Freedom 4th!!!

[Tripper]

We are celebrating a free 4th again this year because of all the men & women in our military that served, came home or lost their lives to defend us & our families... I salute them & our military guys here too. My Dad was proud of his service & while packing for my move today I found a whole box on my Dad's fotos from the war...

My Dad, his twin & older brother were all in the Navy during WWII. My Dad worked on 1 of the big guns & was injured several times. They were all on different boats in a convoy & although I don't think u were supposed to b takin' fotos... my Dad of course did! Some sort of authority problem!!! See... I come by it honestly! Anyway... they were getting shelled pretty heavily & you can see by the wakes they were running evasive maneuvers. My Dad saw his brother's ship get hit, burn & sink. For quite a while he thought his brother had been killed & the Houston newspaper reported he had died as well. His brother actually survived & laughed at that newspaper clipping. My Dad took this picture of his brother's ship burning & sinking. As a side note: "Not for transmission through post" is rubber stamped on the back of all these photos. The last foto was one my Dad took of the big gun he was stationed on. My Dad & I were *very* close & he never said 1 single word about the war to me.. ever! I was told everything I know by his brothers.

Have a picture of u're Dad during the war I encourage you to post it to this thread! Happy 4th... no firecrackers here... it's been raining every day for 3 weeks straight & today is no exception!

BoB

 

[gassersgarage]

My Uncle was in the 442nd during the war. He never talked about it either. My Father-n-law was in the Air Force, stationed in the Philipines. He was actually one of those captured on Bataan. He spent the war in Japan in a prisoner-of-war camp. While he was being transported to Japan via ship, it was torpedoed by an American submarine. Fortunately, during the early part of the war, a lot of American torpedos fail to explode.
Funny story he told of the war was when they were standing in the chow line, a Japanese soldier was standing in line awaiting chow. No one noticed until the cook plopped the chow onto the plate, looked up into a Japanese face. Everyone scrambled to get a gun before the soldier made it back into the jungle. They never saw the soldier after that.
Anyway, happy 4th of July to you and yours.....

 

[joehalford01]

that's cool trip, my dad barely missed vietnam by a couple of years, my grandfather on the other hand was a radar guy in the marines during ww2. he was shipping out just as the first atomic bomb was dropped so he never saw any action. My grandmas brother on the other hand was a fighter pilot in the phillipines. His plane was shot down during the war and neither him nor the plane was ever found.

 

[22dodge]

My Dad was a radio operator in the army, New Guinea and the Philippines.
Has told me quite a few stories. While going through some boxes in storage looking for some things he requested, I found a couple of shoe boxes full of his war photos, some only about an inch and a half square.
When I get back to the USA in a week, I will post some of them.

I remember one story very well, he had a series of 3 small photos showing a Kamikazi plane hitting the LST next to his, about 1/8 mile away.
It was an ammo ship, and when the smoke cleared there was nothing to see.
The fellow taking the pictures on my dads ship was killed by the blast, and when my dad came back to reality, he was in a corner, with his helmet under him and shrapnel coming down.
The blast concussion knocked him silly.

In the same box, I found his marksmanship medal. He had recently given me a good natured hard time about wearing a Moon Eyes tee shirt with an iron cross on it. His ribbon on his medal hung from an iron cross shaped pin. He just grinned and said "don't even start". '22

As a foot note, there are 3 men who have helped shape my life, if that is the correct term.
My father, my father in law (navy, WW2, drove actual beach landing craft) and my scout master from my Boy Scout days (orneriest Scottsman I have known, British 8th army motorcycle currior in North Africa in WW2)
All still alive in their 80's. Father in law got my brother and I started in the oil industry, scout master did the kind of overseas remote drilling work that my brother and I are both doing now.
My highest respect and thanks for their guidance and stories over the years. '22