What did your family do in WW2?

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Originally Posted by PanzerJager

Wow we should have a "what did your family do in ww2" thread as everyone seems to have vets in their family.

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As mention in thed WW2 theater thread.



Since I am Russian almost all my grand-relatives (grandfathers, grand uncle (is that even a word?), etc.) served in the military during the war. Unfortunatly I don't know what specific units they served in.

My maternal grandfather was a career officer and went to military school for artillary officers. He served on almost all the fronts in the war and was never injured (except for one case when he stood too close to an artillary piece that went off.) When the war was over he was 22 and a Major. He eventually worked his way up to Lt. Colonel but was never given a Generalship because he was Jewish.

My paternal grandfather enlisted as an infantrymen. I don't know much about his experiences as he doesn't like to talk about them. He lost his brother in the war.

My mother's uncle lost his leg when an artillary piece hit him. He was considered a hero when he came home and eventually became a Judge. I don't know much else since I wasn't close to him.

My maternal grandmother died when my mother was young and my grandfather remarried. The woman he married lost her brother and father in the war. Her brother was in the airforce and was shot down somewhere in Yugoslavia I think.

So what did your relatives do during WW2?

My Paternal Grandfather was too young, my Maternal Grandfather served as a first mate in the Merchant navy, on several different ships. He was offered a captaincy after the war, but was unable to accept it due to developing stomach ulcers.

Great uncle served for the Vaterland on the western front in France, got captured and died after the war. No damn medals or nothin/

My paternal grandfather commanded a Panzer IV on the eastern front as part of the 11th panzer division of the Wehrmacht. He fought in battles to rescue the trapped soldiers of Stalingrad and then around Rostov where he recieved an iron cross with no specialties. He was killed at Kursk taking the high ground around Butovo.

My maternal grandfather was a low level supply officer for the Kriegsmarine. His brother was in the 3rd SS Totenkopf and all i know of him was that he was killed around Demyansk Pocket (he isnt spoken of very often ~;) ).

Various other members of the family were in the German armed forces, but nothing very special apparently as no one remembers too much about their history in the military.. or mabey they dont want to remember? ~:confused:

One Grandfather was a medic, in the Western Europe Campaign for US. Was their from D-day to the end. The other one made tanks back in the states due to health problems. I know for sure, I wouldn't have wanted to be a medic.

One side of the family served as U.S Marines in the Pacific and all survived despite some near fatal wounds, the other side served primarily in the Royal Canadian Air Force (lost 2 distant relatives that way.)

My mom was a little girl in Sapporo, Japan. She didn't talk much about what happened during the war, but I do remember her saying that they were very, very hungry and cold much of the time. I also remember the distant and pained look on her face when she said that.

I honestly don't know what was going on on my father's side during WWII. My dad served in Japan after the Korean War (where I was conceived and born).

Both my grandfathers were part of the British Indian army. My maternal grandfather was a second leftanant at the start of the war and was promoted 2 steps to Captain because several men above him died. He served in Iraq (putting down a rebellion) and then went to North Africa. He was actually heading towards Singapore when secret messages were recieved overnight and his division (or whatever the group was called) was transferred to Iraq. Singapore was captured by the Japanse several days later and a few of his friends and I believe a somewhat distant cousin were killed or tortured.

My paternal grandfather was a bit younger but he was part of the airforce and served in Burma against the Japanse. I don't know if he saw combat since he died when my father (jet fighter accident) was a young boy so my knowledge of him is somewhat limited.

Both of my grandfathers were mostly in jail. First imprisoned by the Nazis, then by the communists. Such is life.

Bulgaria joined the Axis in 1941 as there was a 600,000 German army across the Danube in Romania. As a result Bulgaria declared war on Britain, the USA, and the USSR. When the Red Army entered NorthEastern Bulgaria in autumn of 1944, there was a millitary coup overnight and a new government was established that declared war on Germany while we were still technically at war with the other Great Powers. The German Army was already withdrawing from Bulgaria when the Red Army entered, but the Bulgarian Army was ordered to attack whatever German forces were left. My paternal great grandfather enlisted as a volunteer and fought the Germans all the way to Drava River in Hungary. My great great grandfather fought in WW1 against the Greeks, French and the English in Macedonia and Albania.

Both my grandfathers served in the Greek army during WW2. My maternal grandfather saw lots of action, he was a Lt. in a division that fought the Italians in the Albanian front. After the surrender to the Germans, he fled the country to the middle east and served as an officer in the Greek Army in Exile.

After the war, he returned to Greece and served in the mine clearing detachments - that's how he got killed - cleaning a minefield. He got a couple of medals for his actions.

My paternal grandfather didn't see much action, although he was drafted and served in a division near Trikala when the Germans entered Greece. During the occupation he joined the resistance and after the war he also was killed when cleaning a minefield (Greece was literally full of mines). Despite that, he got no medal. Not even post mortem.

A funny twist of fate, that both my grandparents died in a minefield, during peace times.

My grandfather served in the Romanian army, more specific in the 1st(and only) armoured division as a tank radio operator. I later heard form my grandmother(he died when I was quite young) that he had received a german decoration but he had to give it away when the communist asked him to.

My family came from eastern part of Poland which are presently middle Belorussia and western Ukraine.

My grandfather (father's side) luckily wasn't taken to Katyn ( he was able to hide the fact that he was an officer during the war in 1919-1920), so he survived, but had to escape with my grandmather and my 1 year old father before the ethnic cleansing of 1943-1946 in western Ukraine.

About the orther part of my family I don't know much. ~:cheers:

My paternal grandfather was born with a withered arm so he didn't serve.

My maternal grandfather was a shipwright at Chatham Naval Dockyard. Got married in December 1939, got shipped to Alexandria Dockyard in Egypt in early 1940, didn't see my grandmother (or England) again until 1946.

Spent the years in between mending battle damaged destroyers and trying to stop Egyptians nicking his tools, by his account.

My female relatives got bombed quite a lot, living near Chatham dockyard. One was blown right through her house once. However they all survived that, although the NHS subsequently managed what Hitler couldn't and killed two of them.

WWII wasn't a popular discussion in our family.

The only stories I've heard from my grandfather (who died when I was fairly young) was that he served with the Dutch mobile artillery in 1940.

Now you have to imagine that the Dutch army was in bad shape before the war. The government believed Germany would respect her neutrality as they had done in WWI. The army was equiped with bicycles and horse-drawn carts, and could not even begin to compete with the motorized modern Wehrmacht. We didn't have much of an airforce.

My grandfather rode around the horse-drawn artillery pieces. Dunno if he also did the AA-guns.
At any rate, the Wehrmacht quickly overwhelmed the small, poorly equiped Dutch army, mainly because the politicians in the Hague refused to believe to that Germany would invade (despite reports of troops rallying at our borders), and so refused to order 'code red'. At least until the Germans were already in the country the next day.

My grandfather (after being discharged by the Germans) later served in the resistence and apparently shipped illegal refugees and equipement by sea beween Holland and Norway. He was eventually caught in Norway and sent to a workcamp in Poland.
He almost died there but fortunately was liberated by the Russians in 1945.

Details are sketchy at best as he refused to talk about it. I guess we'll never know what really happened to him in the war years.

My paternal grandfather never joined up in the UK Army or Navy or Air-Force, but he served in the Civilian Defence (Home Guards), where he was stationed in York and met my grandmother.

My maternal great-grandfather fought in Europe and Africa as an infantry officer right below Monty from '42-'45.
In '45 he discovered a landmine in Germany, and it blew his leg off, crippling him, but it never bothered him. This was after the end of the war in Europe, around June, 1945, if I remember correctly.

Ahh...I always loved hearing war stories from him. ~:cheers:

My paternal grandfather was in the Canadian signal corps. I'm positive he was part of D-day, not sure if he was in Italy or not. Anyway grand-dad was a real shutter bug, being in the rear with the gear gave him a lot of time to take pictures of stuff. He had (he died 2 years ago) 3 wartime photo albums. Where in he has picture of himself at the base in England dated about Febuary-May 1944. The albums are also full of pictures of V1 strikes on London, there is even a picture of a dud V1 sticking out of a building. Another dud V1 landed flat on it's belly in a field and he has a picture of that too.

My biological maternal grand father died when my mom was 8 months old from a blood disorder in '56. The man who raised my mother (her uncle) who I think of as my grand father was a merchant marine, that is he served on cargo ships. I get the impression he served in the Indian ocean running supplies to British forces in the east. He even caught malaria and was in a hospital in Alexandria for 6 months where he says they fed him nothing but goat cheese, consequently he can't even look at the stuff now.

My paternal grandfather was captured on communist charges while he was in northern Epirus and sent to Mauthausen concentration camp(north of Vienna) where he was nearly starved. Then in a great way the red army stormed theplace and he was able to flee. He always hated Austrians beyond belief from that experience. Well after he fleed he had to walk all the way down to southern albania, crossing croatia, yugoslavia, and kosovo. This is by foot! On my mother's side not much really, my grandmother was considered royalty and my grandfother was a capitalist trader so they didn't see much action. Overall it was a pretty crappy time to be alive, especially in the Balkans where hundreds of thousands of people were starved to death.

My Grandfather was an anti-fascist who enlisted in the British Terrortorial Army (Royal Art) in 1938. At the outbreak of war he was sent to Egypt and fought against the Italians and then German Africa Corp until the their surrender and the end of the North African campaign. From there he moved through the Middle East to India and fought against the Japannese in Burma. He left home in England in 1939 and returned in 1945.
During the 6 years my grandmother waited for his return she worked as a tram conducteress.

My maternal grandfather was a Military Policeman in the 30s, left before the war started and bizarrely wasn't called up again when war started ~:confused:

My step-mums dad was in the Royal Navy and his brother was a tail gunner on Whitleys and was killed in 1940 ~:(

My wifes grandfather was a Concientious Objector on religious grounds, he was one of those Christians who refused to fight because he "couldn't imagine Jesus with a machine gun". Being a concientious objector in wartime Britain took a hell of a lot of bravery - you were liable to be locked up and I know his family were persecuted by the local community for not "doing their bit". Whilst I don't necessarily agree with his position, I certainly have some sympathy for it.

My paternal grandfather joined the RAF in 1935 as an engine mechanic. He worked on Spitfires for most of the war, starting in N Africa, then the battle of Britain, then back to N Africa, then the invasion of France. He ended the war in Germany working on the new jet engined Meteors. He stayed in the RAF until 1970, working on Hunters, Javelins and Canberras. Words cannot express my pride in his wartime service :bow:

My one grandfather ran a factory in Scotland, the other drove a truck, but my great uncles served in the British Army. Both fought in the Italian campaign. My one uncle escaped relatively lightly but my other uncle was wounded and captured by the Germans. He spent over a year in a German POW camp. But neither of them would talk about their experiences unless they were completely drunk, so I don't really know all the details. Sad, really.

Belgium didn't put up much of a fight, both of my grandfathers were ordered to go to Germany to work there, one came back within a week claiming there was no work and it was stupid and pointless, he was a farmer and had a business to run, the other stayed there for a while, since he died before I as born I don't know anything about him really, and since the other one died when I was 4, I don't know all that much about him either.

My paternal grandfather was a truck driver in the Belgian army at the time of Germany's invasion in 1940. He was captured and was a prisoner of war for a month or seven. Then the Germans released him and he could return home.
He spent the war doing thousand-and-one different jobs to survive...
At the end of the war he hid (sp?) two American soldiers (parachuteers??) who seemed to have been dropped a bit off-site (they were supposed to fight in Arnhem). Not really that heroic as at that moment the Germans were already practically gone :grin2:
In 1940, when my grandfather was driving trucks and fleeing in face of the Germans, my grandmother got kicked out of her house by Germans. She tried to escape to France with her mother, her 6-month old baby and her younger sister, but all of you who know their history know that fleeing to France in 1940 was not really a good idea. They didn't make it and returned to their home town after two months. They were lucky to find their homes "unpillaged".

My other grandfather was too young when the war broke out (he didn't fight as a soldier as he was only 17 in 1940). The Germans ordered him to work in the port of Antwerp at the end of the war. When the Germans retreated he was considered as a "collaborator" and put in jail. A few weeks later he was ordered to clean up the dead bodies of Canadians and Germans who fought in a battle near my home town (Germans trying to stop the allied "reconquest").
He usually doesn't talk that much about this period; he is very bitter about what happened. I don't really know what I should think about it. It is very possible that he picked the "wrong" side :disappointed:

None of my grand-parents are really keen on Germans. Still. A sentiment that is not shared by me ~;)

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Originally Posted by Tricky Lady

He usually doesn't talk that much about this period; he is very bitter about what happened. I don't really know what I should think about it. It is very possible that he picked the "wrong" side :disappointed:

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A lot of people are bitter about that period, Belgium also had two kinds of resistances, a socialist one and a catholic one, after the war, members of one would often accuse members of the other of collaboration, a lot of innocent people were 'punished' when we were liberated.

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Originally Posted by doc_bean

A lot of people are bitter about that period, Belgium also had two kinds of resistances, a socialist one and a catholic one, after the war, members of one would often accuse members of the other of collaboration, a lot of innocent people were 'punished' when we were liberated.

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That's indeed what my grandfather claimed in the few times that I heard him talk about that period. But there's just too little info for me to know what I should think about it. I'll probably never know it...

My grandparents are still rather bitter about the Japanese as well and less so about the Germans...but I don't share the sentiment. (They rarely say anything bad about Japan, but long ago when I started buying Japanese cars and trucks and shunned the shoddy stuff the "Big 3" were putting out, they weren't terribly happy over it. Probably didn't help that one branch of the family worked for Ford.) ~;)

An irony about WWII: My grandparents and their siblings were Great Depression children and very nearly starved in the U.S. One set of clothes, not much to eat, working hard as children to raise a few cents a week for food. So while much of the rest of the world suffered horribly through the various ravages of war, things actually improved for them (although they wouldn't describe it that way.)

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Ours survived... We weren't engaged in the war but our "government" (literarily dictators until 1950) were pro-fascist until late '43 and maybe even later. Due to the fresh memories of the previous war and proceedings, the people were basically "German sympathizers" but of course nobody knew about the Holocaust and other stuff by then. (There was no free press at all, everything was under censorship.) People were not to be blamed. The British sank a vessel of ours in the Mediterranean to force us into the war against the Germans and people recognized enough about it before the censorship managed to cover up etc. etc...

Many basic substances were unavailable, the most (in)famous being sugar shortage. My father (b. 1937) still remembers many details. My mother was born after the war but its "circumstances" lasted until years later. My paternal grandfather used to be a minor local administrator by then and had a lot of things to tell us

Confliting actions were being carried on by the dictatorship. Some German refugees (Carl Ebert, Max Meinecke, Paul Hindemith, Friedrich Statzer...) were employed, while some "others" (Einstein!) were turned over. Some native Jewish businessmen were robbed and exiled using a specially invented tax law. Some Turks and Christians did suffer from it as well... (Later, in 1956, an allegedly government sponsored wave of violence now called the "September 6/7th events" caused lives and properties of several Christians. Although it was the Greeks who were targetted, Armenians did suffer too. As a result, thousands of Greeks gradually migrated from the contry. Now, an estimated total of 900 [nine hundred] are living in Turkey.)

Anyway, the war marked the end of the literary dictatorship (but NOT the overdomination of the military caste, which is still as valid as it has been since 1908) and introduced a pseudo-democracy. Social classes started to break and melt down into each other gradually, "citizenship" and "civility" began to decay... Today that "process" is complete, hence my profile location...
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Hey, 900 Greeks in Turkey is better than 0 Turks in Greece. According to the Greek government, there are no minorities in Greece. Anyway, I thought that the issue was resolved after the Greko-Turksih War in the twenties, when some tremendous blunders on behalf of the Greek general (can't think of his name) caused the loss of Smyrna (Izmir) and the surrounding area which was primerally inhabited by Greeks. After the peace treaty both countries swapped thier minorities.
Had Turkey joined the Axis the Russian situation would have worsened tremendously, but that's a different topic.

Grand-Grandfather Preilowski was an high Officer in WW2, due to he served as a very young man in WW1. He was deployed on the western Front with the Invasion of France, Garisson of France and later lead Battles in Belgium against the US-Army. He was captured there.

Grand-Grandfather Gutschmitt was assasinated by the Nazis, because he was a Member of the SPD.

Grand-Grandfather Holz was temporary imprisioned because he had been KPD-Member prior to 1933 (But left the Party in fear when Hitler came to Power).

My Grandfather Hubert Holz was, as all Youth in his age, forced to join the Hitlerjugend. He was seduced by Nazipropaganda in this time, even saw Hitler himself during a Parade in Berlin. Due to the Hitlerjugend was susidiary of the NSDAP he was promoted as a young politician and "youthleader" of the Region resulting in he was promised the Rang of Luitanant when he became Adult. When third Reich ordered the Frontusage of the Hitlerjugend (however they were a youth Militia and assisted Garisons prior to it) he and the Boys under his Leadership (the most of those 14-16 aged Boys ignored the adult Officer) were formed into a Espionage Company and recieved Krads and Aufklärer 38(t). However they where deployed on the Eastern Front and had terrible encounter a Platoon of T34/86. The Adult Officer ordered to attack (a bit displaced), my Grandfather ordered Retreat and Inform the Battalion-HQ. Resulting in the adult one tried to shoot him, which ended his loyalities to the Nazis. The Boys did retreat, but due to some followed the order where smashed. As after that Event the adult Officer got right, the remaining Equipment was given to an exile romanian Company. The Boys should be punished by only fighting as Infantry aslong as they are all dead. However that did happen, may Grandfather and few others survived because they were injured.

My paternal grandfather was in the US Army, he was badly wounded in France and walked with a slight limp for the rest of his life. He was the only son in his family. He did have a cousin that was a tanker in Europe, but I don't know much about him.

I'm not sure what my paternal grandmother did during the war.

My maternal grandfather was also in the US Army, and fought in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. He was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery at Anzio. His oldest brother was a B-24 crewman in the 8th Air Force. The youngest brother was in the Marines and fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. He was killed in action during the battle of Okinawa.

My maternal grandmother went to work in a factory that manufactured parachutes.