My father....

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

Well my German Grandfather was a Major in the Wehrmacht. He was actually a Medical Officer (before the war he was a Lung Doctor specializing in Tuberculoses). He served on the Western Front (My mother has pictures of him standing in front of the Eifel Tower in his uniform after Paris fell.

He later was transferred to the Eastern Front and took part in the Battle of Stalingrad where he was later captured. What saved him was that he was later transferred from a Russian POW camp to an American POW camp and he was released shortly after the war returning in 1947 (I believe it was 1947 but it might have been 1946, I will have to ask my mother).

Several of my Grandmothers brothers fought in the war as well. I am not sure what there exact job was however. One survived the war but has since past away and the other is still MIA today. He was last seen somewhere in France. My Grandmother has very little information on what happened.

On my Step mothers side of the family she has an Uncle who was in the Waffen SS and fought in Yugoslavia. I have spoken to him once but only very briefly.

My American Grandfather was an engineer and he landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He fought out the war in Europe and remained in the Army. He also served in Korea.

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Was your American grandfather in "Torch" as well Chris?

Awesome thread! My father was in WWI as an airplane mechanic. He was a sergeant. I have a pass he got to go to Paris and I also have his book on how to repair a LeRhone rotary aircraft engine. He used to talk about Spads and Nieuports and Sopwith Pups and Camels a lot.

His book is actually a little notebook with a hard cover. I remember him telling me about how much of the mechanic training he received was sort of apprenticeship learning where you studied under a more experienced mechanic and were expected to make your own manuals, etc. He got to be a mechanic because he worked for Packard Motors after graduating High School in 1912.

He talked a lot about repairing the Irish linen and doping it to make the aircraft skin, etc. I used to have his helmet but, I believe my sister-in-law has that now. Somehow, he was gassed when he went up to the front with some buddies just to see what it was like. I believe it was mustard gas. He always laughed about how that happened. I think he went into a shell hole out of ignorance and was gassed there. He was born in September 1, 1895 and died Sept. 7, 1967.

Chuck, that would be a great addition here if you could scan the book or post some stories!

chuckn49 said:

Awesome thread! My father was in WWI as an airplane mechanic. He was a sergeant. I have a pass he got to go to Paris and I also have his book on how to repair a LeRhone rotary aircraft engine. He used to talk about Spads and Nieuports and Sopwith Pups and Camels a lot.

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Chuck: Just for grins, how old are you ? My father was born in Cinnaminson
Township (now Cinnaminson), NJ on March 4, 1891 and died in Baltimore, Md
on Sept 13, 1935. If you saw the first posts, you saw the info I have on
him. I still have letters he wrote to his mother in 1918-19, which I hope
to scan and put up one of these days. BTW, I'm 74...

Charles

Charles, I am just a young whipper-snapper at 59 having been born in 1949. I was, to say the least, a very late in life child. I had an older brother born in 1922 to give you an idea of the spread between us. He was a WWII P-38 P-51 pilot with the 8th. He is since deceased.

My father was born in Worcester, MA in 1895 but grew up mostly in Oxford, MA on a dairy farm. His father was a skilled cabinet maker and wheelwright.

I used to listen to my brother and my father talk airplanes all I could. Eventually, I became an Army helicopter pilot. Aviation seems to run in the family. I still fly starch wings occasionally but, not choppers (way too expensive). None of my sons, sadly, are aviation enthusiasts. One just got out of the Army, though, as a Captain.

I grew up learning about Spads, Nieuports, etc. My father also knew Eddy Rickenbacker, Billy Mitchell and Quentin Roosevelt. My sister-in-law has a couple letters from Rickenbacher to him.

My older brother started in the Army Air Corps as a crew chief for Gen. Carl Spatz when Spatz flew to England to look for airbases there before Pearl Harbor, I believe. It was Gen. Spatz who got him into flight school despite fact he did not have any college or even a high school diploma before he enlisted. The Army sent him to the Illinois Institute of Technology or its predecessor school (I can't remember which) so he could qualify to get into flight school which he did. He eventually retired as a colonel from Air Force.

Chuckn49,

Those are some pretty cool stories you related.
Thanks for allowing us to share in some of your memories.
About your father's mechanic training. It mimicks my father's, to a small degree.
Dad was USAF '45-'65 (5 years younger than your older brother).
He started off working with the teletype operators, as a sort of "runner" (as he called it), so he was like a dispatch rider.
A couple of years into it, he made friends with a sergeant who ran the motorpool and was able to get himself transferred over there permanently, thus starting a career that lasted about 50 years, as a mechanic.
When he started out, his only real experience was doing some time at the local gas station back on Long Island.
He told me, in his day, it was learn as you go. Fortunately for him, the manuals had already been written (still have some over at Mom's house).
He'd diagnois the problem as best he could, go in and examine, and try to fix it.
Fortunately, Dad had a pretty fair amount of "mechanical aptitude" (super judge of distance, too).
No schooling, no nuthin'. Just "here ya' go kid. It's broke. Fix it".
Still have a picture of him in his office, when he was in charge of the heavy equipment pool at Itami in Japan.
Mom says it taken around '46, so he would've been 19 ( ).
Would love to hear more stories about your father's time in the service and see some scans of those manuals he wrote.
That must really be something to sit down and read through.

You say your father was born in Worchester, Ma. in '95.
I presume he grew up there as well, so I'm wondering if he ever mentioned anything about the Harrington Richardson Arms, co.?
I believe they were in Worchester around that time, later (much!) moving to their present location of Gardner, Ma.
H&R, btw, are Firearms makers, known mostly for their break action single-shot shotguns, which they market under the "Topper" model name.



Elvis

chuckn49 said:

Charles, I am just a young whipper-snapper at 59 having been born in 1949. I was, to say the least, a very late in life child. I had an older brother born in 1922 to give you an idea of the spread between us. He was a WWII P-38 P-51 pilot with the 8th. He is since deceased.

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Chuck:

Thanks for the info. I really thought you were older, but what do I know ?

You've given me the inspiration to dig out those letters from my father
to his mother in 1918. Try to get them up ASAP.

Thanks, again....

Charles

Charles, who did you ended up with a princess? So that makes you Duke or Earl Cheese. Thanks for sharing everone. I enjoy family history.

My family's military history is a little thin. My mother always said her favorite uncle was in the Great War but the family never talked much about him. I had one grandfather in the Navy sometimes after WWI. He always had shore duty. My other grandfather was a bus driver and was never drafted during WWII.

I have a great uncle that flew B-25s with the 13th AF. My father has a couple of photos and a newspaper clipping where he received a couple of DFCs. The article talked about a straffing run against an island fortification with a 75mm cannon so he was in either a G or H model. In his military picture, he has a glass eye. I thought that was so cool when I was little. After the war he remained in the Air Force. He died in a thunderstorm when the DC3 he was riding in crashed into a moutain. He is at Arlington. I was able to visit him with my father back in 2001.

My father number came up a couple of times during the draft but he was able to get out of it. I am not sure how that happened. My uncle was in the Air Force and was stationed in Turkey during the 60s. He also missed Nam. My oldest uncle was an army engr. He went through the Korean war. They would build a bridge and the North Koreans would blow it up a few days later. He would then have to rebuild the bridge so the North Koreans could destroy it again. He spent the war rebuilding the same bridges over and over again. He thinks that the veterans that visits their battlefields are crazy.

I went on way to long. Back to Charles.

DBII

DBII said:

Charles, who did you ended up with a princess? So that makes you Duke or Earl Cheese. Thanks for sharing everone. I enjoy family history.DBII

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DBII: Would you mind repeating this ? I'm confused...

Charles

My great-grandfather did get a hold of WW1 but he was only 9 when it started.I do know however that he fought in WW2 and he received a medal but he passed away 6 or 7 years ago so I don't know much.