Posted: 11/16/2017 2:58:38 AM EDT
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WWII. B24 warfare over the Mediterrenian. A Liberator is flying through the flak box when he feels a sharp tug on his flak jacket. He's not hurt so he picks himself up and continues with his duties.
When he gets home he examines his flak jacket. He was hit with the part of the bomb casing that carried the bomb's serial number. The serial number exactly matched his GI serial number. |
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The Germans fought side by side with U.S. troops in WWII, once. Not many people know that.
Battle for Castle Itter |
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A B17 was hit by flak, plane began to burn and pilot called for the crew to bail out.
The tail gunner can't get behind the gun with his chute on. By the time the tail gunner got to the locker where his chute was stored it was smoldering. Eventually he jumped without a chute. He ended up falling through thick pine boughs and survived his fall, albeit with injuries, including to his back. He was captured and interviewed by the Germans who did not believe his story until the inspected the plane's wreckage, where they found the chute. The Germans sent the airman home via Switzerland. That is how I recall the account from reading it in History class. I'll try to Google and find a link. Wow, a number of airmen survived jumps without chutes. An equally incredible story: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee Another: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2607895/Incredible-story-Lancaster-pilot-bailed-Germany-life-saved-searchlight-helped-parachute-wasnt-strapped-on.html A list of 16 no parachute survivals and briefs on their stories: http://www.strangehistory.net/2013/12/14/the-gannet-club-parachuteless-in-ww2/ This guy must be who I was thinking about: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alkemade |
| The only story my grandfather ever told me about his time in WWII that involved combat was him leaned up against a wall when his carbine that he was holding against his chest exploded from an incoming round. It had hit the magazine well and detonated/ scattered the cartridges saving his life. |
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The Germans fought side by side with U.S. troops in WWII, once. Not many people know that. Battle for Castle Itter |
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That would make a good movie. Quoted:
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The Germans fought side by side with U.S. troops in WWII, once. Not many people know that. Battle for Castle Itter |
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Friend of mine as was told by his grandfather who served in WWII.
He (grandfather) was repairing a comms line on a telephone pole or something like a telephone pole. He kept hearing a buzzing sound and thinking it was a bee, he was swatting at it.Next buzz took a chunk out of the pole just above his head. He figured out it was a German sniper shooting at him,he dropped to the ground and took off for cover |
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Friend of mine was in Gulf War I. As they approached the Kuwaiti border a guy dressed in Hawaiian Shorts, a T Shirt and flip flops jumps out of a foxhole and comes running at them waiving his arms wildly and screaming something..... They think he could be a suicide bomber etc.....They lay down a line of automatic fire in the sand in front of him and the guy hits the deck.
As they cautiously approach the guy keeps saying in perfect American English- "Where the hell have you guys been?" "Thank God, You're finally here" "I've been waiting in that fucking hole for a month now"... etc.... Turns out the poor bastard was a Medical Student at the University of Chicago. He has gone home to see his family in Iraq and got press ganged into the military off the street...He had been sitting in the foxhole out in the middle of nowhere with a rifle, couple bottles of water, some tins of food etc...for a long time! |
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I would love to see that movie made. Make Adam Baldwin one of the American commanding officers. Now who is on our side that could play the defecting kraut commander? Quoted:
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The Germans fought side by side with U.S. troops in WWII, once. Not many people know that. Battle for Castle Itter |
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I believe the story is about red haired giants in Kandahar. Quoted:
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In for the sandbox sasquatch stories |
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That would make a good movie. Quoted:
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The Germans fought side by side with U.S. troops in WWII, once. Not many people know that. Battle for Castle Itter |
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In for the sandbox sasquatch stories There was a good fiction (or was it???) short story about a US mechanized unit going into VC/NVA controlled territory to capture a crashed UFO The name of the author escapes me And there are legends of giant apemen or creatures on Guadalcanal too |
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That would make a good movie. Quoted:
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The Germans fought side by side with U.S. troops in WWII, once. Not many people know that. Battle for Castle Itter |
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Friend of mine as was told by his grandfather who served in WWII. He (grandfather) was repairing a comms line on a telephone pole or something like a telephone pole. |
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Or UFO retrieval story behind enemy controlled territory There was a good fiction (or was it???) short story about a US mechanized unit going into VC/NVA controlled territory to capture a crashed UFO The name of the author escapes me And there are legends of giant apemen or creatures on Guadalcanal too |
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Not all Japanese-Americans served in the 442 RCT. A few served in the Pacific as interrogators. One managed to go on a mission on a PT boat where they went to a Japanese held island. They backed up the boat so as to make it look like a barge. The Japanese-American shouted in Japanese for the soldiers to light some fires so they could see where they were going. Thinking it was a supply barge, the soldiers joyfully compled. The PT opened with all they had and then full throttle out of there. Another Japanese-American crept out beyond the front line and listened in on a Japanese officer give instructions for the early morning attack. He then crept back to his lines and told his C.O. The guys in the front fox-holes were pulled back to secondary positions. In the morning, the Japanese struck with their grenades landing in the fox-holes. This was followed by a ferocious charge that was suddenly hit with small arms fire that drove all the surviving Japanese to the ground. The Japanese-American shouted in Japanese, "Stupid idiots! Get up and charge!" They did. The machine guns and small arms finished them off.
Pancho Villa hated the Chinese who settled in Mexico. Those were the Chinese kept out of America by the Chinese Exclusion Act and so they settled in South and Central America instead. Well, Villa's men raided a town and stole a lot of money. As a response, when the Mexican government raised troops among the Chinese, they recruited enough to fill two companies. Villa's men entered the town where the two companies were. The Chinese held their fire until Villa's men were within point blank range. They killed 3 out of 4. After that, Villa kille every single Chinese he captured, their Mexican wives and their children. Some Chinese served in Pershing's Punitive Expedition as teamsters, cooks, laundrymen, etc. When Pershing was pulling out, he knew that Villa would kill them so he brought them across the border and lobbied for them to be granted permanent alien residency. In WW II, the Fletcher class destroyer DD-579 Porter accidentally fired a torpedo at the battleship Iowa carrying FDR. It broke radio silence to warn the Iowa to turn. Investigation found that a sailor had done it by mistake. The Navy was going to court martial him but FDR said let it go. Later the Porter was sent to the Aleutians where its chain of bad luck continued. She was leaving port when she unloaded a 5" that she had in a gun barrel. The shell destroyed the base commandant's garden. Anyway, because of these mishaps, whenever the Porter identified herself to another USN ship, the ship greeted her with, "Don't shooot, we're Republicans." |
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Or UFO retrieval story behind enemy controlled territory There was a good fiction (or was it???) short story about a US mechanized unit going into VC/NVA controlled territory to capture a crashed UFO The name of the author escapes me And there are legends of giant apemen or creatures on Guadalcanal too |
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On patrol in Iraq we were taking a break at an Iraqi farmhouse. At some point one of the Iraqi soldiers we were with starts stamping the ground and pointing down. Turns out he felt that the ground below him was hollow. We start digging and a foot or so down we hit a wooden crate. We start digging it out and it is huge. We pull off one of the boards and see a bunch of plastic wrap. I think we hit the jackpot and are going to start pulling out all kinds of RPGs and 155 shells.
We start cutting away the plastic and the first thing I see "John Deere". This fucker had a brand new John Deere gator buried in his courtyard. No idea how he got it, but probably a passing convoy (RT Michigan was few miles away) got hit and they took it after. We flagged down a dumptruck and pulled it out of the hole. Got some fuel and it started right up. Patrolled back to base with an Iraq soldier driving a gator back to our COP. |
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@P2tharizo has one cool story I know of. This one? Next time we drink beer I've got something else interesting about this dude to tell you. Operation Husky. July 9/10, 1943 The first regimental sized airborne drop for the USA. The 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division made their first of 4 combat jumps during WWII. A 21 year old trooper from New Mexico was among those men. He would live on to make all 4 jumps with the 505, and the Battle of the Bulge. He would marry his sweetheart that he met while stationed in England, and live a long 94 years with her raising their children. But, in that moment, in the skies over Sicily, he was unsure of his fate. The young pilots of the C-47's were not used to flying in flak, and winds they had not practiced for. As soon as the first wave of AA fire hit, they were scattered. Once the green lights were turned on, troopers scrambled for the to get out. Some paratroopers had to scoot on their bellies in pools of vomit to reach the door. Once out of the planes, they were welcomed by random machine gun fire along with the AA guns firing into the air. As our young private was drifting down to a world unknown, one of his riser lines fell down, having been hit near the chute by flak or a bullet, and was flapping in front of him. When he landed, he was in total solitude. He was next to the stone wall of a farm house. He quickly cut the line that was flapping, and stuffed it into his pocket as a souvenir. He then went about unhooking from his harness. In the eerie quiet, he heard a sound. A clanking. They had heard rumors of a German Panzer Division in the region. He pictured a group of German infantrymen huddling behind a tank, moving up the road toward the invaders. This is it. He's done for, he thought. He quickly scrambled to get his Garand out of the jump case. It was no use. The sound was getting closer. He wasn't going to run. He was in the best Goddam outfit the Army had ever produced! At least, that's what they claimed. Why would they lie? He was going to take these bastards out before they got him! He huddled against the wall, readied a grenade, and flung it over when the sound was directly over from him. A few long seconds passed. BOOM! Followed by a desperate "MOOOOOOO". A cow. He had killed a fucking cow. He assembled his rifle, and went to try to find the rest of his unit. Due to the confusion, incorrect drop areas, he would later go on to dynamite the incorrect railroad bridge on that mission. At the end of the war, when the Germans were surrendering en masse, the, by that time, 23 year old sergeant was sent out with the enlisted men and told to check them for weapons as they were marching. Unsurprisingly, this was turned into a souvenir collecting mission. Waves of Germans marched on, as they were stripped of anything shiny or eye catching. Among the items collected that day, was this Tank Destruction Badge. The soldier wearing this had earned it by destroying an enemy tank with a hand held weapon. Now, this award was simply stripped from him, by a soldier from a far away land, from a place he'd never heard of. It was taken, as were many other items, without protest. RIP Ken Attached File Attached File |
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During WW II the USN had a few hundred 110 foot wood hull subchasers. Just slightly larger than a PT boat, they didn't carry the firepower (no torpedoes) and were a lot slower. However, they were more seaworthy. Like PT boats, they had some crews and in theory should get along, but not always. Here is an incident recalled by one enlisted sailor who tells about his C.O., nicknamed Cowboy.
We all had nicknames. Mine was Greek and his was Cowboy. I was in the wheelhouse one day when Cowboy yelled from below, "Hey Greek, go tell the cook to make some cherry pies." I went down to the galley and told Christian what Cowboy wanted and he said he had no shortening to bake pies. I went back to the wheelhouse and yelled down to Officers' Quarters, "Hey Cowboy, Christian don't have any shortening to make the pies." Then I went back to the galley. I no sooner started talking to the cook when Cowboy came sliding down the later. He said to Christian, "When I give an order for pies, if you're out of shortening I don't give a damn if you have to use axle grease. I want pies. Do you understand?" Christian said, "Yes, sir." Then Cowboy turned to me and said, "As for you Greek, I am an officer in the United States Navy, and I am to be addressed as 'Sir." Understand?" He turned to leave. I said, "Sir, I am Pappas, gunner's mate. From now on you do not call me 'Greek." That name is only for my shipmates." So we had our orders to make cherry pies. I really hated to do this to the skipper, but there was no other way. In the medical locker were fifteen or twenty brown bottles of medical supplies, a "pill for every ill." One of them was a full bottle of laxatives. We took about one-third of the bottle, crushed the pills into powder and cooking them in with the cherries for the pie. We used cooking oil for the crust - not too bad, a little hard. We used two big baking pans, one for the officers and one for the crew. Of course the crew didn't get the laxative pie. I didn't see the officers for a couple of days; then i got to the skipper and was talking to him about nothing in general. he mentioned the pie and how good it was, but he said the cooking oil we used gave all three officers the runs. Day and night they took turns running to the head. I was sorry the skipper had to suffer along with the two rebel officers." The HMS Deane was accepting the surrender of German U-boats. It was accompanied by the yacht Philante. Among the sailors sent from the Deane to board the U-boat was ERA A. J. Brown. The yacht Philante (almost top-heavy with newsreel cameramen and senior officers) was standing by to record this surrender for posterity. We crowded into the boat armed to the teeth with pistols, rifles and submachine guns and all went according to plan until we got alongside the U-boat. We suddenly realised that it was not going to be all that easy to clamber out of the boat on to the Sub's casing. The sea was choppy and the boat bobbed up and down alarmingly. We were much encumbered by our arsenal of weapons and, after several of the lads made undignified (and unsuccessful) attempts to get board, we were somewhat fluxmoxed. Then someone, with true matelot's resourcefulness, solved the problem. We calmly handed up our guns to the bemused Germans and climbed up with ease. Nonchalantly taking our guns back from the enemy, we went about the normal procedure of taking them prisoner. This unmilitary behavior did not seem at all out of place to us but the top brass in Philante were LIVID! We were all given a hell of a dressing down when we eventually got back on board but no disciplinary action was taken. I have seen this episode on cinema newsreels on several occasions and the reel of film has also been included in the well-known TV series War at Sea - but you will note that the censor has very definitely cut out the bit showing us handing our guns up to the Germans!! Similar thing happened to a GI with a bunch of German PoWs. They were loading everyone on trucks and the trucks were taking off. The last German ran and jumped into the truck with the GI guard following. The GI couldn't clamber aboard with his M-1 in his hands and he didn't have time to sling it. He threw it to a German who caught it. The GI then climbed aboard and the German handed him back his rifle. |
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During WW II the USN had a few hundred 110 foot wood hull subchasers. Just slightly larger than a PT boat, they didn't carry the firepower (no torpedoes) and were a lot slower. However, they were more seaworthy. Like PT boats, they had some crews and in theory should get along, but not always. Here is an incident recalled by one enlisted sailor who tells about his C.O., nicknamed Cowboy. What a blowout. War is hell. The HMS Deane was accepting the surrender of German U-boats. It was accompanied by the yacht Philante. Among the sailors sent from the Deane to board the U-boat was ERA A. J. Brown. The yacht Philante (almost top-heavy with newsreel cameramen and senior officers) was standing by to record this surrender for posterity. We crowded into the boat armed to the teeth with pistols, rifles and submachine guns and all went according to plan until we got alongside the U-boat. We suddenly realised that it was not going to be all that easy to clamber out of the boat on to the Sub's casing. The sea was choppy and the boat bobbed up and down alarmingly. We were much encumbered by our arsenal of weapons and, after several of the lads made undignified (and unsuccessful) attempts to get board, we were somewhat fluxmoxed. Then someone, with true matelot's resourcefulness, solved the problem. We calmly handed up our guns to the bemused Germans and climbed up with ease. Nonchalantly taking our guns back from the enemy, we went about the normal procedure of taking them prisoner. This unmilitary behavior did not seem at all out of place to us but the top brass in Philante were LIVID! We were all given a hell of a dressing down when we eventually got back on board but no disciplinary action was taken. I have seen this episode on cinema newsreels on several occasions and the reel of film has also been included in the well-known TV series War at Sea - but you will note that the censor has very definitely cut out the bit showing us handing our guns up to the Germans!! Similar thing happened to a GI with a bunch of German PoWs. They were loading everyone on trucks and the trucks were taking off. The last German ran and jumped into the truck with the GI guard following. The GI couldn't clamber aboard with his M-1 in his hands and he didn't have time to sling it. He threw it to a German who caught it. The GI then climbed aboard and the German handed him back his rifle. |
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In 2003, during the initial invasion of Iraq, my platoon stayed for a couple nights at a former school in Baghdad. I didn't know where (At the time we were walking from objective to objective, 15-20 miles a day.) I remember this particular school because there was a tree growing in the courtyard, and when we assaulted it, one of our guys ran smack into the tree trying to get around a corner. One of our squad leaders broke his foot trying to kick down a door in this school. He managed to kick it out of the frame eventually and get in the room.
In 2010, I was back in Baghdad, now I knew where we were. Al'Bayaa, a suburb just west of the Tigris where it makes a big horseshoe bend to the west. I was tasked with PSD for our platoon leader, who was doing a shake hands/kiss babies with the battalion/brigade commanders at a new girls' school that was just re-opening for business. I cleared the courtyard with a strong sense of deja vu. Well as it turned out, it was the exact same school, repainted and repaired. I checked the door upstairs that SSG Bass broke his foot on, and there it was, with a dent in it. Same door. More will follow. |
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My grandad passed away when I was 12 or so, so I didn't really get too many stories.
However, he brought back two Lugers. One has since been stolen. I have the remaining one. He was standing guard one night in France, during a winter. Felt a tap on his shoulder; it was two German officers surrendering. They could have just as easily slit his throat. There was a POW camp not far from where I grew up, and my parents still live. I was always told how the German boys could basically come and go during the daytime, as long as they were back by roll call. People that lived nearby would hire the boys for oddjobs and such, they would make a little money and even go see a movie. These Germans, like the ones mentioned in posts above, were tired of fighting, tired of starving. They knew they had a better chance of surviving as a POW than as a combatant. |
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On patrol in Iraq we were taking a break at an Iraqi farmhouse. At some point one of the Iraqi soldiers we were with starts stamping the ground and pointing down. Turns out he felt that the ground below him was hollow. We start digging and a foot or so down we hit a wooden crate. We start digging it out and it is huge. We pull off one of the boards and see a bunch of plastic wrap. I think we hit the jackpot and are going to start pulling out all kinds of RPGs and 155 shells. We start cutting away the plastic and the first thing I see "John Deere". This fucker had a brand new John Deere gator buried in his courtyard. No idea how he got it, but probably a passing convoy (RT Michigan was few miles away) got hit and they took it after. We flagged down a dumptruck and pulled it out of the hole. Got some fuel and it started right up. Patrolled back to base with an Iraq soldier driving a gator back to our COP. |
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Pardo's push |
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In 2003, during the initial invasion of Iraq, my platoon stayed for a couple nights at a former school in Baghdad. I didn't know where (At the time we were walking from objective to objective, 15-20 miles a day.) I remember this particular school because there was a tree growing in the courtyard, and when we assaulted it, one of our guys ran smack into the tree trying to get around a corner. One of our squad leaders broke his foot trying to kick down a door in this school. He managed to kick it out of the frame eventually and get in the room. In 2010, I was back in Baghdad, now I knew where we were. Al'Bayaa, a suburb just west of the Tigris where it makes a big horseshoe bend to the west. I was tasked with PSD for our platoon leader, who was doing a shake hands/kiss babies with the battalion/brigade commanders at a new girls' school that was just re-opening for business. I cleared the courtyard with a strong sense of deja vu. Well as it turned out, it was the exact same school, repainted and repaired. I checked the door upstairs that SSG Bass broke his foot on, and there it was, with a dent in it. Same door. More will follow. I used to take my cardinal to a mechanic shop with a vet I got to become cordial with. According to him, he was a combat engineer who did some bridge building and such in Iraq. One of the stories he told me was after they got some patrol type river boats. There was this little triangle of land that insurgence would set up on and shoot at the engineers and soldiers near the bridge he was working on. Well one of the infantry groups decided to take that spot of land and they used the patrol boats to get there. They never made it. My mechanic friend was at one of the guns of the boats when the insurgence announced their presence with gunfire. The patrol boat pilots immediately executed, in his words, a synchronized power slide that brought the stern, and ALL of the guns including the 50 to bare. He said the assault force's eyes turned into saucers as the patrol boats proceeded to discharge every round they had into that small peninsula removing everything down the the shrubs from the land of the living. There was never another insurgent attack from that particular spot. |
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Sounds like my great-uncle. He did coms...essentially marching behind the advancing front setting up phone lines. He was at Normandy shortly after D-Day up on a pole working, unaware of what’s going on around him. Next thing he knew there were two German solders on the ground calling him down. He’s all alone thinking he’s a dead man. Turns out all the wanted was to bum a cigarette and they casually walked away. Must have been separated or deserters looking to surrender to the first allied regiment they came to. Quoted:
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Friend of mine as was told by his grandfather who served in WWII. He (grandfather) was repairing a comms line on a telephone pole or something like a telephone pole. |
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I had a great uncle who was an engineer who helped build liberty ships before enlisting or getting drafted into the Air Force. Fast forward a year or two and he’s sitting in a bar somewhere in the Pacific when he overhears two seamen discussing a strange vibration they couldn’t diagnose which was mysteriously coming from their ship’s driveshaft and affecting its performance, so he wanders over and asked which ship it was. When they told him he said they should go and look at a faulty welding or something or other and, being that there was somewhat of a rivalry between services at the time, they gave him a bunch of guff and asked how the hell he could know such a thing. He told them to go check where he said and where to find him once they did. They did, and that was indeed the problem, and they were able to fix it right away.
Turns out it was one of the ships he helped build and even though they were aware of the problem as it was being built they were told not to fix it then and there because it would disrupt the entire production line and that the problem would be fixed in theater if it became an issue! |
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I believe the story is about red haired giants in Kandahar. Quoted:
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In for the sandbox sasquatch stories |
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Near the end of WW2 a well camouflaged anti-tank position with numerous MG-42 pickets wiped out an US patrol and pinned down a company of US soldiers. A company of four tanks counterattacked attacked the position across an open field at one mile per hour and the anti-tank guns with their 1000 yard range held their fire to trick the tanks into coming into point blank range. This allowed the tanks to roll up and give cover to the pinned down US soldiers. The MG-42 pickets fired upon the tanks which had little effect, but it revealed their positions to the tanks and the pickets were destroyed one at a time.
Once the pickets were destroyed one of the anti-tank guns fired at the tanks in a brilliant “Surprise! We’ve been here all the time!” fire defense. Despite the first gun having a heavily experienced crew with multiple kills marked on the gun barrel they fired at a range of a thrown baseball but continuously missed. The slow rate of fire of the heavily experienced gun crew allowed the tanks to destroy the first German gun. At this time a second German gun who previously remained hidden and did nothing to support anyone else joined in. At the range of an angry sneer they fired and continuously missed as well. Their own slow rate of fire allowed the tanks to take out the second gun. Once the guns were destroyed the tanks closed in and returned fire with their own machine guns to keep the remaining Germans wandering around out in the open for no reason at bay, and once the tanks reached the German picket line the infantry joined in and wiped out the German position. This action was forever known as “that idiotic scene in ‘Fury’ where the Germans did everything in their power not to act like actual Germans”  Fury "First Battle" [FullHD|1080p] |
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My grandad passed away when I was 12 or so, so I didn't really get too many stories. However, he brought back two Lugers. One has since been stolen. I have the remaining one. He was standing guard one night in France, during a winter. Felt a tap on his shoulder; it was two German officers surrendering. They could have just as easily slit his throat. There was a POW camp not far from where I grew up, and my parents still live. I was always told how the German boys could basically come and go during the daytime, as long as they were back by roll call. People that lived nearby would hire the boys for oddjobs and such, they would make a little money and even go see a movie. These Germans, like the ones mentioned in posts above, were tired of fighting, tired of starving. They knew they had a better chance of surviving as a POW than as a combatant. There's a decent book about German POWs in Arkansas: Summer of my German Soldier |
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There was a POW camp not far from where I grew up, and my parents still live. I was always told how the German boys could basically come and go during the daytime, as long as they were back by roll call. People that lived nearby would hire the boys for oddjobs and such, they would make a little money and even go see a movie. These Germans, like the ones mentioned in posts above, were tired of fighting, tired of starving. They knew they had a better chance of surviving as a POW than as a combatant. |
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Quoted: My grandmother grew up down the road from a German POW camp just east of Jackson, MI. She told of a similar situation: prisoner's would be "hired" out to local farmers, some would be on their own. She would wave as the trucks they were traveling in went past. They were definitely happy to be in Michigan rather than Germany (not that the landscape is much different). More than a few returned to the area after the war. |
| In WWII, my parents friend was in the Royal Dutch East Indies Marines. The Japanese were attacking in early morning. He had been covering ground and wasn't sure where he was. He heard this horrible screaming noise unlike anything he had heard yet. He was finally able to see as the sun started coming up and he found he was in a zoo. The noise was a bunch of monkeys taking machine gun fire. |