I figured that out when I was a kid. I was lucky I lived on Army bases, and in the late seventies there were still a few WWII vets active duty. My Grandfather was a Medic with an Infantry unit, in the European theater, waded onto Normandy while the beach was still hot, walked all the way into Germany via Bastogne. he was a little older than your average recruit (even for WWII standards), at 31, he passed on in 86. He was funny about the war, he never talked about it at all with most people, but my kid brother and myself heard plenty about it (I didn't know that until recently when my brother and I were taking about some of the stories he told us when we were kids, and my mom was shocked, she had never even heard him mention the war). My other Grandfather was a belly gunner on a B17, which was perfect for him as he was only 4'10". I also had a neighbor at Ft. Rucker whose father lived with the family (the sponsors father), the old man, I only knew him as Mr. McBee, had flown fighters. I think the most interesting old timer I meet who was a WWII vet was a friend of mines grandfather, who was also a fighter pilot.

I will share a little story about my friend and his grandfather, I was in 11th grade, and we were studing histroy, particularly WWII, and the teacher realizing this was a military community, and that there were probably many students who had interesting relics from the period, told us that we would be having a kind of show and tell, of interesting momentos and souveniers that family members had brought home from WWII. Friday came and we started history class, and the teacher starts calling people up who would then show the rest of us a uniform jacket, or maybe a shell fragment, or medal a grandparent or uncle had won. It came time for my friend (lets call him Pete), to show his item, he goes up to the front of the class, and takes a very neatly folded silk rising sun flag out, and the teacher immediately asks Pete who gave him that, he tells her it was from his grandfather, then she asks if it is blood on it (it was badly stained), he said yes, it is my grandfathers blood. She then asks him what his grandfather did in the war, he told her he was a fighter pilot, a real Ace, so of course she asks how many japs he had shot down, Pete froze for a second, then calmly says "none", of course the teacher being somewhat knowledgable politely states that to be an ace you have to shot down so many enemy planes. Pete told her he knew that, and he was an ace, he even had the papers to show it, the teacher then says he must have served in Europe then, he told her "no, he served in the Pacific", the teacher was starting to get a little annoyed, and asked him how his grandfather could be an ace pilot in the pacific and yet have never shot down a Jap, because the only enemy the US fought in the pacific was Japan, he agreed with a nod. Finally Pete started speaking on his own. He made a very short, candid statement, "My grandfather served his country in the pacific, the flag I am holding was removed from a flag pole at an airstrip in the Phillipines only moments before the field was overrun by the enemy, as he was lowering the flag, he was wounded in the chest. though wounded, he managed to get to the nearest plane that was ready to fly, and escaped just before the runway was shelled. After recovering from his wound, he kept the flag and carried it in his Zero every time he went up."

I've thought about posting this for several months.  In the course of my job (insurance agent) I ran into a WWII Veteran--I've known him for 20+ years, but did not know he was a Veteran.  He always seemed too young to have served in WWII, and it just never came up.  It turns out he had recently been featured in the local newspaper and his wife showed it to me when I was there.  I asked him about it and he seemed eager to tell me about his experiences.  IT TURNS OUT HE ACTUALLY WATCHED THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB FALL FROM THE ENOLA GAY AND EXPLODE OVER HIROSHIMA.  This sounds too amazing to be true, but he swears it is.  He had no clue what the mission was, but he was a tail gunner in some aircraft I had never heard of.  They escorted the Enola Gay until it reached a certain point, then his group broke off and the EG flew on alone.  There were no Japanese aircraft around, so he sat and watched the EG fly on.  At one point he said he saw a tiny dot fall from the bottom of the EG and drop toward the ground.  He said it exploded in the air above Hiroshima and he said the flash blinded him (temporarily) and they all thought the force that struck the plane was going to cause them to crash--but the planes flew on.  I would love to get him on video tape telling the story, but I don't have a camera.    I absolutely believe every word of the story.  His mind is sharp as a tack and he recalls too many details.  Toward the end of the story he started to cry over "the people down there--but it was necessary to save our boys."  Then he just got really quiet.  I thanked him for his service and for sharing the story.  I was so humbled.  

Ligtning_P38, that was a great story, but I'm puzzled. How did that teacher not KNOW that the young boy's grandfather MIGHT have been Japanese?

And flew for the Imperial Japanese Air Force in WWII?

Sorry, but I just woke up, so maybe there's a very obvious answer to this...

Eric The(Sleepy)Hun

One of my fondest memorys from my Navy travels are the days I spent at the USS Arizona memorial listening to the old vets tell their stories. I spent the best part of three days at the museum learning.