What your family did in the war

Hello,

I am doing a history project and one of our task is to find out what family did in the war, if any of you would like to share what your family did in the war, information, pictures it would be very helpful.

Thanks

 

Thankyou

 

Thanks again

Very useful

 

My father went to work at a P-38 plant in California then joined the Coast Guard and ended up a plank owner on the East Wind. He served on her on Greenland patrol until the end of the war. He was on her when they captured a German freighter (locked in the ice) and a weather station. He may have been in the landing party that captured the weather station. He's dead now and I didn't think to ask him while he was alive but some of the things he said make me think this was the case.

My mother was in highschool through most of the war she did mention seeing German POWs around. When she graduated she went to DC and worked as a secretary for a short period of time before returning to go to college.

Two of my uncles weren't old enough to enter the service the other two both ended up in the USAAF. The older one taught navigation school for bombers for a while then flew a B-24 over to Europe by way of Brazil and Africa and served a combat tour there. He had just completed the requred number of combat missions when they upted it. His commander instited that he needed two more missions which rather irritated him so he looked around for something else and ended up flying his last two missions as legs of a round trip into and out of Sweden. He stayed in England after the tour and indeed after the war for a while. He never stated it but at least one of his brothers mentioned (and I suspect he was correct) that he probably was working for the OSS during that period. The other one ended up supervising the building of airfields in China. Comented that it was something of a shock for a young lieutenant to be in charge of a budget and equipment that exceeded $1,000,000 in the currency of the time.

 

lwd, would you mind if I used this for my project?

 

My father was a dirt poor farm boy from West Virginia.Went into the army and landed in Normandy D-day +31,3rd Army,then 7th Army.While setting up a radio station in Nancy,France,he met my mother.My mother worked in a newspaper office and had to work for the bousch(never Germans).She knew liberation was at hand when the artillary stopped and she went to work and the bousch were gone.

 

Not at all.

 

My Grand Father was in the Belgium Infantry on May 1940 . After the Belgium redition he was sent to Germany at the Stalag 17B during 5 Years . Liberated by the US Army and flew for his way back in a B17 .
He is 93 years old and still work in the family factory .

 

Grandfather (father's side) was a dentist in 1939, when the war started he worked on the sailors & airmen who arrived at the (greatly expanded) Jericho Naval Air Station, which was the HQ for Western Canada flying operations.

Grandmother had two brothers in the Canadian army, and an older brother who had been killed on a British battlecruiser at Jutland in 1916.

My other grandfather was a major in the (British) Indian Army, and was sent to the Levant. The Levant was invaded by the Allies to oust the Vichy forces and eliminate the threat of Axis aircraft operating there. He was wounded by an artillery shell but survived.

His younger brother served in the Merchant Marine, and worked on the Freetown run, and later the Murmansk convoys. Also survived.
Grandfather's older brother served on the HMS Dorsetshire, and participated in the Sinking of the Bismarck. (It was Dorsetshire's torpedoes that finally sank the German battleship) HMS Dorsetshire was then sent to Ceylon to join the Eastern Fleet, he was KIA (MPK) when she was sunk in the Indian Ocean Raid

My wife's Grandfather & brothers served in the Red Army during the war.

My Godfather joined the RCAF in WWII, at the age of 19. Before marriage, his wife lived with my Grandparents while going to college, and they were in Vancouver during the "West Coast Panic", when there were several false alarms and air raid alerts in early 1942, similar to the Battle of Los Angeles in the US. He trained at Portage La Prairie in the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. He trained on the Anson & the Hudson, and was then stationed in Yorkshire as part of 6 group RCAF. He flew missions mainly over Germany & the Baltic, first in the Halifax and then for the remainder of the war in the Lancaster.

 

i have alot of relitevs and alot served but my grandmas 3 brothers served 1 in a feild artillery battlion who was wounded in the leg [gunshot]. 1 was a tail gunner on a b-17 wounded in hand [flak]. and 1 a combat enginer.

 

Here we go;

*11 relatives flying with Bomber Command (9 died during the war and two are alive and kicking today)
*4 or 5 distant Jewish relatives who were imprisoned in the German concentration and death camps
*Unknown number of German relatives who were Heer and Waffen-SS combat troops (Moscow in 1941 to Berlin in 1945)

 

My grandfather was a China troops' commander and officer, in the world war 2.

 

In New Mexico, as in other places it was towards the end of an economic depression and my dad was working in the Civilian Conservation Corps and after the war broke out this work force was sometimes discharged for the convenience of the government to be drafted into military service. He then was trained and went to Hawaii and the Phillipines. My uncles also served in the Battle of the Bulge,(was wounded by friendly fire) and my other uncle went to sea as a Radioman on an American ship that saw a lot of action eventually being struck by a Kamikaze in the Pacific. Our family was very fortunate that all returned from war alive to raise families and share their stories with them about their service. Many of their descendants have also served in the military having been inspired by those stories and their parents dedication to the service of their country.