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TX, USA
Posted: 10/20/2024 6:29:44 PM EDT
[Last Edit: dukeofearl][Edited]
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This story was passed onto me by my a nephew who repeatedly pressed my father-in-law to relate his WWII experiences. We all knew he was stationed in England, but that is all he would say up until that point. My father-in-law (R.I.P., Elton) was in the Army and stationed in England. His specialty (MOS) was chemical warfare. Hitler had declared he would'nt use gas in WWII because of the horror he experienced in WWI, so neither did the allies. Father-in-law and his fellow troops had nothing to do to break the boredom except work details and inspections.So, when some officers came into their area looking for volunteers to drive trucks, F.I.L. jumped at the chance. Back home, he was a motor-head, souping-up his cars and racing on country back roads. He could drive ANYTHING. Next thing, he's driving down a dark road in Belgium with the Red Ball Express delivering ammo to the front lines on a pitch black night running with only black-out markers. Big explosion far ahead. His truck dives into a crater in the road, his load shifts forward and he is pinned to the steering wheel. Big, stout farm boy manages to kick his way through the windsheild. Just to the side of his wrecked truck is an American jeep with a dead G.I. at the wheel. The jeep is still running. He takes the G.I.'s Thompson and wins his way back to England. He became agitated at the point of the story when he came to the dead G.I. and couldn't continue. When he got back to his company in England, they were shocked and surprised to see him. They thought he had gone AWOL! Here narrowly avoided being surrounded in the Battle of The Bulge |
| Plenty of ways to get killed in a place like that. I'm glad your Dad got home to tell the story. I had an uncle who drove in the Red Ball Express. He was wounded too, mortar or artillery fragment in his hips. He rode that disability check for the next 40 years. Spent most of it on anything except his wife and kids. Worthless, drunken bum before he got drafted and nothing changed. My father was a combat infantryman, several other uncles also combat veterans, two medics, another infantryman and one an MP, despised him. I don't know why his memory bugs me so much, I just never liked him either. Not all of the Greatest Generation was so great. |
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Originally Posted By CatBacker: Plenty of ways to get killed in a place like that … Yep. A good friend had a great uncle that was killed overseas in WWII during a resupply parachute drop. Had something fall on him while he was getting some other equipment untangled. |
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As I was about to go into the service I didn’t listen to what nearly every veteran tried to give me advice about. “Never volunteer or stick your neck out.” I did listen to one vet who said to keep my head down though. Some examples of never volunteer that I didn’t listen to, 1) Becoming a mortarman. 2) Giving up days off to do in flight security all over the Middle East. Thats where I found out about indirect fire, MANPADS and AA guns. 23mm tracers are higly visible. Who knew? 3) When my patrol leader says, “EOD wants to know if thats a UXO or an IED, who wants to go check it out?” 4) Caller stated a badger is under her commanders staff car. I went and banged an ASP around the cars undercarriage. 5) I volunteered four times to give me a 20 year retirement. Anything else was just being young and dumb, but needed to get the job done. |
| Way back in the 1970's there was a guy working in our test lab who was a WWII vet. Someone asked him what he did during the war. Well, he was drafted and as part of being mustered in they had to sit in a huge auditorium that was hot as hell and full of unbathed men. Well some guy walks out on stage and asks if anyone knew how to type. He did not but wanted out of that place real bad so he raised his hand. He spent entire war in the Pentagon. |
My Maternal Grandfather was a late draftee in WW2 due to his married status with children. He said that while being inprocessed, an NCO walked down the line and asked if anyone knew how to type. After a bunch stepped forward, the NCO thanked them and said that "The Marines could use some smart men". Gramps filed away the lesson. Family lore is that he was promoted to Corporal three times before VE day.
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My dad was a shipyard worker before WW2, and was deferred as a critical defense worker. He was getting tired of being accused of being called 4F, quit his job and volunteered for the army in 1945. Ended up in a horse cavalry unit. His troop ship was mid Pacific heading to places unknown with jeeps, no horses, when the atomic bombs were dropped. The ship pulled into Nagasaki harbor a week after the bomb, and his unit was assigned to inventory and document damage to the shipyard and warehouse area. Soon after got pneumonia, went to army hospital in Moji, met a nurse, got married, and I show up a couple of decades later. |
| My granddad was in the 15th IR from Anzio to Vosges until getting wounded and spending a year at Walter Reed. Never talked about it with anyone ever aside from small anecdotes and relativities. Really wish I knew more, he hated, and I mean hated Germans until the day he died. |
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