What did you regret not asking a departed ww2 veteran?

[dumbstruck]

I think most ww2 vets are departed now, or else not in a frame of mind to
communicate clearly with younger enthusiasts. Many of us met these folks
when they were still spry and talkative, but we were too dumb or ignorant
to ask the right war questions. I thought we might formulate the questions
now, and maybe someone can even answer.

1) I encountered Maria von Trapp (who was played by Julie Andrews in the
movie "Sound of Music") as hostess in her Austrian cafe in Stowe. My mother
loved to drag me there and see her stoically scowling over the service and
sharing a few words. I realized she kind of escaped the Nazi's, but only
later did I read her biography about accidentally sitting next to Hitler's
table in a restaurant, then later being asked to sing for his birthday and
so on. I would have liked to ask more about it beyond the loud, loutish
manners of the Hitler group (altho abstaining from smoking, meat, alcohol).

2) I once joined a grizzled German vet of the Russian front (I think the
excursion south of Stalingrad) on a flight. When aloft he made some enigmatic
comments about his service managing the horses. Mostly stared into space and
kept repeating "I never brought my horse into a church!" The tone was
exactly like "dear lord forgive the depravity I did in Russia, but at least
I didn't desecrate your house!" So now that I know the way horses were used
and churches could be killing zones, I wish I asked more about what he DID do.

3) As a youngster I had a ground school instructor who was a grizzled veteran
of flying the hump in Burma. I was too in awe to ask questions, but I prompted
other students to ask about St Elmos fire and such, for which he gave the
briefest replies that inferred... you can hardly imagine it. Recently I
watched a TV series that followed Canadian pilots still flying Burma-era
C-47s and the almost lookalike C-46. Holy Cow, the lesser known C46 for the
most part had demented piloting human-factors, which I wish he could have
commented on. It has a few pluses, but nicknames given in wiki are Curtiss
Calamity, plumber's nightmare, and flying coffin.

4) I attended a talk by a Pearl Harbor dive bombing pilot, and could identify
with his reaction when seeing his target ship was anchored... "oh crap, it
was so much easier to follow a moving target in training where you can kind
of match the forward speed". I should have asked him, isn't it really hard
if the ship is turning, and did you train for that? There was some guy given
university grant to extensively interview him and others, but he eternally
put off the actual publishing of the results. Buried in some archive I guess.

5) Like most people I should have asked my father about HIS war. I now think
he was disappointed about my ww2 interest and may have thought it was mostly
other countries problem. He joined the Naval Reserve, which I now hear was
considered sort of the safest harbor from being drafted? He did do hard work
managing construction of military bases in unpleasant, but not front line
places in 40s and 50s. Someone suggested I casually join the Naval Reserve
just before the Gulf war, and I think they maybe were sent into harms way.

[Jim H.]

Post by dumbstruck
I think most ww2 vets are departed now, or else not in a frame of mind to
communicate clearly with younger enthusiasts. Many of us met these folks
when they were still spry and talkative, but we were too dumb or ignorant
to ask the right war questions. I thought we might formulate the questions
now, and maybe someone can even answer.

.............

My dad wasn't technically a 'vet' since he was 4F
all thru the war (badly nearsighted). But he worked at the
Norfolk VA navy yard before and thru the war.

He started as the yard photographer in '40. He was
taking an electronics night course, and was transferred to
the electronics lab when they started retrofitting ships with
radar. I wish I'd paid more attention to his stories about
the difficulties of getting wiring thru armor, etc.

Then he was involved briefly in a project to build a remote
control system for LCVP's. The object was to load them with
explosives, run them onto beach obstacles, and blow them up. I
know that they got as far as a working prototype, from his
mentioning people's stares at seeing an 'Elsie-veep' running
around the harbor with no one aboard. I've never been able
to find anything about this, despite a few pretty exhaustive
searches.

I also wish I'd found out more about his brother's Navy service
in the Atlantic and North Africa during WWII, and my great-uncle's
front-line service in WWI. I'm thinking as much of personal
anecdotes as battles fought in.

Jim H.

[Michael Emrys]

Post by dumbstruck
I think most ww2 vets are departed now, or else not in a frame of
mind to communicate clearly with younger enthusiasts. Many of us met
these folks when they were still spry and talkative, but we were too
dumb or ignorant to ask the right war questions.

Three of my cousins were in the USAAF during the war and one piloted
B-25s. When his plane was shot down over France, he and the surviving
members of his crew were hidden by the French Resistance until they
could be smuggled into American lines. I met him some time in the mid or
late '50s when he was still in the Air Force and now a decorated Lt.
Colonel. When he heard that I had moved to LA in the early '60s, he sent
me an invitation to visit him in Redondo Beach, but I was too caught up
in my own trip at the time to take him up on it. I regret that now very
much, as I am sure he would have had some interesting stories to tell.

Michael

[Bill]

Post by dumbstruck
I think most ww2 vets are departed now, or else not in a frame of mind to
communicate clearly with younger enthusiasts. Many of us met these folks
when they were still spry and talkative, but we were too dumb or ignorant
to ask the right war questions.

I grew up in Hull, a city that was very heavily bombed in WWII.

When 'the boys came home' they were met with:

"'You had it easy, you weren't here the night the Shell Mex building
was hit/the night they hit the Park Street Bridge/the night a land
mine came down in our yard."

Because of this sort of comment many of the WWII combat veterans
talked quite openly about many of their experiences.

This included a retired major (with an MC) who openly boasted of being
the man who was in charge of the infamous British army brothels on
Sicily...

The only thing my father was reluctant to talk about was the two weeks
when he was posted 'missing' in the retreat from Burma. I get the
idea that he did some stuff he was ashamed of, but I'll never know
now as he's long gone.

[Don Phillipson]

Post by dumbstruck
I think most ww2 vets are departed now, or else not in a frame of mind to
communicate clearly with younger enthusiasts. Many of us met these folks
when they were still spry and talkative, but we were too dumb or ignorant
to ask the right war questions.

1. The WW2 radio operator who taught morse code to Air Cadets (56
Sqn., Woolwich) in 1954 wore the gold silkworm indicating his life had
been saved by a parachute. We never asked for the story.

2. My own father (RNR but employed throughout the war as a port
superintendent) vanished about Xmas 1943 and did not rejoin the family
until D-Day preparations had been finished. We never learned exactly
what he had been doing.

During the war, aged about 4, I went out with Dad from Gourock in a
tender when he had to visit some ship in the Clyde Emergency Anchorage.
It was foggy so we saw nothing until we came to a grey steel wall rising
sheer from the water. A rope ladder unrolled itself from above, and
he climbed up until he simply vanished into the fog: and some time
later reappeared, and the tender chugged back to shore.

3. My grandfather (major, Lancashire Regt.) was reported killed
in about 1917 but revived in hospital and lived to past 80. We never
asked about life in the trenches in WW1, let alone death.

4. The other grandfather was unfit for WW1 but lived in London
so must have remembered the first air raids (by Zeppelins and
Gothas) as did my Dad (b. 1905, also in London in WW1.) They
spoke often about the Crystal Palace fire (1938) but never Zeppelins.

[news]

Post by dumbstruck
I think most ww2 vets are departed now, or else not in a frame of mind
to communicate clearly with younger enthusiasts. Many of us met these
folks when they were still spry and talkative, but we were too dumb or
ignorant to ask the right war questions. I thought we might formulate
the questions now, and maybe someone can even answer.

My father was at the sharp end of things in the Canadian Infantry in
North West Europe. I never heard him talk about his experiences (he was
wounded while on a night patrol in Caen, Normandy) except one time when
he was quite drunk. Most of what he said that one time I can't recall,
except one incident when a German prisoner that he was escorting back to
the prisoner cage suddenly turned and pushed him aside. The German took a
sniper bullet intended for my father through his jaw. I wrote a small
history about his time in the infantry (1942-46) which I titled "The
Norman Summer - My Fathers War: October 1942 - November 1946".

In researching his military time I discovered that during his 33 days of
combat his unit mostly faced elements of the 21st SS Panzer Division. He
was in the 1st Btn Canadian Scottish Regiment. I examined their War Diary
in the National Archives and was stuck by some of the horror that he
would have seen. One report, from the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Fred
Cabledu explaining the casualties the battalion had suffered since D-Day
(dated 28 July 1944), summed up the first couple of months pretty well.
In his final point of the report he said:

"3. Of the 37 Officers and 751 O.Rs who landed on D-Day, only 15 Officers
and 321 Other Ranks are still with this Unit."

The total casualties were higher than that because many of the
reinforcements were also casualties (including my father who was TOS on
11 June 1944 as part of a reinforcement draft and was wounded on 14 July
1944). For 6 June to 28 July the total casualties for the battalion were
136 KIA, 421 WIA and 12 MIA. The total number of personnel who had moved
through the battalion from 7 June 1944 to 28 July 1944 was 70 Officers +
1362 ORs = 1432 men in total. Battle Fatigue casualties increased from 31
cases in June to 86 in July, a 277% increase.

What I wish I had known about and asked my father was why he left Officer
training in May of 1944 and why he asked to revert from Corporal to
Private ('at his own request' is what his Part II Orders say). Because of
Canada's peculiar privacy laws I cannot access the military records for
him (Part I Orders) that would explain these matters until sometime in
2015, the 20th year after his death.

[Michael Emrys]

...the 21st SS Panzer Division.

There was no 21st. SS Panzer Division. There was a 21st. PD in Normandy
that was a part of the Heer forces there. There was also a 12th. SS PD
that tangled extensively with Canadian forces. Could it have been that?

Michael

[news]

Post by Michael Emrys

...the 21st SS Panzer Division.

There was no 21st. SS Panzer Division. There was a 21st. PD in Normandy
that was a part of the Heer forces there. There was also a 12th. SS PD
that tangled extensively with Canadian forces. Could it have been that?
Michael

Yes, I meant the 12th SS PD, (Hitler Jugend). I had a bit of typing
dyslexia there. :-) Thanks for pointing that out.

R. Jenkins

[dumbstruck]

6) I attended a talk by a Nuremburg translator for Goering about his life
memoirs. He was a regular US soldier being ordered home, but he went awol
to the trials hoping his German language and possible legal skills could be
of use. So one question should have been how well did he know that the
system would reprieve him of AWOL charges once the trial folks luckily
accepted his impulsive arrival? Also he gave the familiar story about
Goering turning from dufus to fox when forced off pills. But what about
the new claims that his pills were very weak even in the large numbers he
took... and he only sharpened his mind when it became apparent he and
most others were facing likely execution.

Also I might ask about that strange bird Ribbentrop, who was a bad catalyst
for evil but had no authority to actually order evil acts... although that
legal quandary did not save him from the noose. However he and even Hess
shouldn't have needed a translator, based on video evidence of them speaking
or listening to it.

[Don Phillipson]

"dumbstruck" <***@gmail.com> wrote in message news:2bc7c116-9f0a-4645-b58c-***@googlegroups.com...

At thje Nuremburg International Military Tribunal 1945-46

. . . Ribbentrop . . . and even Hess shouldn't have needed a
translator, based on video evidence of them speaking
or listening to it.

"Need" was not a factor. NIMT proceedings were multi-lingual
(including German translation of every other word spoken)
1. so that all German people might know what occurred (cf.
current newspaper and radio reports as well as archival
preservation of the NIMT record) and
2. to prevent claims that the defendants could not understand
what was going on.

[Bill]

Post by dumbstruck
6) I attended a talk by a Nuremburg translator for Goering about his life
memoirs. He was a regular US soldier being ordered home, but he went awol
to the trials hoping his German language and possible legal skills could be
of use. So one question should have been how well did he know that the
system would reprieve him of AWOL charges once the trial folks luckily
accepted his impulsive arrival? Also he gave the familiar story about
Goering turning from dufus to fox when forced off pills. But what about
the new claims that his pills were very weak even in the large numbers he
took... and he only sharpened his mind when it became apparent he and
most others were facing likely execution.

I think Goering always knew he was facing the hangman.

As a war hero and an ex officer and with his outward displays of good
humour he was always 'the acceptable face of Nazism'.

I think he used the trials to 'grandstand' because it was always going
to be his 'last performance' and he wanted to put on a show.

[Padraigh ProAmerica]

My father served two years in the US Navy, on a repair ship (USS JASON,
[ARH-1]) in the Pacific.

The JASON was a specialized "Heavy Hull Repair Ship" that didn't stay in
anchorages like Ulithi, but stayed with the fleet; seems her major work
was fast repair of carrier flight decks after a Kamizane strike.

He was a Petty Officer First Class (equivelent of an Army staff
sergeant) by the end of his service, rated in Ship's Services (he worked
in the ships laundry).
He didn't talk much about his experiences, but once stunned a group of
Boy Scouts telling them of the ecperience of being on a large ship in
the teeth of a major typhoon- and of watching in horror as a destroyer
slammed into a wave- and didn't come out.

I always wondered about some of the details of shipboard life. One
nagging question- totally inappropriate- was whether it was true
laundrymen were paid a bonus due to the hideous conditions they worked
under.

--
"America is more than just a country. It's an idea."--

Bono--

[Jim H.]

Post by Padraigh ProAmerica
My father served two years in the US Navy, on a repair ship (USS JASON,
[ARH-1]) in the Pacific.

..........

Post by Padraigh ProAmerica
I always wondered about some of the details of shipboard life. One
nagging question- totally inappropriate- was whether it was true
laundrymen were paid a bonus due to the hideous conditions they worked
under.

.......

Pretty sure it was not true. I'm sure the ship's laundry
was unpleasantly hot & steamy, but certainly
no worse than the engine room.

My USN ship was designed in the 1950's, and used the same
propulsion technology as WWII ships: 3 superheat boilers,
1 turbine & reduction gear set, and 3 ship's service
turbogenerators, all in the same space. It _may_ have
had somewhat better ventilation. There was no automation
as known today, and even Main Control was open to the rest
of the space.

I was a frequent visitor to the engineroom, both because
our shop had equipment there and because I spent a stint
as No.1 OBA man for Repair Five (damage control group
responsible at GQ for the engineroom).

The normal temp when steaming off the coast of VN was about
115-120, with very high humidity. Steaming at flank, it
could be 120-130. During a GQ drill, I went in wearing full DC
gear, and it was 135 at the boiler fronts.

The boiler tenders and machinist's mates who stood 4 on, 8 off
watches there (and did normal workdays when they had the 4-8 watches)
didn't get any bonus. But it was a very comfortable place in the
North Pacific in December '70.

Jim H.

[Greg Schuler]

Post by dumbstruck
I think most ww2 vets are departed now, or else not in a frame of mind to
communicate clearly with younger enthusiasts. Many of us met these folks
when they were still spry and talkative, but we were too dumb or ignorant
to ask the right war questions. I thought we might formulate the questions
now, and maybe someone can even answer.

I would have asked my grandfather if he really
did shoot down that Ju-88 with a .45 while
coming out of the latrine. I mean, the photo
shows his standing on top of the disused plane.
Who would lie to their grandson like that?

On a more serious note, I would have liked to
talked to a great uncle who served in an armored
division in NW Europe about his experiences. He
was in a reconnaissance unit and was heavily
engaged from July 1944 to the end of the war. He
refused to talk about it and I respected that,
but the value of his experience mattered.