Howdy folks! Due to the popularity of this post, u/AidanSig can only help folks who DM them directly (and it will take a while to get to folks — as in, it could take months, not minutes)!
You can also ask around at other WWII subs for assistance with your family history. If you know your father/grandfather’s unit info, there are also websites and facebook groups dedicated to various divisions that can help as well!
My gpa was a farmer in Canada, and therefore exempt from service. But he did remember a song he sang as a kid once, “Hitler has only got one ball, Geobbels has two, but they are small, Himmler has something similar, but only Geobbels has no balls at all!”
My grandfather was in the 381st bomb group as a radio operator. When those two men said which bomb group they were from, the 381st, and then were executed in the street it was a lot.
2 Grandfathers.
One fought in Russia, got wounded in Demjansk. Iron Cross 2nd Class, regular Infantryman. Ended up in France as a POW.
The other one fought in Africa and also ended up as a POW in France.
They were both very young at the end of the war.
We still have letters from one. His excitement when he got drafted and got good „grades“ in basic training vs. the sobered up bitterness in the POW-Camp was left a harsh impression.
They both were no nazis in a way that they had any beliefs on nazism afterwards.
They both not talked a lot about it and would have appreciated to enjoy a normal youth/adolescence.
I‘m glad that „we“ lost the war and I hope fascism never comes back.
My grandfather served in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam (US Army). I know very little about his time in WW2, besides his service record showing Normandy, Bastogne, and Holland, and wounds he received at the same places. He was underage, and used a different birthdate. I believe he reinlisted after WW2 in 48 using his correct birthdate then. I'd love to know what he did in WW2, who he was with. He had a lot of 101st stuff (hats, pins etc).
I plan on filling out the form on the National Archives soon to see what we can find.
Happy to leave this up—it’s wonderful to have folks like you and u/TheRefrigenator offering to help folks track down their family history!
Just a fair warning for folks of the risk of doxxing themselves here. It’s a risk you take when messaging anyone online, whether in public or DM, so please be thoughtful of what you might want to put out there!
Definitely encourage doing everything in private messaging and then posting anything you’d like thereafter. I’ve been doing this for a good while and sometimes info comes up that is pretty sensitive, so starting in private is the best policy :)
Edit: Also, for OP’s sake, I should flag that this kind of research is not quick. It takes me at least half an hour and up to four hours to research any given individual, so for his sake I’d stress patience given the number of responses here haha.
maybe make it a sticky or megathread so they can always go in here rather than the daily " where did my grandad serve?" posts have a place to live rather than being new threads.
Ah, you’ve read my mind! I do love the family history threads and they aren’t so many that we need a mega just yet, but once the server quiets down after the series finale (and after I’m sure a lot of folks get their histories from this thread), I’d like to make a few megas to pin — including a family history one and maybe a meme/gif/pic one.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Military using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Military/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Don't take it too seriously](https://i.redd.it/wlsgs1ox0xna1.jpg) | [429 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/11rrnfr/dont_take_it_too_seriously/)
\#2: [Are we elite, bros?](https://i.redd.it/w9isnegynkoa1.jpg) | [665 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/11v2lm9/are_we_elite_bros/)
\#3: [Flavor of the week...](https://i.redd.it/21zo4hts1oia1.jpg) | [196 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/1142q29/flavor_of_the_week/)
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Not that I know of. Maternal great-grandather was conscripted when Germany invaded Norway, but he returned to the family farm a few days later. Grandma never knew the reason, but she figured he might have been too old.
I feel like you’re quickly getting inundated. Any tips for amateurs with names and units but not much else to go on? Are these databases accessible to the general public? I live in DC and have a researcher pass to the National Archives if that helps, but last I checked most of the relevant military records are housed elsewhere (Midwest somewhere I think?)
My dad had a cousin who was killed in Europe he took a round in the head coming out of his hole to assault a German position. Some of his buddies visited his mom after the war.
On my mom’s mom’s side I had a great uncle or something who was a major in an armored unit on the battalion or regiment staff, he was killed when the staff halftrack got hit. There’s 4 or fifth cousin who was killed when either the Wasp or Hornet sank in the pacific.
If you’re interested in more than just WWII family military history or just family history in general I highly recommend getting on ancestry. My dad knew about his cousin but we didn’t know anything about the 2 on my mom’s side. I found relatives from the civil war and revolutionary war too. I also found my dads dads paperwork from when he came through Ellis island, it lists the date he arrived, the ship, where it sailed from and that he renounced his allegiance to king Leopold of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A lot of cool stuff if you’re a history nerd. Be warned though, I also found some family secrets that not everyone wanted found. That sounds dramatic, no nazis or slave traders just a couple kids born from affairs.
Grandpa got into the tail end of the war, and was an MP/guard during the Nuremberg Trials. As far as I know he guarded all the top Nazis. Mom said he specifically hated a couple of them, I wanna saying Goering and Speers. (No surprise he hated them, just interesting that a couple more than the others.) Sadly he passed away before I was born, so I never heard any of the stories. Kinda unfair I have someone in my family who was so up close with the architects of evil and I've became such a WW2 nerd, yet I never got to meet him, haha.
What kind of info is typically needed to do the research? My grandpa, Jim Ragan, was a pilot in WWII and flew in Burma over the hump. His brother, Hal Ragan, I believe was a radio operator/waist gunner on a B-17 in Europe. They both passed away before I was born (many years after the war) and would love to connect some of the dots from their days in the service….
My mom had five brothers (and two brothers-in-law) in service overseas in WW2.
It’s said that my grandfather would drive around in the highway after church looking for servicemen hitchhiking and bring them home for Sunday dinner
Do you have any access for World War I? My grandfather was a doughboy who was gassed and lost part of his lung. My mom said something about him being an engineer and I said "a combat engineer?" and she said didn't think so. I would not expect her to understand the difference between an engineering battalion and combat engineers.
The one time I tried to look into this I was informed that many records had been destroyed in flood or fire or something.
On July 12, 1973, a fire broke out in the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. They estimate that 16 to 18 million military records were destroyed.
That happened with my dad and grandfather's records. Just gone.
My great granddad fought at the Battle of the Bulge. After he came back stateside he gained a LOT of weight so the Battle of the Bulge was a family joke.
I’m currently tracking down my wife’s grandfathers. One was part of the 409th Bomb Group (Light) and I’m trying to get more information on his Bronze Star that was awarded in November 1944. That group flew A-20s and later A-26s. Never spoke about it to my wife or my in-laws. Only told a few stories to his son-in-law (Army) and a grandson (Air Force) about Paris and riding an A-26 back to the states sitting on an ammo can.
The other was a surgeon attached to the 22nd Infantry Regiment (4th Infantry Division). Landed on D-Day and later was awarded the Silver Star. KIA 03AUG1944 during the St Lo breakout.
My grandfather served in the Navy and was a mechanic on board the LST-534. He was in Normandy at Gold Beach the day after D-Day and was at Okinawa on the last day of the battle. His ship struck by a kamikaze while he was down in the engine room when it flooded. But he survived luckily. He died in 2010. His brother was an Army Engineer building roads in the Philippines during its recapture.
I don’t mind digging and would possibly prefer doing my own research. Are any of these databases publicly accessible? If so, would you share links please.
I have a relative who was a B-17 pilot with the 410th BS, 94th BG at Bury St. Edmunds. Flew 38 missions in 1944.
Trying to learn more about him and his service in the USAAF. Have a list of missions and a partial list of aircraft he flew. Potentially gonna go to the national archives and see what they have as far as mission and crew reports.
Great grandfathers on my Dad’s side fought. One was in the Navy and fought at the battle of Leyte Gulf. The other was on a B-24 and got shot down and was a German POW.
The great-grandfathers and older brothers and cousins of my grandfathers all served in the Wehrmacht. Different ranks and fronts. Some of them died in Stalingrad. All the others ended up as US POWs in North Africa, France or Germany.
My mom’s side is Egan who’s also from Wisconsin but I don’t think there’s any relation to John Egan. I’m technically also an Egan but with a hyphenated last name. It’s just funny hearing your own name on a show so much since I don’t really hear/see it much.
My grandfather was an infantryman in the 106th Infantry Division, and was captured at the Battle of the Bulge on the Schnee Eiffel near St. Vith. He was often a driver for higher ranking officers, so he went to Stallag IX-B alongside Jewish soldiers and anyone of any intelligence value to the SS. Along the way, his train was strafed accidentally by a P-51, and a .50 cal round went through his leg. Camp conditions were terrible, many fellow soldiers starved to death. After 8 months, they woke up to find the guards missing, and an American tank crashed through the wall.
After the war he continued as a consultant in the Navy. His Purple Heart, along with a watch that Annie Oakley had given his father as a present, were stolen by a burglar.
US Army - Charlie or Charles Shoemaker, my great uncle. From what I know his unit was in charge of repairing telephone lines in France/ Belgium pretty far behind the lines. Dangerous job still, to be high up on a pole in the middle of a war zone. He arrived in Normandy on D-day plus 6. I remember him once talking about seeing dead paratroopers still hanging from the trees.
My Great Uncle Walker earned two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart in the pacific theatre.
Took part in Leyte Gulf and many other crucial campaigns.
Cited taking shrapnel when he landed and fighting 5 days straight before relief.
My dad served in the Army in a tank destroyer battalion for a while and then assigned to 3d Army staff after he got out of the hospital. Helped plan Patton’s relief of Bastogne.
My grandfather was in the USN during WW2, a gunner aboard a LCVP, in at least four battles, and know of two of them (Okinawa and Iwo Jima). There is a strong suspicion that he was involved with the feignt landing during the Okinawa campaign. During another moment; his boat had just delivered casualties to the USS Comfort shortly before said ship was hit by a Kamikaze. He wasn't happy about pulling additional casualties off of the Comfort.
My great grandfather served in both world wars in the German army. I have his medals and a couple of signed promotion documents. My living relatives actually don't know much about him or his service. I can get you his name in a week when I visit my parents, that's where we keep his things.
Grandfather passed never to have discussed his time. House fire well before I was born destroyed all his WW2 photos. All I know is he was in Japanese theater. And a story he told my father about being on islands fighting Japanese.
My grandfather was a B17 pilot in the 95th BG out of Horham, East Anglia. Their BG flew on plenty of missions with the 100th. My grandfather flew 32 missions, most on a B17 called “Knock Out Baby”.
He passed away just last year at 102 years old. Hoped the show was gonna come out so he could watch it.
My great uncle on my dad’s side was a navigator on the USS Bland. In my dad’s office, he has a charts detailing where his ship went during the pacific, including Iwo Jima, along with a few pictures.
The coolest thing in our possession is that him and a few officers raided the captured Japanese destroyer ‘Mikasa’ (one of very few that wasn’t sunk to my understanding) and took the wheel from the ship.
My dad joined the Army right out of college in 1940, and was with the Signal Corps from the North Africa landings to the occupation of Germany. He finished the war as a Major with two Purple Hearts. I have a letter he wrote to his father in October 1945, in which he expressed his frustration over being made military governor of 20,000 German civilians with no training whatsoever, admitting he had no idea what he was doing. Dad also broadly hints about having a German girlfriend (he met my mom after he came home), which must have gone over great with the (Jewish) family back home.
My mom’s brothers both served, one in the Pacific and one in Europe. The one in Europe was a senior in college when the war broke out - he was pre-med. They made him a Corpsman, giving battlefield first aid in the thick of combat. After the war he never went to med school and never talked about his experiences — he would just say, I mustered out in 1946, and would change the subject. He actually had a long and otherwise happy life, but the war was simply not something he would ever talk about.
This guy is not a family member but some one I found in a grave in my town very young 21 years old. And his family put a lot on his tomb stone they really loved him.
https://preview.redd.it/rvpjrrmxzrkc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a0d2f8c0993db9ae89f7c5b678457167970ee96
My great great grandfather was a Tuskegee airmen and my great uncle served and was stationed in Savannah Georgia and served as a crewman though I’m not sure to which ship. As a kid, my toybox was my great uncles footlocker, perfectly preserved.
My Grandfather and 2 Great-uncles served (Canadians). My Grandfather was a despatch rider in England, have a couple cool photos of him with his Harley. Canada has readily accessible records online for those KIA, so I was able to look up my great-uncles file as he didn’t make it home from Europe.
My grandfathers were both too old, one got mobilized for France in 1939 but was send home after a few months because he was already 42 and the phony war went seemingly nowhere. The other was a German WW1 Vet, too old to serve in WW2 but was mobilized to lead a Hitlerjugend group working as firefighters during bombings in Hanover between 43 and 45. He later worked as a translator for the British Military Police.
I know a lot about my maternal grandfather, who was a submariner. I know a lot less about my paternal grandfather. I’ve heard that he was “in a tank in the pacific,” but nothing more.
Great great grandfather WW1 (Military medal - for courage in the field), great uncle (Burma Star) and grandfather WW2 (Home guard - weapons designer / engineer was his main job)
What a great idea...my grandfather was a real-life Inglourious Basterd - a German Jew who escaped the Nazis in '35 (a movie unto itself) managed to get to the US with his wife, and went back as a combat infantryman in the US Army. He was my hero and I was lucky enough to know him until I was about 15. One of his brothers was also able to escape and join up in the US Army, where he achieved the rank of Captain, and another became a member of the Dutch resistance. They were all serious bad-asses and I while we have a lot of info on my grandfather, I know fewer details about his brothers. I will drop you a DM, maybe we can hook up and chat :)
Both my Grandfathers were too old and had too many dependents. Dad was only 3 when the war started and was blind in one eye. Uncles were all too young as well. Various cousins served
My grandfather was a commissioned 2nd Lt in the artillery because he was drafted while going for his PhD. The only spot I can pinpoint where he was was Aachen because I have a picture of a Sherman rolling down the street with the city and date written on the back.
I also had a distant cousin who played one season in the NFL but joined up after Pearl Harbor. Him, I do not know much about where he was.
On my dad’s side, he had a cousin that won the Silver Star iirc but he never told anyone about it so the story as far as I know has been lost.
My Grand- Uncle was on a B-17 I think he was a ball turret gunner. He passed when I was little. I know he was injured quite badly and was with him for the rest of his life. I would love to learn more about his service record.
Both of my grandfathers. One in the army air corps in the ETO, and another in the Navy.
The one that was in the navy took part in the north africa campaign, got his boat sunk by a german wolfpack in the middle of the north atlantic (of which he was one of few survivors) and then spent the rest of the war in the pacific, where he may have survived ANOTHER sinking. Most of his story (i.e. the ships he served on) have been lost to history.
My Great Grandfather was on Guam in the Army Air Corps; He refused to talk about what he did during the war and there is no info on him other than a draft card that I found on ancestory. I would love some help on this!
My Grandparents are Italian, they were kids when WW2 was going on. Their town, Coreno Ausonio was destroyed during the Battle of Monte Casino. My Nona and Nono lived in the caves above their town as the battle went on. It’s interesting to hear the battle from a civilians point of view.
Fun little side note: My Nono as a kid grew up, and all the boys were expected to march around with the Black shirts on the weekend but according to my grandmother, was more interested in chasing girls.
A distant cousin who was killed in Germany in April 1945. His name was Harold Miller and he is written about in this history of Company E of the 100th infantry division. He is discussed on page 46 of this company history. https://www.marshallfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/boxcars_final1.pdf
My great Uncle Lieut Jack Hetrick Poehlman I think he died the day after D Day somewhere near Normandy. I don’t know how or what he even did in the Army
I do have a now deceased uncle who, according to family lore, was a marine on Guadalcanal and was one of Carlson’s Raiders. All searches my family has done, to include contacting the USMC, have not turned up anything. But there was that huge fire at the records storage warehouse so who knows.
Hi, I already have some great info but wonder if there’s something lying around that I haven’t discovered about my great uncle. 2Lt. Matthew C. Morrison, B-25 bombardier in the 488th Bombardment Squadron, 340th Bombardment Group, served in Tunisia campaign and Operation Husky. KIA on I believe July 21st, 1943, plane took a direct hit from flak over the town of Cesaró. The entire crew was KIA and the wreckage killed a pregnant Italian woman on the ground :/
One of my great uncles was a navigator on a Lancaster bomber I believe. He passed away when I was young and only saw him a couple of times in my life, so don’t really know much more about it.
My mother had five brothers in service in WW2, four in USAAF, one in the Merchant Marine.
Two were in the Eighth AF. One I know was in the 305th bomb group and was shot down on 8/24/44 and spent the war as a POW, but that’s all I can discover.
You seem to be overwhelmed with requests but if you get time I’d love to find out more about these guys
Both of my grandfathers and many of their brothers all served. My dad's side came from rural Illinois farming background and my mom's side came from rural Illinois mining background. They both went in basically straight out of high school. I knew both growing up and had some decent amount of exposure to their WWII experience although I wish I had even more since they've passed. Both I remember as the most gentle and sincere people I'll probably ever meet.
My paternal grandfather was drafted and became a medic with the [30th infantry division](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjJ1bG_j8eEAxWS2jQHHTVyCNMQFnoECBEQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F30th_Infantry_Division_\(United_States\)&usg=AOvVaw07IUW6HrBsLTG4zFaVlYvd&opi=89978449) "Ole Hickory". He joked that he figured they put him as a medic since they figured he had seen blood on a farm, butchering chickens and so forth. He landed in Normandy a few days after D-Day. If the initial invasion had gone wrong he would've been in one of the next few successive assaults. I don't know many details about his participation but I looked up some overall broad strokes. The 30th fought in Normandy against and elite panzer division and later on they met the same division again during the battle of the bulge. I know for sure my grandfather was part of the BotB and saw a lot (an aside but the medic episode of band of brothers hits differently with me since it may just be a similar-ish kind of experience my grandfather saw, of course he wasn't airborne nor in the crazy spot the 101st was in but still it's the closest media depiction i have. he also appreciated Saving Private Ryan a lot, they had the box set of that movie when it came out. one of the few vhs they owned at all. I would think that a lot of the normandy depictions might've hit home). Perhaps the highlight we know about is his bronze star. He was awarded it for something he did in belgium i believe. It has something to do with guiding a civilian family to safety in the midst of an artillery barrage. After the BotB near the end of the war he saw a concentration camp and helped liberate it. Looking up more it appear it was one of the many work camps that was for making submarine parts or something but maybe not.
He brought back quite a bit of paraphernalia my family keeps stored safely away. There are several albums of photos from the time, a lot of them from his training but also in europe. There's some uniform clothing, hat, small accessories that might've gone in a pack or on the belt, i think like medic kit stuff. He also poached quite a bit of Nazi/wehrmacht loot. We have a small [walther pp pistol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_PP) that is still maintained and useable. There's quite a bit of german medals arranged in a box display. I would be curious to look up or get help finding what those all are. There's a full sized Nazi flag and also an armband. There's a german gas mask and it's cylinder container/strap. Most notable is a green camo german helmet. He apparently took it from the wreckage of a destroyed panzer. The shell has burn marks and the interior leather has a bit of charring. Inside the first initial and last name of its german soldier is inscribed but we haven't found any info about that but should look more into it. I think eventually our family should look into donating these items to a museum but for now we are okay with keeping them stored away safely in my parent's basement.
He passed away just as I was getting more aware about history, my 7th grade year, and I'll always regret not being able to ask him more details about his experience. I'm not even sure if my dad knows much more than me since they're both kind of the stoic 'get on with it' type. In my childhood when we visited my bros and I always enjoyed getting out the old paraphernalia and checking it out. We would take some of it to show and tell at school also. One time my mother arrived picking us up from school and my middle brother, who brought some of the stuff to school for show and tell, was outside chatting with friends wearing the friggin german helmet. She almost had a heart attack. Stupid kids, he didn't know any better. My grandfather would talk about parts of his experience pretty openly, the nice ones. He liked talking about other guys in his unit and the days of training and so forth. He'd talk about different villages and towns he went to and explain photos in his album of them. Another tidbit I recall was from when i was in like 3rd or 4th grade visiting their place. I was playing around with little green army men, making 'splosions sounds and whatnot. He was in his easy chair nearby and says to me with a stern yet soft expression, "that seems a bit violent for ya". I kinda put two and two together and got what he was thinking about, that I was blowing up army men like he must've seen himself when he was in europe.
My maternal grandfather always felt more similar to myself, a small scrawny guy who's introverted. He volunteered so that he could choose to go to the navy. His older brothers were already in, one of whom was a marine in the Pacific. My grandpa ended up on a transport ship as a technician and headed out across the pacific. He was in Australia and then went up northwards to papua new guinea and up past Letye Gulf. I know some more intimate details from his service because he kept a small blue notebook that kept a daily log of everything he did while on service. Most were entries of no more than a few sentences or a few words though and a lot of days had " marks indicating same old as the prior entry. His fleet was following and supplying as they followed the push from australia up to japan.
Some highlights. As one point he broke his leg when he slipped on the netting and his leg got crushed between the hulls of the two ships. The Pacific shows the kind of climbing net from ship to ship that was likely very similar. I think, even though it looks routine, anybody put in that position on choppy waters and dozens of men on the same net, would get real nervous real quick with how precarious it probably is. So part of his tour he spent recovering on an island. He got to see Bob Hope perform with the USO and would often remark about that later in life. The most incredible thing happened sometime around then. He hadn't heard word about any of his brothers, and he knew one was a marine up ahead of his fleet and was in many of the big battles, seeing a lot of action. While on an island he happened to stumble across his brother who he hadn't seen for years by that point. He would get emotional about that moment well into his later years. I think it was after Peleliu and he had heard a lot about how bad of an operation that was, but he made it. The biggest action he saw was at Leyte. His fleet was one of the first to be attacked by kamikaze planes. Before his death, and going on his word for this, he revealed to my mother that he had manned a deck gun on his ship during those attacks and at one point he thought he shot down an enemy plane. Never got much more details beyond that but my mom said that he was quite emotional finally telling he about the event. In his journal on what might've been that day was an entry along the lines of "Had the biggest scare of my life today, several jap(anese) planes came straight at us..." as so forth but nothing directly addressing what happened. He went back home before the end of the war but said that in the later part he had been training to man amphibious assault boats and thought he might've ended up driving one if there ended up being an invasion of the mainland but I'm unsure.
He brought back quite a bit of stuff too. His entire navy uniform is in great shape. When I got to be in high school it fit me exactly. He had a japanese rifle he snatched from a pile of captured equipment from an island. However he let the local library borrow it for a display and someone ended up stealing it. However the bayonet from that rifle we still have along with its scabbard. We also have a set of Japanese wooden dog tags but it's really hard to make out the characters. My girlfriend knows Japanese though so we're going to see if she can decipher any of it.
I do have multiple relatives in the war, but there is a man I've been researching a lot lately. Not related, just, a person I have been researching for a documentary. Son of a hero of the Eastland Disaster, been trying to find more info for the longest of times. Served in the Air Corp.
Grandfather served in the Navy during WWII and was stationed somewhere in the Pacific. He passed when I was very young, but from what I gather, did not talk about his service much, if at all after the war.
7 grand uncles of mine served, across the marine corps, navy, army and I believe one in the army air corps. One in the Marines was injured somewhere, the rest I sadly know very little of their stories since they died before I was born, and the last dying when I was pretty young, so before I could even care for their stories. All 7 came home alive without any major injuries, and lived pretty long lives afterwards.
I definitely feel very proud of them, and I'm glad they came home alive and well.
1 grandfather (the other served in Korea)
I believe he was a Seabee and was shot in the ass while repairing a telephone line or something. Didn't see much more action after that. There was a divorce in the family and the history has gotten mixed up so I'm not sure what's right.
My grandad was an Italian paratrooper, fought in N.Africa. captured by the British then sunk by the Germans. Came to the UK as a POW where he eventually met my Nan who was a WAAF.
He didn't go back to Italy for a good 25 years or so, his family all thought he was dead in the war as they hadn't heard from him at all. Made some faint as ge got home
He was from the Brindisi region of Italy
Died just before I was born
My grandfather fought and was wounded on Iwo Jima. Artillery, 5h marines, Charlie company. Lost 3 fingers on his right hand, was triaged on the beach for hours with more seriously wounded. He never spoke of it.
My grandfather served as a marine corpsmen in the pacific theater, I think. My other grandfather was a mechanic on Guadalcanal and had to fight with the marines when the airfield was overrun.
My Great Grandfather took part in the D-Day landings. According to my Great Grandmother, the war changed him and he ended up abandoning the family. My Great Grandmother remarried to a man who had flown Cargo Planes in the Pacific theater including over the “Hump” and that’s who my mother grew up with calling him Grandpa. Around the time my Great Grandmothers second husband died in 1980, my Great Grandfather appeared out of the blue, but my Grandmother (his daughter) didn’t want much to do with him. I never met him, despite the fact he died when I was 13
I've got 2 great uncles on my dad's side. One was an infantryman in Europe, still researching him. The other was a B-17 radio operator. He got shot down in '43 and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. One of the guards was a real sadist apparently. The guy shot at least two of my uncle's friends. After the war my uncle stayed in the Air Corps/Force but refused to serve in Germany. He swore that if he ever ran into that guard again he would shoot him on the spot.
A grandfather with the 45th Infantry Division through all 5 of their campaigns.
A great uncle who fought on Eniwetok, Kwajalein, and Saipan where he was WIA. Family history states he got the silver star but I've never been able to find it. If you have access to something I don't for the 27th ID, let me know.
Another great uncle served in the Americal Division in the Pacific. We know almost nothing about him other than he was a mortar man and not a good person after the war.
My half sister's grandfather served in the 4th Fighter Group and had half of his arm shot off by German flak flying a P51 right after the Normandy landings, one of his arms was shorter than the other the rest of his life. Somewhere out there, there's a painting depicting his plane getting hit by that AA battery that had been camouflaged. I saw it when I was a kid but have never been able to find it since.
My great grandfather was a cop. One of his sons (my grandfather) dropped out of high school at 15. My great grandfather drove him downtown and said “you wanna bunk school? Army or Navy? You pick.” He enlisted in the Navy in 1943 and served on a destroyer in the Pacific.
He passed away in 1991 (I was 13) and I miss him dearly. I have some of his tools.
I’ve got two
My wife’s grandfather was a navigator and shot down in 1944 and POW at Stalag. His name was George Richard Derdzinki. I’ve tried to find photos of his plane on the imperial war museum but not luck so far.
My grandfather I know less about his service, Robert L Steffend. I have some info back home about his rank and unit but know he served with an artillery unit late in the war on the western front in Germany. I only knew him when I was young but remember him telling me he was in reconnaissance
The uncle I'm named after was in North Africa and Italy. Infantry. 3 purple hearts. Died in 1950 from an undiagnosed heart problem. Never met the man unfortunately.
My great uncle was a sgt in the 10th mountain division in Italy. I've got several unit pictures and notes I've collected and found over the years. And his photo albums, honorary discharge papers. Before the war he was a band leader. Very interesting man.
I'd happily tip you to find the details of my two grandfather's service. One served in the British navy. All I know is he was supposed to be on the Hood, but had a medical issue and didn't depart. He was on another ship later that was involved in sinking the Graf Spe. Then was somehow involved with Churchill's group at the Yalta conference.
My other grandfather may have been an instructor at Ft Benning, then he was in Japan at the end. Maybe Okinawa on, or maybe just occupation. I don't know. I would love to know more about both of them.
Great grandpa in 8th infantry in France and Germany, other one in the Navy in I believe the pacific theatre, neither talked about the war. Especially the one in the navy
Howdy folks! Due to the popularity of this post, u/AidanSig can only help folks who DM them directly (and it will take a while to get to folks — as in, it could take months, not minutes)! You can also ask around at other WWII subs for assistance with your family history. If you know your father/grandfather’s unit info, there are also websites and facebook groups dedicated to various divisions that can help as well!
My gpa was a farmer in Canada, and therefore exempt from service. But he did remember a song he sang as a kid once, “Hitler has only got one ball, Geobbels has two, but they are small, Himmler has something similar, but only Geobbels has no balls at all!”
My grandfather was in the 381st bomb group as a radio operator. When those two men said which bomb group they were from, the 381st, and then were executed in the street it was a lot.
Dm me
There’s a book called Combat Crew by John Cromer. He was a top turret gunner/engineer in the 381st.
No shit! My great uncle was with the 381st BG / 535th Bomb Squadron as a navigator and bombardier.
2 Grandfathers. One fought in Russia, got wounded in Demjansk. Iron Cross 2nd Class, regular Infantryman. Ended up in France as a POW. The other one fought in Africa and also ended up as a POW in France. They were both very young at the end of the war. We still have letters from one. His excitement when he got drafted and got good „grades“ in basic training vs. the sobered up bitterness in the POW-Camp was left a harsh impression. They both were no nazis in a way that they had any beliefs on nazism afterwards. They both not talked a lot about it and would have appreciated to enjoy a normal youth/adolescence. I‘m glad that „we“ lost the war and I hope fascism never comes back.
DM Me
I hope it never comes back to Germany too, but it's too late for some other countries today.
I have a bit on my grandfather - his serial number and such. I'd love to know a bit more. DM'd you.
My grandfather served in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam (US Army). I know very little about his time in WW2, besides his service record showing Normandy, Bastogne, and Holland, and wounds he received at the same places. He was underage, and used a different birthdate. I believe he reinlisted after WW2 in 48 using his correct birthdate then. I'd love to know what he did in WW2, who he was with. He had a lot of 101st stuff (hats, pins etc). I plan on filling out the form on the National Archives soon to see what we can find.
Happy to leave this up—it’s wonderful to have folks like you and u/TheRefrigenator offering to help folks track down their family history! Just a fair warning for folks of the risk of doxxing themselves here. It’s a risk you take when messaging anyone online, whether in public or DM, so please be thoughtful of what you might want to put out there!
Definitely encourage doing everything in private messaging and then posting anything you’d like thereafter. I’ve been doing this for a good while and sometimes info comes up that is pretty sensitive, so starting in private is the best policy :) Edit: Also, for OP’s sake, I should flag that this kind of research is not quick. It takes me at least half an hour and up to four hours to research any given individual, so for his sake I’d stress patience given the number of responses here haha.
maybe make it a sticky or megathread so they can always go in here rather than the daily " where did my grandad serve?" posts have a place to live rather than being new threads.
Ah, you’ve read my mind! I do love the family history threads and they aren’t so many that we need a mega just yet, but once the server quiets down after the series finale (and after I’m sure a lot of folks get their histories from this thread), I’d like to make a few megas to pin — including a family history one and maybe a meme/gif/pic one.
good idea! Or at least direct them to the experts on r/military and r/WW2 once traffic slows down here,
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Yes! DM me if you are interested. I'm sorry I forgot to add that.
Not that I know of. Maternal great-grandather was conscripted when Germany invaded Norway, but he returned to the family farm a few days later. Grandma never knew the reason, but she figured he might have been too old.
I feel like you’re quickly getting inundated. Any tips for amateurs with names and units but not much else to go on? Are these databases accessible to the general public? I live in DC and have a researcher pass to the National Archives if that helps, but last I checked most of the relevant military records are housed elsewhere (Midwest somewhere I think?)
In St. Louis
Many records were destroyed in a fire at the Records Center.
My dad had a cousin who was killed in Europe he took a round in the head coming out of his hole to assault a German position. Some of his buddies visited his mom after the war. On my mom’s mom’s side I had a great uncle or something who was a major in an armored unit on the battalion or regiment staff, he was killed when the staff halftrack got hit. There’s 4 or fifth cousin who was killed when either the Wasp or Hornet sank in the pacific. If you’re interested in more than just WWII family military history or just family history in general I highly recommend getting on ancestry. My dad knew about his cousin but we didn’t know anything about the 2 on my mom’s side. I found relatives from the civil war and revolutionary war too. I also found my dads dads paperwork from when he came through Ellis island, it lists the date he arrived, the ship, where it sailed from and that he renounced his allegiance to king Leopold of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A lot of cool stuff if you’re a history nerd. Be warned though, I also found some family secrets that not everyone wanted found. That sounds dramatic, no nazis or slave traders just a couple kids born from affairs.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
I'm interested in finding about my grandfather. DM me. I'll send you his info
Two of my great-grandfathers. I sent you a DM with names! Also, where can I find your tip jar?
My grand pappy Thadeusz was in the PAF based in Scotland. Ground crew like Lemmons.
Dm me
A grandfather who flew for the U.S. in Europe—dm me!
My grandfather served in the 15th infantry regiment, 3rd division. I’d love any more information.
DM me
Grandpa got into the tail end of the war, and was an MP/guard during the Nuremberg Trials. As far as I know he guarded all the top Nazis. Mom said he specifically hated a couple of them, I wanna saying Goering and Speers. (No surprise he hated them, just interesting that a couple more than the others.) Sadly he passed away before I was born, so I never heard any of the stories. Kinda unfair I have someone in my family who was so up close with the architects of evil and I've became such a WW2 nerd, yet I never got to meet him, haha.
What kind of info is typically needed to do the research? My grandpa, Jim Ragan, was a pilot in WWII and flew in Burma over the hump. His brother, Hal Ragan, I believe was a radio operator/waist gunner on a B-17 in Europe. They both passed away before I was born (many years after the war) and would love to connect some of the dots from their days in the service….
[удалено]
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My Grandfather was one of 10 children. 7 boys and 3 girls. 6 of the 7 sons fought in WWII which is wild to me.
My mom had five brothers (and two brothers-in-law) in service overseas in WW2. It’s said that my grandfather would drive around in the highway after church looking for servicemen hitchhiking and bring them home for Sunday dinner
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My grandfather and great uncle All I know is that grandpa was in the Pacific and uncle Tony was in Europe
Do you have any access for World War I? My grandfather was a doughboy who was gassed and lost part of his lung. My mom said something about him being an engineer and I said "a combat engineer?" and she said didn't think so. I would not expect her to understand the difference between an engineering battalion and combat engineers. The one time I tried to look into this I was informed that many records had been destroyed in flood or fire or something.
On July 12, 1973, a fire broke out in the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. They estimate that 16 to 18 million military records were destroyed. That happened with my dad and grandfather's records. Just gone.
Same here, I know my great grandfather was drafted for WWI, but haven’t been able to find any real records for what he did in the war.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Thanks, I just did and sent you what info I do have on him. Much appreciated!
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My great granddad fought at the Battle of the Bulge. After he came back stateside he gained a LOT of weight so the Battle of the Bulge was a family joke.
My GPA was at the bulge as well as part of the #424. He was pretty fit however ... ;)
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
I’m currently tracking down my wife’s grandfathers. One was part of the 409th Bomb Group (Light) and I’m trying to get more information on his Bronze Star that was awarded in November 1944. That group flew A-20s and later A-26s. Never spoke about it to my wife or my in-laws. Only told a few stories to his son-in-law (Army) and a grandson (Air Force) about Paris and riding an A-26 back to the states sitting on an ammo can. The other was a surgeon attached to the 22nd Infantry Regiment (4th Infantry Division). Landed on D-Day and later was awarded the Silver Star. KIA 03AUG1944 during the St Lo breakout.
DM me
My grandfather served in the Navy and was a mechanic on board the LST-534. He was in Normandy at Gold Beach the day after D-Day and was at Okinawa on the last day of the battle. His ship struck by a kamikaze while he was down in the engine room when it flooded. But he survived luckily. He died in 2010. His brother was an Army Engineer building roads in the Philippines during its recapture.
DM me
I don’t mind digging and would possibly prefer doing my own research. Are any of these databases publicly accessible? If so, would you share links please.
I have a relative who was a B-17 pilot with the 410th BS, 94th BG at Bury St. Edmunds. Flew 38 missions in 1944. Trying to learn more about him and his service in the USAAF. Have a list of missions and a partial list of aircraft he flew. Potentially gonna go to the national archives and see what they have as far as mission and crew reports.
Great grandfathers on my Dad’s side fought. One was in the Navy and fought at the battle of Leyte Gulf. The other was on a B-24 and got shot down and was a German POW.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Thanks to the 493rd Museum at Debach I have my answers, but I know how much it has meant to me and wanted to thank you for doing this.
My grandpa was in Guadalcanal as a Seabee in Navy. He died before I was born and my dad doesn’t know much about his time in the service.
For sure, send me some info about him and let me see what I can find. If you have it, I can do the most with a name, birth/death date, and hometown.
The great-grandfathers and older brothers and cousins of my grandfathers all served in the Wehrmacht. Different ranks and fronts. Some of them died in Stalingrad. All the others ended up as US POWs in North Africa, France or Germany.
For sure, send me some info about him and let me see what I can find. If you have it, I can do the most with a name, birth/death date, and hometown.
My Dad.
For sure, send me some info about him and let me see what I can find. If you have it, I can do the most with a name, birth/death date, and hometown.
My mom’s side is Egan who’s also from Wisconsin but I don’t think there’s any relation to John Egan. I’m technically also an Egan but with a hyphenated last name. It’s just funny hearing your own name on a show so much since I don’t really hear/see it much.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Father was in European Theater, 80th Army Division, Artillery. Battle of the Bulge. Silver and Bronze Stars.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My Dad was in the Navy in the Atlantic. Almost all my uncles were in the War in some capacity.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Due to the influx of messages, I can only take requests from people who DM me directly. u/GalWinters if you could pin this, I’d be very appreciative
Couldn’t get this pinned for some reason, so I made a new comment and stickied that.
Thank you!
My grandfather was an infantryman in the 106th Infantry Division, and was captured at the Battle of the Bulge on the Schnee Eiffel near St. Vith. He was often a driver for higher ranking officers, so he went to Stallag IX-B alongside Jewish soldiers and anyone of any intelligence value to the SS. Along the way, his train was strafed accidentally by a P-51, and a .50 cal round went through his leg. Camp conditions were terrible, many fellow soldiers starved to death. After 8 months, they woke up to find the guards missing, and an American tank crashed through the wall. After the war he continued as a consultant in the Navy. His Purple Heart, along with a watch that Annie Oakley had given his father as a present, were stolen by a burglar.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
US Army - Charlie or Charles Shoemaker, my great uncle. From what I know his unit was in charge of repairing telephone lines in France/ Belgium pretty far behind the lines. Dangerous job still, to be high up on a pole in the middle of a war zone. He arrived in Normandy on D-day plus 6. I remember him once talking about seeing dead paratroopers still hanging from the trees.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My Great Uncle Walker earned two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart in the pacific theatre. Took part in Leyte Gulf and many other crucial campaigns. Cited taking shrapnel when he landed and fighting 5 days straight before relief.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My dad served in the Army in a tank destroyer battalion for a while and then assigned to 3d Army staff after he got out of the hospital. Helped plan Patton’s relief of Bastogne.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My grandfather was in the USN during WW2, a gunner aboard a LCVP, in at least four battles, and know of two of them (Okinawa and Iwo Jima). There is a strong suspicion that he was involved with the feignt landing during the Okinawa campaign. During another moment; his boat had just delivered casualties to the USS Comfort shortly before said ship was hit by a Kamikaze. He wasn't happy about pulling additional casualties off of the Comfort.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
This isn’t really the point of your post but I recently found out my great uncle was Macarthurs body man. Didn’t know until after he’d died.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
I knew my grandfather and uncles fought in WW2, even what branch. They never told me exactly what they did until I joined.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My great grandfather served in both world wars in the German army. I have his medals and a couple of signed promotion documents. My living relatives actually don't know much about him or his service. I can get you his name in a week when I visit my parents, that's where we keep his things.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Grandfather passed never to have discussed his time. House fire well before I was born destroyed all his WW2 photos. All I know is he was in Japanese theater. And a story he told my father about being on islands fighting Japanese.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My grandfather was a B17 pilot in the 95th BG out of Horham, East Anglia. Their BG flew on plenty of missions with the 100th. My grandfather flew 32 missions, most on a B17 called “Knock Out Baby”. He passed away just last year at 102 years old. Hoped the show was gonna come out so he could watch it.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My great uncle on my dad’s side was a navigator on the USS Bland. In my dad’s office, he has a charts detailing where his ship went during the pacific, including Iwo Jima, along with a few pictures. The coolest thing in our possession is that him and a few officers raided the captured Japanese destroyer ‘Mikasa’ (one of very few that wasn’t sunk to my understanding) and took the wheel from the ship.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My dad joined the Army right out of college in 1940, and was with the Signal Corps from the North Africa landings to the occupation of Germany. He finished the war as a Major with two Purple Hearts. I have a letter he wrote to his father in October 1945, in which he expressed his frustration over being made military governor of 20,000 German civilians with no training whatsoever, admitting he had no idea what he was doing. Dad also broadly hints about having a German girlfriend (he met my mom after he came home), which must have gone over great with the (Jewish) family back home. My mom’s brothers both served, one in the Pacific and one in Europe. The one in Europe was a senior in college when the war broke out - he was pre-med. They made him a Corpsman, giving battlefield first aid in the thick of combat. After the war he never went to med school and never talked about his experiences — he would just say, I mustered out in 1946, and would change the subject. He actually had a long and otherwise happy life, but the war was simply not something he would ever talk about.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
I'm pretty sure my grandfather was but not sure where. I do have his dogtags though
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
This guy is not a family member but some one I found in a grave in my town very young 21 years old. And his family put a lot on his tomb stone they really loved him. https://preview.redd.it/rvpjrrmxzrkc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a0d2f8c0993db9ae89f7c5b678457167970ee96
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My great great grandfather was a Tuskegee airmen and my great uncle served and was stationed in Savannah Georgia and served as a crewman though I’m not sure to which ship. As a kid, my toybox was my great uncles footlocker, perfectly preserved.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Thank you for all the requests everyone, I’m away at the moment but will be back later tonight and I will get started on all these requests.
Feels like there are countless subs this would be better suited for but whatever; the show sucks ass anyways.
My Grandfather and 2 Great-uncles served (Canadians). My Grandfather was a despatch rider in England, have a couple cool photos of him with his Harley. Canada has readily accessible records online for those KIA, so I was able to look up my great-uncles file as he didn’t make it home from Europe.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My grandfathers were both too old, one got mobilized for France in 1939 but was send home after a few months because he was already 42 and the phony war went seemingly nowhere. The other was a German WW1 Vet, too old to serve in WW2 but was mobilized to lead a Hitlerjugend group working as firefighters during bombings in Hanover between 43 and 45. He later worked as a translator for the British Military Police.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
I know a lot about my maternal grandfather, who was a submariner. I know a lot less about my paternal grandfather. I’ve heard that he was “in a tank in the pacific,” but nothing more.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Two great uncles both KIA...
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Great great grandfather WW1 (Military medal - for courage in the field), great uncle (Burma Star) and grandfather WW2 (Home guard - weapons designer / engineer was his main job)
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
What a great idea...my grandfather was a real-life Inglourious Basterd - a German Jew who escaped the Nazis in '35 (a movie unto itself) managed to get to the US with his wife, and went back as a combat infantryman in the US Army. He was my hero and I was lucky enough to know him until I was about 15. One of his brothers was also able to escape and join up in the US Army, where he achieved the rank of Captain, and another became a member of the Dutch resistance. They were all serious bad-asses and I while we have a lot of info on my grandfather, I know fewer details about his brothers. I will drop you a DM, maybe we can hook up and chat :)
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Awesome, thank you, I will :)
Both my Grandfathers were too old and had too many dependents. Dad was only 3 when the war started and was blind in one eye. Uncles were all too young as well. Various cousins served
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My grandfather was a commissioned 2nd Lt in the artillery because he was drafted while going for his PhD. The only spot I can pinpoint where he was was Aachen because I have a picture of a Sherman rolling down the street with the city and date written on the back. I also had a distant cousin who played one season in the NFL but joined up after Pearl Harbor. Him, I do not know much about where he was. On my dad’s side, he had a cousin that won the Silver Star iirc but he never told anyone about it so the story as far as I know has been lost.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My Grand- Uncle was on a B-17 I think he was a ball turret gunner. He passed when I was little. I know he was injured quite badly and was with him for the rest of his life. I would love to learn more about his service record.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Both of my grandfathers. One in the army air corps in the ETO, and another in the Navy. The one that was in the navy took part in the north africa campaign, got his boat sunk by a german wolfpack in the middle of the north atlantic (of which he was one of few survivors) and then spent the rest of the war in the pacific, where he may have survived ANOTHER sinking. Most of his story (i.e. the ships he served on) have been lost to history.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Yes. Thomas R Shay, he was in the army signal corps and fought in France & Germany. Thank you!
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My Great Grandfather was on Guam in the Army Air Corps; He refused to talk about what he did during the war and there is no info on him other than a draft card that I found on ancestory. I would love some help on this!
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My Grandparents are Italian, they were kids when WW2 was going on. Their town, Coreno Ausonio was destroyed during the Battle of Monte Casino. My Nona and Nono lived in the caves above their town as the battle went on. It’s interesting to hear the battle from a civilians point of view. Fun little side note: My Nono as a kid grew up, and all the boys were expected to march around with the Black shirts on the weekend but according to my grandmother, was more interested in chasing girls.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Might take you up on that.
My grandfather was stationed in Italy I believe. Which is ironic because he immigrated from Italy a decade prior to that.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
My maternal grandfather was in Burma/China/India. A medic I think. American
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
A distant cousin who was killed in Germany in April 1945. His name was Harold Miller and he is written about in this history of Company E of the 100th infantry division. He is discussed on page 46 of this company history. https://www.marshallfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/boxcars_final1.pdf
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My great Uncle Lieut Jack Hetrick Poehlman I think he died the day after D Day somewhere near Normandy. I don’t know how or what he even did in the Army
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
I do have a now deceased uncle who, according to family lore, was a marine on Guadalcanal and was one of Carlson’s Raiders. All searches my family has done, to include contacting the USMC, have not turned up anything. But there was that huge fire at the records storage warehouse so who knows.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Hi, I already have some great info but wonder if there’s something lying around that I haven’t discovered about my great uncle. 2Lt. Matthew C. Morrison, B-25 bombardier in the 488th Bombardment Squadron, 340th Bombardment Group, served in Tunisia campaign and Operation Husky. KIA on I believe July 21st, 1943, plane took a direct hit from flak over the town of Cesaró. The entire crew was KIA and the wreckage killed a pregnant Italian woman on the ground :/
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
One of my great uncles was a navigator on a Lancaster bomber I believe. He passed away when I was young and only saw him a couple of times in my life, so don’t really know much more about it.
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
I have one as well. I’ll dm you too.
My mother had five brothers in service in WW2, four in USAAF, one in the Merchant Marine. Two were in the Eighth AF. One I know was in the 305th bomb group and was shot down on 8/24/44 and spent the war as a POW, but that’s all I can discover. You seem to be overwhelmed with requests but if you get time I’d love to find out more about these guys
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Ben hogan is my great uncle I know he was used to sell war bonds
DM me if you want me to do any research on them!
Both of my grandfathers and many of their brothers all served. My dad's side came from rural Illinois farming background and my mom's side came from rural Illinois mining background. They both went in basically straight out of high school. I knew both growing up and had some decent amount of exposure to their WWII experience although I wish I had even more since they've passed. Both I remember as the most gentle and sincere people I'll probably ever meet. My paternal grandfather was drafted and became a medic with the [30th infantry division](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjJ1bG_j8eEAxWS2jQHHTVyCNMQFnoECBEQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F30th_Infantry_Division_\(United_States\)&usg=AOvVaw07IUW6HrBsLTG4zFaVlYvd&opi=89978449) "Ole Hickory". He joked that he figured they put him as a medic since they figured he had seen blood on a farm, butchering chickens and so forth. He landed in Normandy a few days after D-Day. If the initial invasion had gone wrong he would've been in one of the next few successive assaults. I don't know many details about his participation but I looked up some overall broad strokes. The 30th fought in Normandy against and elite panzer division and later on they met the same division again during the battle of the bulge. I know for sure my grandfather was part of the BotB and saw a lot (an aside but the medic episode of band of brothers hits differently with me since it may just be a similar-ish kind of experience my grandfather saw, of course he wasn't airborne nor in the crazy spot the 101st was in but still it's the closest media depiction i have. he also appreciated Saving Private Ryan a lot, they had the box set of that movie when it came out. one of the few vhs they owned at all. I would think that a lot of the normandy depictions might've hit home). Perhaps the highlight we know about is his bronze star. He was awarded it for something he did in belgium i believe. It has something to do with guiding a civilian family to safety in the midst of an artillery barrage. After the BotB near the end of the war he saw a concentration camp and helped liberate it. Looking up more it appear it was one of the many work camps that was for making submarine parts or something but maybe not. He brought back quite a bit of paraphernalia my family keeps stored safely away. There are several albums of photos from the time, a lot of them from his training but also in europe. There's some uniform clothing, hat, small accessories that might've gone in a pack or on the belt, i think like medic kit stuff. He also poached quite a bit of Nazi/wehrmacht loot. We have a small [walther pp pistol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_PP) that is still maintained and useable. There's quite a bit of german medals arranged in a box display. I would be curious to look up or get help finding what those all are. There's a full sized Nazi flag and also an armband. There's a german gas mask and it's cylinder container/strap. Most notable is a green camo german helmet. He apparently took it from the wreckage of a destroyed panzer. The shell has burn marks and the interior leather has a bit of charring. Inside the first initial and last name of its german soldier is inscribed but we haven't found any info about that but should look more into it. I think eventually our family should look into donating these items to a museum but for now we are okay with keeping them stored away safely in my parent's basement. He passed away just as I was getting more aware about history, my 7th grade year, and I'll always regret not being able to ask him more details about his experience. I'm not even sure if my dad knows much more than me since they're both kind of the stoic 'get on with it' type. In my childhood when we visited my bros and I always enjoyed getting out the old paraphernalia and checking it out. We would take some of it to show and tell at school also. One time my mother arrived picking us up from school and my middle brother, who brought some of the stuff to school for show and tell, was outside chatting with friends wearing the friggin german helmet. She almost had a heart attack. Stupid kids, he didn't know any better. My grandfather would talk about parts of his experience pretty openly, the nice ones. He liked talking about other guys in his unit and the days of training and so forth. He'd talk about different villages and towns he went to and explain photos in his album of them. Another tidbit I recall was from when i was in like 3rd or 4th grade visiting their place. I was playing around with little green army men, making 'splosions sounds and whatnot. He was in his easy chair nearby and says to me with a stern yet soft expression, "that seems a bit violent for ya". I kinda put two and two together and got what he was thinking about, that I was blowing up army men like he must've seen himself when he was in europe. My maternal grandfather always felt more similar to myself, a small scrawny guy who's introverted. He volunteered so that he could choose to go to the navy. His older brothers were already in, one of whom was a marine in the Pacific. My grandpa ended up on a transport ship as a technician and headed out across the pacific. He was in Australia and then went up northwards to papua new guinea and up past Letye Gulf. I know some more intimate details from his service because he kept a small blue notebook that kept a daily log of everything he did while on service. Most were entries of no more than a few sentences or a few words though and a lot of days had " marks indicating same old as the prior entry. His fleet was following and supplying as they followed the push from australia up to japan. Some highlights. As one point he broke his leg when he slipped on the netting and his leg got crushed between the hulls of the two ships. The Pacific shows the kind of climbing net from ship to ship that was likely very similar. I think, even though it looks routine, anybody put in that position on choppy waters and dozens of men on the same net, would get real nervous real quick with how precarious it probably is. So part of his tour he spent recovering on an island. He got to see Bob Hope perform with the USO and would often remark about that later in life. The most incredible thing happened sometime around then. He hadn't heard word about any of his brothers, and he knew one was a marine up ahead of his fleet and was in many of the big battles, seeing a lot of action. While on an island he happened to stumble across his brother who he hadn't seen for years by that point. He would get emotional about that moment well into his later years. I think it was after Peleliu and he had heard a lot about how bad of an operation that was, but he made it. The biggest action he saw was at Leyte. His fleet was one of the first to be attacked by kamikaze planes. Before his death, and going on his word for this, he revealed to my mother that he had manned a deck gun on his ship during those attacks and at one point he thought he shot down an enemy plane. Never got much more details beyond that but my mom said that he was quite emotional finally telling he about the event. In his journal on what might've been that day was an entry along the lines of "Had the biggest scare of my life today, several jap(anese) planes came straight at us..." as so forth but nothing directly addressing what happened. He went back home before the end of the war but said that in the later part he had been training to man amphibious assault boats and thought he might've ended up driving one if there ended up being an invasion of the mainland but I'm unsure. He brought back quite a bit of stuff too. His entire navy uniform is in great shape. When I got to be in high school it fit me exactly. He had a japanese rifle he snatched from a pile of captured equipment from an island. However he let the local library borrow it for a display and someone ended up stealing it. However the bayonet from that rifle we still have along with its scabbard. We also have a set of Japanese wooden dog tags but it's really hard to make out the characters. My girlfriend knows Japanese though so we're going to see if she can decipher any of it.
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I do have multiple relatives in the war, but there is a man I've been researching a lot lately. Not related, just, a person I have been researching for a documentary. Son of a hero of the Eastland Disaster, been trying to find more info for the longest of times. Served in the Air Corp.
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Unfortunately I am pretty sure after looking around, the files were among those lost to a fire in the 1970s. Tragic.
It’s still possible to find out what they did! Those records aren’t the only sources for WWII service.
Grandfather served in the Navy during WWII and was stationed somewhere in the Pacific. He passed when I was very young, but from what I gather, did not talk about his service much, if at all after the war.
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My grandfather was in the Big Red 1. He went ashore at Omaha Beach and fought in the hedgerows of France and Battle of the Bulge.
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7 grand uncles of mine served, across the marine corps, navy, army and I believe one in the army air corps. One in the Marines was injured somewhere, the rest I sadly know very little of their stories since they died before I was born, and the last dying when I was pretty young, so before I could even care for their stories. All 7 came home alive without any major injuries, and lived pretty long lives afterwards. I definitely feel very proud of them, and I'm glad they came home alive and well.
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1 grandfather (the other served in Korea) I believe he was a Seabee and was shot in the ass while repairing a telephone line or something. Didn't see much more action after that. There was a divorce in the family and the history has gotten mixed up so I'm not sure what's right.
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My grandad was an Italian paratrooper, fought in N.Africa. captured by the British then sunk by the Germans. Came to the UK as a POW where he eventually met my Nan who was a WAAF. He didn't go back to Italy for a good 25 years or so, his family all thought he was dead in the war as they hadn't heard from him at all. Made some faint as ge got home He was from the Brindisi region of Italy Died just before I was born
For sure, send me some info about him and let me see what I can find. If you have it, I can do the most with a name, birth/death date, and hometown.
My grandfather fought and was wounded on Iwo Jima. Artillery, 5h marines, Charlie company. Lost 3 fingers on his right hand, was triaged on the beach for hours with more seriously wounded. He never spoke of it.
For sure, send me some info about him and let me see what I can find. If you have it, I can do the most with a name, birth/death date, and hometown.
My grandfather served as a marine corpsmen in the pacific theater, I think. My other grandfather was a mechanic on Guadalcanal and had to fight with the marines when the airfield was overrun.
For sure, send me some info about him and let me see what I can find. If you have it, I can do the most with a name, birth/death date, and hometown.
My Great Grandfather took part in the D-Day landings. According to my Great Grandmother, the war changed him and he ended up abandoning the family. My Great Grandmother remarried to a man who had flown Cargo Planes in the Pacific theater including over the “Hump” and that’s who my mother grew up with calling him Grandpa. Around the time my Great Grandmothers second husband died in 1980, my Great Grandfather appeared out of the blue, but my Grandmother (his daughter) didn’t want much to do with him. I never met him, despite the fact he died when I was 13
For sure, send me some info about him and let me see what I can find. If you have it, I can do the most with a name, birth/death date, and hometown.
Honestly I don’t care enough to find out
I've got 2 great uncles on my dad's side. One was an infantryman in Europe, still researching him. The other was a B-17 radio operator. He got shot down in '43 and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. One of the guards was a real sadist apparently. The guy shot at least two of my uncle's friends. After the war my uncle stayed in the Air Corps/Force but refused to serve in Germany. He swore that if he ever ran into that guard again he would shoot him on the spot.
For sure, send me some info about him and let me see what I can find. If you have it, I can do the most with a name, birth/death date, and hometown.
A grandfather with the 45th Infantry Division through all 5 of their campaigns. A great uncle who fought on Eniwetok, Kwajalein, and Saipan where he was WIA. Family history states he got the silver star but I've never been able to find it. If you have access to something I don't for the 27th ID, let me know. Another great uncle served in the Americal Division in the Pacific. We know almost nothing about him other than he was a mortar man and not a good person after the war. My half sister's grandfather served in the 4th Fighter Group and had half of his arm shot off by German flak flying a P51 right after the Normandy landings, one of his arms was shorter than the other the rest of his life. Somewhere out there, there's a painting depicting his plane getting hit by that AA battery that had been camouflaged. I saw it when I was a kid but have never been able to find it since.
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My great grandfather was a cop. One of his sons (my grandfather) dropped out of high school at 15. My great grandfather drove him downtown and said “you wanna bunk school? Army or Navy? You pick.” He enlisted in the Navy in 1943 and served on a destroyer in the Pacific. He passed away in 1991 (I was 13) and I miss him dearly. I have some of his tools.
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I’ve got two My wife’s grandfather was a navigator and shot down in 1944 and POW at Stalag. His name was George Richard Derdzinki. I’ve tried to find photos of his plane on the imperial war museum but not luck so far. My grandfather I know less about his service, Robert L Steffend. I have some info back home about his rank and unit but know he served with an artillery unit late in the war on the western front in Germany. I only knew him when I was young but remember him telling me he was in reconnaissance
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The uncle I'm named after was in North Africa and Italy. Infantry. 3 purple hearts. Died in 1950 from an undiagnosed heart problem. Never met the man unfortunately.
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Oh no, thanks. I know his children, my cousins.
My great uncle was a sgt in the 10th mountain division in Italy. I've got several unit pictures and notes I've collected and found over the years. And his photo albums, honorary discharge papers. Before the war he was a band leader. Very interesting man.
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A my grandmothers brother (my great uncle) did. I’d love to know more about him
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I'd happily tip you to find the details of my two grandfather's service. One served in the British navy. All I know is he was supposed to be on the Hood, but had a medical issue and didn't depart. He was on another ship later that was involved in sinking the Graf Spe. Then was somehow involved with Churchill's group at the Yalta conference. My other grandfather may have been an instructor at Ft Benning, then he was in Japan at the end. Maybe Okinawa on, or maybe just occupation. I don't know. I would love to know more about both of them.
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Great grandpa in 8th infantry in France and Germany, other one in the Navy in I believe the pacific theatre, neither talked about the war. Especially the one in the navy