his life seething at George Bush and the USA in general (he had been pro-American in the 60s and 70s and had a lot of American friends)

>>64919040

btw I sadly never really got to know her because she died when I was just a baby, this is mostly stuff I heard I from my grandfather and great-grandfather before they died

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> be grandpa Mike
> flunked out of flight school
> gets sent to Glider school
> he now crash lands into combat
> 1944 Normandy
> orders are to bail out after landing and go to the beach
> what if the landings don't happen?
>Go to the beach
> what if the allies are pushed back?
>Go to the beach
> what if...
> just go to the fucking beach
> attached to 401st Glider Infantry
> land in a field and skid into a hedge row
> grandpa is KOed in his seat
> guys he's hauling bail out and just leave him there assuming he's dead killing on impact
> its already dawn
> wrestles himself free
> the fuckers stole his 45 auto
> only weapon is his combat knife
> walking through farm field when grandpa Mike hears cruch cruch cruch behind him
> draws knife and is about his stab a motherfucker
> turns around and staring at him is this 500-600 pound Brown Swiss calf cow
> *happy moo noises*
> grandpa pats calf and goes to beach
> grandpa finished story with "Being a farm boy from Wisconsin I was never happier to see a cow in my entire life."

My great aunt was a nurse in a big German hospital during the war (kindest woman you'd ever meet, but all her life she'd prominently display the portrait photo of her fiancee in his SS-uniform in her living room, he fell in the war).
Anyway, she was the supervisor of an entire hospital wing and therefore responsible for allthe occupants' safety. One night when the bombers came she went to fetch the key to the bunker, but she could not find it. In panic she evacuated the hospital wing and distributed all patients to different bunkers. In the aftermath they found their designated bunker completely destroyed. This must be one of the reasons why she was such a firm believer

>>64912442
So they sent him to join the submarine service?

>be gramps
>be little japanese boy living inna hiroshima
>get on the train to go to school
>see b-san in the sky
>smart enough to get down
>nuke.webm
>all the people that didn’t get down were killed by flying glass
>evacuate to other family in nagasaki
>get nuked again
>die of a heart attack in the 80s because lolchainsmoker
never had any complications from the radiation

>>64919040
>works because he’s a priest or something and everyone kinda just takes him at his word
Back in the day, before mandatory identification papers and shit, in many countries priests were part of the citizen registration system and therefore had the authority to vouch for the identity of anyone

>>64921801
FiL just had bowel resection but otherwise no complications from being born in late 1945

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>first days of the winter war
>russians attack great grand fathers position
>order comes to fall back
>dude gets tangled into barbed wire
>gets shot to shreds by a DP27
T.anon who himself almost caught a 30mm 80some years later

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>>64912768
>>64912740
Good stories, thanks froganon

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>>64902978
>grandpa was in Italy during ww2 with ppcli
>bivvied on some bombed out farm just outside of ortona a few days before the big kerfuffle
>he was next in line to go out to their corner of the perimeter trench theyd dug for lookout
>farmhouse is lousy with god damned lice and he can't sleep, so him and his buddy just say fuck it and leave to start their watch early
>a couple minutes later the whole farm gets shelled farmhouse and barn take direct hits, completely fucked
>only people who survived the night were the 12 or so guys out in the perimeter line, he thought maybe 25-30 dead inside

I'm only alive because of Italian horse lice.

My great uncle was a gunnery officer in the RCN during the 2nd battle of the Atlantic .
He mainly talked about drinking rum, sometimes firing depth charges and being unsure 90% of the time if he actually got a kill .

Honestly, it's really fucked that i'm writing a Greentext for my Grandfather, basically in 1962/63- 65, they knew war was coming and they would be drafted, So he saw a friend signing up in a post office in Tony Wisconsin and did the same. he ended up a radio repairman in the Marines who actually repaired radios and didn't actually become a secret agent. I just wish he managed the barrel of his model 100 winchester so it didn't get a bulge in the barrel from actual deer hunting.
My dad has the Ruger model 44 he bought at the PX in either 62/63, but I've got the Winchester model 100 that he definitely purchased post 64 since they went to pressed basket weaved walnut checkering.

fun fact, one of his friends had a court case where he got hit by a car, in an accident. Said friend bought a red 1960 impala convertible with a 409, they then poached deer with it and a spotlight till the Dnr got helicopters

>>64909382
>president of the local RSL branch (Australian version of the VFW)
Except the RSL is classy and the VFW is a dump.