What got you interested in WWII?

There are so many new members everyday, I thought it would be fun for us to share why we are all into the WWII discussions.

For me, it started about 6 months ago when a neighbor who orders books like crazy, got a new one and said I could keep it and read it first. It was Last Stand of The Tin Can Soldiers-an awesome book. From there I started to look into where my great uncle was KIA in France. My family believed it was D-Day on Omaha beach, but my dad said he knew he had a letter that had been written to his mom from a much later date. Sure enough I found he was KIA at the Falaise Gap and found so many details about his Division and where they had been.

Then my dad and I decided we should get my grandpa's medals replaced that had been stolen and also find more about his time in the Philippines because he won't talk about it himself. It seems every day I read another great book or an interview and find something new everyday.

I regret not doing this earlier when my grandpa's other brother (who was also in the Philippines) was still alive. Maybe he would have shared some of his experiences with the family if he thought somone was interested.

I look forward to reading the replys.
Krystal

 

I have been interested in WWII since I was a young boy listening to my dad and my uncles talk about their war experiences. I was the youngest child and I guess enough time had passed because my dad never told any war stories to my older brothers and sisters only I heard the stories. Maybe I was the only one who showed any interest. I had two uncles in Europe, one had a German 88 round hit the tree he was standing under and was almost cut in half by a tree limb. Amazingly he survived. Another uncle served under Patton in Europe. I remember him complaining up a storm how he hated Patton for driving them so hard. My dad was in North Africa and Italy and my father-in-law was in the North Atlantic. Strangely my main interest are with the Navy and the Pacific theater.

 

I was born in 1957, so my childhood years were spent in the 1960s. My father, a WWII combat veteran, passed on when I was only five. All my uncles were also WWII vets, as were most adult men I came into contact with. Movies and TV shows dealing with WWII had a big influence on me. Later, I began reading WWII related books. In the mid-1970s is when I began getting serious about learning everything I could about WWII, and that began my role as a life-long student of WWII. But it was always wondering what my father had experienced that was the nucleus of my interests in WWII. I have met so many sons and daughters of WWII vets who had a full life with their fathers, and only became remotely interested after their dads aged and passed on. I wonder had my father lived to a ripe old age, maybe I too would have been a late bloomer.

Greg C.

 

We had a lot of books around the house so I was always a reader, and a lot of them were about history.
I really got interested in history more when I was a junior in high school and I had an awesome history teacher who actually got me interested enough in stuff to do research on my own. I also did a research paper on the Flying Tigers for English class, and General Chennault became on of my heroes.

Then a couple years later I and a friend were in a Barnes and Noble and she got an idea, and we decided to write a book, just for fun, about people in WWII. I started doing an insane amount of research and got very involved in the project, and I'm still at it. It's a lot bigger and more complicated than either of us ever imagined it would be, and also a lot more interesting.

 

this series, back in the mid 50s..."War in the air"...

 

Very interesting. My dad said growing up knowing his dad and uncles fought in WWII, his grandpa fighting in WWI and a great great grandpa in the Civil War, made him want to join the service. He joined the army as soon as he turned 18 and was stationed in Germany during Viet Nam. He feels he should have been in Viet Nam, but I think differently.

 

Ditto, and well-said.

Duckbill

 

I was born in 94, my dad never really had an interest, nore did my bro. I've always been around my grandfather a lot, i'm usually always with him. Today I cleaned his ww2 sniper rifle. At age 6, roughly 2000, he showed me a clip of ww2. Then I just fell in love with the whole event of war. I still today from those videos, want to be in Army, and love ww2 with a passion. While my friends buy weed, I buy SS documents.

 

I kinda came at it from the opposite direction; I come from an aviator family (pretty much everybody in my family has a pilot's license EXCEPT me), and since jets were way too expensive in the '60's & '70's, I grew up around recip aircraft, especially radial engines (WACO's, T-6's, Staggerwings, etc.). It didn't take much prompting to do a little back-tracking to find out where all of these great round engines came from originally and, especially, the Golden Age of the radial engine ('30's & '40's). The pinnacle of recip engine design was definitely the early '40's and, therefore, WWII.

 

As I said in my intro thread over in the new members section, I was surrounded by World War II veterans while growing up. I've had a deep interest in the war since I was about ten years old. My grandmother used to say that I had an old soul. I sometimes think I should have been born in 1919, and not 1979.

 

I was always intersted in WWII things like Armor, weapons, units and and and!
But two years ago i started to research my Grandpa´s live from 1939 til 1945 for the reason that there wasn´t much guess what he did. And know i have appr. 70% of his history and there is so much around the war i want to know so this will be a lifetime hobby, and not the badest. A good extra is that i was able to find some new good friends.

Regards

Ulrich

 

When I saw Saving Private Ryan when I was 8. I was like "holy **** this is the worst thing I've ever seen, why doesn't everyone know more about this" and I've just researched it since. Fortunatley my grandfather was still alive at the time, and he shared his stories with me about the Pacific, a rare thing to share. He was at Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, and Tarawa, as a rifleman.

 

I come from a military family and my grandfathers served while I also have ancestors who served the Axis also.

 

I remember when I was young my Dad would never let me touch his WWII medals he received while serving with the 4th Canadian Armoured (South Alberta Regiment A Squadron). I knew they were in his dresser but I always respected his wishes and never seen them again till he had them put into a frame. Since I came into Internet/facebook I started researching my Dads history and met a few great resourceful people who helped me along the way. He's told some stories for sure. My Dad is still alive at 90 years young eh

Pictures taken of the 29th Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment (The South Alberta Regiment) & 4th Canadian Armoured Division taken in World War 2. My Father Trooper Moise J Amyotte was enlisted in the South Alberta Regiment on June 26,1940 and was Honorably Discharged Feb 1946.

http://www.ww2f.com/members/arcticwolf-albums--south-alberta-regiment.html

More pictures of the SAR are on my facebook page.....just don't feel like uploading em all again

29th Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment (The South Alberta Regiment | Facebook

 

My grandfather was a Bren gunner in the Essex Regiment in Normandy, 1944. He used to talk about his experiences but I regret that I never got him to record it before he died almost ten years ago. I got into living history shortly afterwards and now use a replica of his uniform as my 'best' battledress.

 

My interest began to grow about 13 years ago when I was asked by my history teacher to do a report on a battle from WW2. It was an important assignment to him, and I could tell by the way he talked about it (I later found out his brother was murdered by the Nazi's in front of his eyes when he was still fairly young). I was assigned the Battle of Midway and began my research with Fuchida's book on the battle. The "fateful five minutes" grabbed my attention and stuck with me. I kept reading about various battles throughout the Pacific, and the more I read and learned, the more I came to realize how little I knew.

 

Close Combat III: The Russian Front. Old (about 1997?) real time strategy game for the PC, one of the first I ever got. Was very well done, and enough historical accuracy to get me interested in learning more. One thing led to another...

Interesting enough... Elefants were pretty damn impressive in that game, too.