Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7280786
06/06/21 02:16 PM
06/06/21 02:16 PM
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,684 Wisconsin
Green Bay
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,684
Wisconsin
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My Great Uncle Went in with the 5th Armored Division at D Day. Didn't talk much about the war but everyone said he came back different from the war. Today we would say PTSD. The guy was a great trapper and hunter.
Author of The Lure Hunter: A Guide to Finding Fishing Lures
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Re: D-Day
[Re: beaverpeeler]
#7280804
06/06/21 02:50 PM
06/06/21 02:50 PM
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Joined: Apr 2016
Posts: 796 Labrador, Canada
crosspatch
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Apr 2016
Posts: 796
Labrador, Canada
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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. Interesting on the flat top moving. Knew a man who was a Corsair fighter pilot in the Pacific at the tail end of the war. He was on carriers first he said but got transferred to an island base as soon as he could. Said a lot of guys were lost cause they could not find the carriers on the way back at times cause the carriers had moved. Told me too they knew when Japan had surrendered but was told to keep shooting at Japanese boats anyway. He found a Japanese boat a bit later but did not try to shoot it up as could have been dangerous for him and what was the point anymore where he had survived so far. He said he did not report it when he landed as could have got in trouble.
Last edited by crosspatch; 06/06/21 02:54 PM.
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Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7280954
06/06/21 08:35 PM
06/06/21 08:35 PM
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Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 206 Ridgefield, WA
Bearguy
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 206
Ridgefield, WA
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One of my uncles was trained as a combat engineer and his first job in the war was to land at Omaha Beach before the actual landing party and blow up the beach obstacles. He said their rubber raft swamped and he swam to shore and hid behind one of the obstacles he had been tasked to blow up. He waited for the invasion force to arrive, and survived the day. He found himself in the infantry for the rest of the war. He was placed in three different companies in two weeks after everyone else was killed or wounded. He survived and witnessed the surrender of Berlin.
All you "Woke" people need to go back to sleep!
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Re: D-Day
[Re: Cedar Hacker]
#7281040
06/06/21 10:37 PM
06/06/21 10:37 PM
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Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 3,921 minnesota
mnsota
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 3,921
minnesota
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[quote=Finster]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. under the 8th 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. Thanks for this post and thank that skinny guy for his service to our country. my father was a staff Sargent crew chief with the 8th army air force,..didn't talk much about service but did relate a few times about the position turret gunners found themselves in. A horrible ending when the aircraft had no recourse on crash landings.
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Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7281105
06/07/21 02:43 AM
06/07/21 02:43 AM
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Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 20,337 The Hill Country of Texas
Leftlane
"HOSS"
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"HOSS"
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 20,337
The Hill Country of Texas
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My buddies grandpa just passed away this spring at 102. He was a Navy man in WW2 It reminded me how few of these heros are still around to thank. His stories of winning the battle for the So Pacific are the things they make movies about with top of the line actors like Glenn Ford (on of my all time favs)
Was it not for them we would not have the freedom to fight the "hope and change" promised by self serving leftist candidates. If you do love your freedoms thank the veterans you meet
“What’s good for me may not be good for the weak minded.” Captain Gus McCrae- Texas Rangers
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Re: D-Day
[Re: Finster]
#7281333
06/07/21 01:48 PM
06/07/21 01:48 PM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 21,049 St. Louis Co, Mo
BigBob
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 21,049
St. Louis Co, Mo
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My VFW Post is slowly but quicker every day running out of "Duece" and Korean War Vet's, and even the "Nam" Vets are getting thinned out.
Every kid needs a Dog and a Curmudgeon.
Remember Bowe Bergdahl, the traitor.
Beware! Jill Pudlewski, Ron Oates and Keven Begesse are liars and thiefs!
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Re: D-Day
[Re: Fisher Man]
#7281335
06/07/21 01:52 PM
06/07/21 01:52 PM
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Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 4,942 Idaho Falls, ID
Grandpa Trapper
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 4,942
Idaho Falls, ID
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Our pathetic President Biden failed to even mention the anniversary of D Day. What a disgrace! It says a lot about the lack of character of the man. With his Dementia, I doubt he even remembers there was a World War 2. His aides are either stupid to forget history or did it on purpose to feed their anti-American agenda.
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Re: D-Day
[Re: Grandpa Trapper]
#7282260
06/09/21 06:44 AM
06/09/21 06:44 AM
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Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 14,867 Greene County,Virginia
run
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 14,867
Greene County,Virginia
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With his Dementia, I doubt he even remembers there was a World War 2. His aides are either stupid to forget history or did it on purpose to feed their anti-American agenda. [/quote] X2.
wanna be goat farmer.
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