D-Day
#7280554
06/06/21 07:20 AM
06/06/21 07:20 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 17,038 Fredonia, PA.
Finster
OP
trapper
|
OP
trapper
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 17,038
Fredonia, PA.
|
Today is D-day. If you still know any WWII vets alive, maybe give them a call or a visit it you have time. Above all, give them your thanks and prayers to the ones that fell or are no longer with us.
I BELIEVE IN MY GOD, MY COUNTRY AND IN MYSELF.
|
|
|
Re: D-Day
[Re: Allan Minear]
#7280599
06/06/21 08:52 AM
06/06/21 08:52 AM
|
Joined: Jun 2018
Posts: 165 White House, TN
camlock
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Jun 2018
Posts: 165
White House, TN
|
My dad was in the 4th infantry division. He landed on Utah beach. He was a 6x6 truck driver. He was born in 1920. Hauling riflemen, water, food, bed roils, ammunition, etc. from the beach inland to support the advancing U.S. troops.. The 4th infantry hooked up with the 82d and 101st airborne and moved inland. He could tell some stories. My wife's grandfather was a tanker. Sherman tank with the 2nd armored division ((This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) on wheels). He was kind of a short man. He did not say much about the war. I remember he told me that he did not sleep for several days because he was so afraid. The only time I herd him talk about it in some sort of detail was with my dad. My dad past at 79 years old. He had alshimers disease. I remember him saying some of the G.I'S were picking up the white parachutes (white silk) and sending the chutes to their girlfriend back home in order for them to make a wedding dress out of the used parachute. I have a captured German dress bayonet and leather frog that my dad gave to his uncle, later he gave it to me.
Last edited by camlock; 06/06/21 02:29 PM.
|
|
|
Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7280607
06/06/21 09:07 AM
06/06/21 09:07 AM
|
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 34,913 Central, SD
Law Dog
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 34,913
Central, SD
|
Total respect for our Vets they went out to save the world and got it done real men doing a tough job.
Was born in a Big City Will die in the Country OK with that!
Jerry Herbst
|
|
|
Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7280608
06/06/21 09:08 AM
06/06/21 09:08 AM
|
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 3,854 Pa
Wright Brothers
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 3,854
Pa
|
Dad was 2nd man on Anzio. He made Sgt that day. The last week of his life he told all. I listened.
|
|
|
Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7280619
06/06/21 09:22 AM
06/06/21 09:22 AM
|
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 6,224 Kansas
Pawnee
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Dec 2017
Posts: 6,224
Kansas
|
Thank God for those men and what they did.
Everything the left touches it destroys
|
|
|
Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7280623
06/06/21 09:30 AM
06/06/21 09:30 AM
|
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,140 Texas Hill Country
Cedar Hacker
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,140
Texas Hill Country
|
Today is D-day. If you still know any WWII vets alive, maybe give them a call or a visit it you have time. Above all, give them your thanks and prayers to the ones that fell or are no longer with us. I"ll be seeing the one on the left today. He was a ball turret gunner on a B17. He flew on 23 missions and was discharged from service on his 20th. birthday. He says he got that job because he was so little and skinny. Ha Ha, and he is still skinny. The one on the right was in the infantry and is still alive. The ball turret gunner was one of the most dangerous assignments in World War II. Ball Turret Gunners on B-17 bombers were protected only by a glass bubble jutting out from the bowels of the plane. Permanently fixed and unable to be retracted, there was no hiding from enemy attack. A ball turret was a Plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24, and inhabited by two .50 caliber machine guns and one man, a short small man. When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere, he looked like the fetus in the womb. The fighters which attacked him were armed with cannon firing explosive shells.
Sit on your horse on top of a ridge, look out across the country and tell me there is no God.
|
|
|
Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7280724
06/06/21 11:50 AM
06/06/21 11:50 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2020
Posts: 7,365 W NY
Turtledale
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Mar 2020
Posts: 7,365
W NY
|
The last WWll vet I knew was a farmer I worked for. What a man he was, slight of build but big in heart and mind. Could not stand planes flying over him. I think of him all the time. He hated being indoors and spent most of his time on the farm and in the woods. Here's to you Nick, thanks for defending our freedom and way of life. I will never forget you
Last edited by Turtledale; 06/06/21 11:55 AM.
NYSTA, NTA, FTA, life member Erie county trappers assn.,life member Catt.county trappers
|
|
|
Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7280749
06/06/21 01:01 PM
06/06/21 01:01 PM
|
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 11,219 Oregon
beaverpeeler
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 11,219
Oregon
|
Like Cedar, I have had the pleasure of having a great friend who was a tail gunner on the bombers in the Pacific. Lewis Bailey. He was also a smaller stature, wiry type. He had washed out of pilot school because his math skills weren't good enough. He had a ton of stories that he shared about his days in the Pacific. Sometimes they had him filming instead of manning the guns.
One quick story:
They were on a hunt and destroy mission looking for the Japanese fleet but it was cloudy and they couldn't find anything. But suddenly the cloud cover lifted and they discovered the Japanese fleet below so they all picked targets and dove down with torpedo bombs. Lew's crew missed their target and so when they got back up out of harms way the pilot asked what should they do? Most crews just dropped their extra torpedo and went back home since a second dive was far more dangerous than the first as the Japs would be ready.
So Lew said: "I say Uncle Sam gave us a job to do so let's go back down and drop the second one". They all concurred and the second torpedo hit its mark and eventually sunk a Japanese ship. After dropping it they stayed down low just over the waves to keep from getting shot as they ascended. On their way back to flat top it had moved on thinking that Lew's plain had been lost since everybody else had long since returned. They were desperately low on fuel by then and when they finally landed the plain engines sputtered dead just as they touched down.
Lew died a couple of years ago at the age of 95. When he was 89 he shot an elk at 400 yards with an open sight octagonal barrel 30-30 and dropped it on the spot.
Last edited by beaverpeeler; 06/06/21 01:02 PM.
My fear of moving stairs is escalating!
|
|
|
Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7280769
06/06/21 01:49 PM
06/06/21 01:49 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 45,512 james bay frontierOnt.
Boco
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 45,512
james bay frontierOnt.
|
My uncle Pat was at D-Day on the beach.He got wounded there shot in the upper arm.He never talked about the war.
Last edited by Boco; 06/06/21 01:51 PM.
Forget that fear of gravity-get a little savagery in your life.
|
|
|
|
|