nice stories.
holy shit a lot of veterans appear to have been killed by cancer. that's awful. both my grandfather's and one of my grandmother's were involved in the war and one was shot but survived thankfully. both of my grandfathers died of cancer, thankfully after i got to know them.
i wish someone would hurry up and fine a cure for cancer.
Well my grandparents never fought in the war, but strangely enough my paternal grandfather was in Japan at the time in school. My dad told me that no one even knew he was Korean. LOL ALL ASIANS LOOK THE SAME!!
Anyways, he died in the 60's of something either heart or lung related. ;____;
My paternal grandmother had breast cancer,she's still alive and kicking.
My maternal grandfather died a few months before I was born -I THINK OF CANCER- . Guess he knew I was going to be an asshole.
My grandad was in the Waffen-SS .... talk about variety.. its a combat dettachement from the allgeine SS (standard SS). From what his commander said and my dad, he was a good man in the wrong place, his commander said that at the Russian front he participated in all stormattacks and was quite cold and calm during the attacks but at night he would wake up after nightmares and brake into a cold sweat etc.
MY grandad did a tour through multiple organizations within the German army I think and was promoted fairly quickly to status of Major or Sturmbahnfuehrer (can't spell it with english keyboard). This was mainly due to the hvy casualties they had with officers etc. Anyway he was captured in Checkoslovakia, his last order was that all the men should grab the remaining anti-tank panzerfausts and fire them at oncoming tanks all at the same time. The Russians retreated thinking there was a huge army there and came back with a tonne more men and tanks at which my grandad and his men surrendered. Unfortunatley there was hell to pay when the russians found out that there where only a few of them... they beat some of them to death with rifle butts.
Anyway he did 6 yrs Russian Pow and then came back home. I never met him he died of somnething I don't remmember.
I have more stories but I can't be bothered typing them so if anyone wants to hear em let me know.
I have photos but I'd prefer not to post photos of someone in an SS uniform etc.
My grandpa took part in the africa/italy campaign with the united states army calvary unit. I forget his rank, but the emblems on his military uniform have chevrons on his shoulders, so maybe he was a sergeant.
I do know he ended up getting a purple heart medal for injuries suffered when a grenade blew up a tree he was seeking cover next to. He ended up getting hit in the head with a portion of the stump and almost died (i have his army helmet and there is a rather large dent in the top portion).
He ended up dying in 1991 due to complications with emphysema cancer.
He was a great grandfather and all around awesome person, it's sad to not have him around anymore. If he was around now, I would thank him for putting his life on the line for the freedom of the good world. :cool:
Neither of my Grandparents were active overseas.
My Grandad was in the Home Guard and had his ankle blown out during an air raid (he served in Manchester) I'm also told he was one of the guys who had the job of covering the Pennines in lanterns before a blackout, those Germans will bomb anything. Unfortunately he died of cancer a few years ago, I still have some of his old service stuff.
My Nana I believe worked in a munitions factory.
I'm not sure about other Grandparents, I should probably check because I think my Great Grandfather was a WWI veteran, and served over in Europe.