Just joined on behalf of my father

My father was a P51D fighter pilot in Europe. Did recon, taught gunnery tactics, trained new pilots, flew and evaluated the first ME109 captured, was awarded 2 purple hearts and a dozen other medals. The 1 bomber run he tagged along on (not authorized!) was in a B17 where his best friend ended up all over him, brains and all. He landed the plane with only 1 other survivor. He also was shot down once in his P51. Took weeks to get all the canopy pieces out of his eye balls.

I look forward to learning what I an here to record as much of his life as I can before he passes, he is in very bad health with only a few more months to go. My 2 boys are only 10 and 6 and they must know what their grandfather did.

 

Hello and Welcome to The Forum. I am sure you will find exactly what your looking for

 

You might try to get a copy of his military records from

Military Personnel Records


Best of luck! Welcome to the Forum, and please tell your Dad thanks for his service!

 

He is able to speak but he hasn't had his had out of a bottle for years, like 60! I won't even let him see his grandchildren at this point because of it.

He doesn't know how to use a tape recorder and won't learn anything new. I would never ask my mom to help because his drunk ass just calls her a stupid worthless bitch all the time. I've decked him for it, starting when I was 14. He is 3,500 miles away in Maine, I am in CA. I hold allot of anger towards him right now and rarely speak with him. It pains me greatly because when he is sober, he is the real father I miss so much. He hasn't had a sober moment in about 7 years though.

I am currently printing out a rather large family tree with space for him to write in missing info which is most important right now. After I will try and get him to write in answers to the vets-interviews.doc I downloaded from here. Aside from that all I have is stories he has told me that I remember. Like that bomber run he did where his best friend died, he was drunk on wine and feeling down and just spilled his guts. It's the only 1 time he has EVER mentioned anything bad from the war. He refuses to ever mention it. He forbid me from even having so much as a water pistol when I was growing up.

EDIT: If I could find someone on this forum who live in Maine who would be willing to interview him and record it, I could set it up.

 

Hello and welcome to the forums, 92GTA...I hope that you'll able to find some of the answers that you seek.

 

Here in the UK we have The Royal British Legion that can help veterans with their problems.
Don't you have Veterans Associations that you could contact in Maine and explain the situation?
Sounds like he never fully recovered from his WW2 experiences. If so, I don't think he was intentionally targeting his family for his anger, just that you were the only ones available....

Perhaps too much has been said and done to forgive totally, but you are doing what you can, to record his life when he was a sober and fit young man. Try contacting his old Squadron, maybe they can provide some records of his service and help point you in the right direction so that you can at last have proud memories of him, before he changed.

I wish you well.

 

Hello and welcome to this fine place. I wish you good fortune in recording your family history and hope that your father can battle his demons in time for you and he to reconcile.

 

what was his recon unit please ?

 

Alex
Why have you started two threads for the same subject?

By doing so, you are splitting the available resources as some people will be only aware of one thread and you risk sounding like a pan handler.

I think it would be sensible for the Moderators to merge these two threads, so people can avoid wasting their time asking questions which you answer on the other thread.

What evidence do you have for these medals and service?

 

This thread was simply to introduce myself as that's what this sub-forum is for.

My other thread is where I was asking for information.

 

Welcome Gta I see you have already met quite a few of our rogues