Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bluelake]

The thread on Grand/Parents in Europe in WWII is very interesting. I thought one about the other side of the globe might be interesting, too. My dad (83) was in the US Navy during WWII in the Pacific Theater. His ship (USS Starr) was in both the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (my dad saw both flag raisings on Iwo). His ship was one of the first US ships to Korea (Incheon) at the end of the war (came in Sep. 1945).

Anyone else have Grand/Parents in the area during WWII?

[blurgalurgalurga]

My grandfather flew for the Australian RAF in the late '30s, but was re-stationed in Canada in 1940 as a pilot instructor for the CRAF. He said he flew in SE Asia and India. He saw no combat, but as an instructor his plane crashed, killing all aboard but him and one other fellow. He lost a couple of fingers, messed up his back, and was never quite the same after, apparently.
He never talked much about it when I was a kid...I heard those stories from my mom. I'm a little vague about what exactly he was doing flying in Burma and India. By the time he was telling me those stories, a few years ago, his recall of detail was pretty mangled.

[ulsanchris]

My grandfather was in the US navy on a supply carrier. he was a radar operator. He was a farm boy so he didn't have to join, but he felt pressured to join from all the looks the people in his community gave him. He told me that The army wanted him to take the officer course but he declined. He didn't want to have to order other men to their deaths. Apparently he was also a crack shot and they wanted him to be a gunner, but he wasn't interested in that either. I don't think he saw much action but if I remember correctly his ship was hit by a kamikaze pilot. One story he told was that the admiral ordered the fleet to go straight through a typhoon rather than go around. His ship was damaged so they had to go back for repairs without an escort.

[blurgalurgalurga]

The fellow my grandmother married in about 1980 was a radar operator, too. He, and a lot of other guys who did that job, was very nearly blind by the time he was in his late 50s. I guess there was still some bugs in the system back then...
Did your grandpa's eyes get damaged as well, Ulsanchris?

[bluelake]

[D.D.]

My grandfather was studying in Scotland and was returning home to Canada because the war had started.

Both he and my grandmother were on the first ship sank by the germans for WW2.

They managed to get into lifeboats and survived the ordeal. The boat was called the Athenia.

[5600]

My grandfather was in the US Navy during WW2. He was all over the Pacifc. Anyways he manned one of the guns on the boat and at lunch one day in the chow hall he was bitching that the food was horrible and his captain heard him and asked him "Hey smart ass do you think you can cook any better?" Well evidently he could so they put him in charge of the kitchen for the rest of his time. He tells me that story everytime I see him like its the first time he's ever told me and it never gets old. The last of a dying generation those guys are.

[Ya-ta Boy]

My dad was in the Army Air Force (the Air Force wasn't the Air Force yet) in WWII. He was an airplane mechanic. He said he saw the Enola Gay take off from Saipan.

In a box in the basement there were a lot of old photographs Mom would pull out every once in a while when relatives came over and they'd sit around and talk about who was who. A few of the pictures were of women on some South Pacific island or other, bare-breasted under the palm trees, that my dad took. Always wanted to ask him about them, but Mom was always around so I never did.

My uncle was in the Navy in the North Atlantic taking shots at German U-boats.

In the First World War, one grandpa was a cook in France, the other grandpa was an engineer on the railroad line taking troops from the west coast (Nantes, I think he said) up to the front.

[T-J]

My grandfather was on a sub in the Pacific during the war. No one in our family has ever been able to get him to say two words about his experience.

On a related note, it truly is a quickly disappearing generation. If you get the chance, be sure to thank a WWII vet for their service. They do appreciate it.

Before returning to Korea, we went to D.C. on vacation. While on our way out of Arlington National Cemetery there was a group of WWII vets coming into the visitors center. My son (5) shook each of their hands and said simply "Thank you, sir." There were not many dry eyes to be seen.

[Dude Ranch]

My mother's father was a Corporal in the German Wehrmacht - Afrika Corps in Tunisia, before being captured in 1942 by the British and spending a year in a French POW camp in Algeria. He recently past away but I still enjoy hearing hs stories about life as a POW. He got maleria and his weight dropped to 90 pounds and he almost died while in Africa. He was then transfered to an American POW camp in Arizona, and then just outside bakersfield, California untill 1945 when he went to the UK for a year before returning to Germany and then immigrating to Canada inthe 1950's

My father's father was a Sargeant in the Canadian army. He was in the militia before the war so we was instantly called up. He went to England, Scotland, Norway, then to Italy where he was involved in the fight for Monte Casino, then up to Netherlands. He met my grandmother in England and they were married in 1943. He passed away when I was a child but my father mentioned that he did not like talking about the war afterwards.

[/i]

[travel zen]

I love talking to WWII vets.

I had a manager (his own business) who served on a German minelaying boat. He had excellent memory for his age.

Another boss in 1996 was a US tankman and he showed me a picture of him in France, in his Sherman when he was 20. Very cool !

I spoke to my first Russian infantryman in the late 90s, he talked about everything, but when I finally got him around to the wars, his eyes watered, he clenched his jaw, looked into space and said loudly "aahhh!" and changed the subject. Too painful.