My neighbor and I have the same birthdays but 31 years apart.
He is 86 and in very good health. It's a shame that the WWII generation is almost gone.
My neighbor (Richard) was a US Army PFC when the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. He landed at Normandy D-Day plus 6 and chased the germans across Europe. During WWII he received battlefield promotions and a battlefield commission. After the war he stayed in the Army and fought the communists in Korea.
He has some war stories and has only told me of a few incidents.
I'll repeat a few in here.

In France they were advancing and he had be advanced to Sgt and was leading a small group of men through a thick woods when they came to a road. He got ready to cross the road when a PFC grabbed his arm and said he would go 1st as it was his job to protect the Sgt. As the PFC darted across the road a german machine gunner cut him down. The PFC was dead and nothing could be done for him so the crossed the road in another location and went hunting for the machine gunner.

Some where in germany the we stopped and intrenched. He and a close buddy were out of the foxholes and visiting. Just as the finished talking and started to walk away from each other an shell landed where his buddy was walking and blew him up. He was hit and splattered with his buddy's blood and body parts.
That has got to be an awful thing to go through.

he also said at one time the US Army was advancing so fast that an order came down that it was not possible to take prisoners, as there was no way to hold them or take care of them. So for 2 weeks the allies took no prisoners.

We go out to dinner every year to celebrate our birthdays in Jan and later next week we will go out again. After some wine we sometimes share stories.

One of his Korea war stories was about him as an artillery spotting officer. He was on this hill and it was winter. He was in a foxhole calling in artillery strikes on enemy positions. He started taking rifle fire from a sniper on a nearby hill top. So he shot back inbetween calling artillery strikes. He said that he and this North Korean shot at eachother for a few hours and he findly call for a USMC sniper to cover him and help him. The USMC sniper arrived and for two days the Marine Sniper and that North Korean shot back and forth and no one was killed or hit.

My neighbor across the street was an engineman on an LST in the Pacific, from the Solomons to Okinawa and was at Pearl when the big ammo ship explosion occurred. A view of the war few people have written about but still quite interesting. As I am an avid reader of WWII history, he's a treasure as a living memory.

I enjoy WWII history myself as my Dad was a flight instructor during the war.
The old gentleman I mentioned above is like a second dad to me.
One of the deacons in our Church I have breckfest with once or twice a month also served in the U.S. Navy during WWII like your neighbor.
He told me of some landings he was involved in and how his ship's captian took them in close to the shore to provide cover fire for the Marines and to pick some out of the water whos LST's had be hit by shells. One morning we were the first ones to show up at the diner for breckfest and we talked some about the wars. I told him a few cold war stories and one about my Dad in a B-17 over Pikes Peak and he responded with a few of his own.
He remembers at one point being on deck and could feel and hear a bullet just pass by his head.
Its a shame that we are lossing that generation at such a fast pace now.
I regret not talking to and asking my Dad more about him and his support of WWII. To late now, he passed in 1988.
I've passed many a story and pictures to my 3 kids on CD's with old photo's my Dad took during WWII, and what I have taken during my 22 year career along with the stories I can remember to put to print.
My Dad and a few family members also put together a complete family history complete with many old pictures. The history goes back prior to 1750 when our family ansestors came across on a clipper ship from Manchester, England.

Dad trained on B-17s, B-24s, and B-29s - flight engineer. He was on Saipan, did missions over Japan. Transferred to line mechanic on P-51D and spent the last four months of the War on Iwo Jima. His next younger brother was a combat engineer with Patton Casablanca all the way up Sicily and Italy clearing Nazi minefields for the America Tanks. His brother younger than that went in on Omaha beach as an artillery forward observer and got badly wounded in France while directing artillery on five Tiger Tanks that was chewing up a battalion of Infantry he was trying to support. Dad's baby brother was on the Saratoga when it took enough Kamikazes to start it to the bottom. An older cousin was on the Saratoga with him. Another uncle on my mom's side went back to the Philippines with Macarthur as an Infantryman and fought clear through the whole Island chain before the War ended. Sitting as a little kid at the campfire on deerhunts with these giants was awe inspiring as they spun their yarns over those flames - -

They're all dead now -

But I did write some of the stories down -

Graywoldghost,

Amen and God Bless to them all.

There's an old fellow who sat right in front of me at church, until he became incapacitated by kidney stones, named J.T. McDonald. He went overseas with the 45th Infantry (OKNG) as a common rifleman and remained that until the war was over.

By then, he had walked, and fought, his way through North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, Germany and into Austria. He was the last surviving, upright member of his original platoon and God alone knows how many replacements they'd been through.

He sometimes refers to WWII as, "Back when I was doing all those bad things."

There aren't many like him.

My favorite uncle, Esley Trantham, Jr., of Marshfield, Missouri, trained as a Combat Engineer and landed on Omaha Beach, 6 June 44, D-Day, H-Hour with the Big Red One. He was wounded, survived the War, & went on to lead a good, productive life before dying in his 60s.
RIP, Uncle Junior!

There was this guy that was our local minister/bishop when I was 14 and in the scouts. He decided to go on our fifty mile hike with us, because his twelve year-old son was going. Our scout master was kind of a local hero, because he'd been a mechanic in Patton's "Hell on Wheels" and he'd boxed some too.

So anyway, we were on the hike up in the Rockies, and around a campfire at night - and I mentioned my dad and uncles always talked about the War around such fires, hoping the scout master would open up with some yarns, which he did - -

But then Bishop Phillips, this little, round dumpy guy, said, "I was in B-17s over Germany and got shot down...." That place went so quiet you coulda heard an ant sneeze. There was about twenty scouts there. And they heard a harrowing tale of a ball turret gunner firing at swarms of German fighters as the bombers went for their target, but it was obscured, so they went for the secondary - Dresden! He said his plane was hit again and again - I can't remember if he said if they made the target, or had to salvo early, but by the time the bombs went, the plane was on fire. He talked about his terror of being trapped in his turret if the power failed, but he ran out of ammo first. All the engines were on fire and the order came to bail. When he came up out of his position, the waist gunners were gone, and the plane was going into a dive. He found his chute got it on and dropped through the bomb bay, fell some distance before pulling his ripcord, then watched the plane spiral slowly into the ground far below --

As soon as he got down, farmers were one him with pitchforks, hoes and such - and wanted to kill him, but some soldiers came roaring up in a truck and saved his life. He was imprisoned near Dresden, along with other fliers. I can't remember if he ever saw any of his fellow crew members again, but the Germans used the prisoners to help clear the rubble in Dresden, and he said the soldiers treated him okay the whole time - -

And that was it. He said he'd never told anybody any of that before - then he clammed up, and that was it. His son's jaw was almost out of joint - mine too. Our scout master had tears running down his face. I had "Twelve O'clock High" and "Slaughter House Five" playing so loud in my head, my ears were ringing - -

To the day all those scouts, including me, grew up, married, and moved away from there, that little round, dumby guy that had been our minister was as high on the ladder as Lincoln or Washington for us, and his little chat around by that fire did more to keep us straight than all the sermons we ever heard from the pulpit - -

My WWII friend and I went out last night to celebrate our birthdays as we do every Jan 25th going back to 1991.
I was hoping he be in the war story mood last night but he was not. Our wifes hardly let us get a word in at the table.
Anyway he did get to tell on short story.

He and a group of troops were out on a push looking for German troops when they cam across an old German man fishing with a pole in a cannel. He was not have any luck catching fish and food was scarce for the German people at that time in the war. No one spoke German and the old man seemed afraid they might shoot him.
My friend walked over to the old fisherman and patted him on the shoulder and tossed a hand-gernade into the water. About 1/2 dozen fish quickly floated to the top and the old man was able to pull them in with the tip of his long stick pole.
While the old man started pulling in the stunned fish the troops went on thier way looking for german troops.

You are cordialy invited to read, "A Love (Or War) Story" posted on the first Cav Div unit page, in 'history,' under "A Santo Tomas Liberator's Story." http://unitpages.military.com/unitpages/unit.do?id=100078

My Dad was a mechanic and electrician on B-17s and B-24s. His younger brother (my uncle) was a B-17 bombardier. Dad didn't talk a whole lot about his service but when watching some of the war documentaries would tell how he learned to tell whether the planes overhead were allies or Nazis. He also talked about the "buzz bombs" and the chaos that was England in the begining. My uncle never talked about the bombing runs or his service much. Dad thought it was because of the havoc he wreaked over Germany when he bombed. Both died last summer after a very good life. I am still going over my dad's letters and military history. He was there during a very difficult time. His letters tell of the Stukas and the preparations for D-Day. All he ever spoke about D-Day was the huge numbers of ships and barges with puking soldiers everywhere just sitting there bobbing in the water waiting to go. He also said D-Day made him most proud watching the sky "black with planes"....Both my Dad and my Uncle were heroes.

My Grandfather had entered in 1943 with the Seabee's. At first he was in the Atlantic working on battlements and the such in Africa and then Sicily. He got Paratyphoid while there...had to be sent to New York to go through treatments. I guess he was in the Hospital there for a couple months.

After he had recovered from that they had sent him to California to jump on a ship to the Pacific. Hopped islands building airstrips for bombers and fighters. Lasted to the end of the War.

He had lost one of his buddies during the Pacific trip. He always said that it was such a sad thing. He had a rough time talking about it due to the guy was just a kid of 22 years. They called him Grandpa because he was 36 years old at the time. But, the guy that had died was snipped by a Jap. Like I say he had a hard time with that. He was right there beside him when he was shoot.

Though we are in different services we do pay a certain price for War. My grandad died in 1998 at age 90 years...I miss him, but I do remember loads of things about him.

He was a good man, no doubt.

Don't know why, but I "googled" Charles Bronson and was amazed to find out that he was a GUNNER on a B-29 out of Guam and flew missions over Japan, just like my Ole' Man from Saipan!! Not that is doesn't fit him, macho dude and all, but there's an untold story there, and I'll bet an interesting one!! Bronson seemed like a tight-lipped character on the screen, alright. Makes me wonder - -

His real name? Charles D. Buchinski



1. Weather Observation Crew: 61st Squadron - 39th Bomb Group (VH) •••
Profile of Weather Observation Crew - 61st Squadron 39th Bomb Group (VH)
...Cpl Charles D. Buchinski Nose Gunner Weather Observation Crew Honor Roll Cpl Charles D. Buchinsky Nose Gunner 30 August 2003...
...#3 S/Sgt John B. Doughtery, Radio; #5 S/Sgt Charles D. Buchinsky, Nose Gunner Note: Thanks to Pam Todd Kearns Historical Society for helping to...

He had just finished basic when he was sent to Kearns, Utah, for further education both in weather schooling and gunnery schooling. He was sent to Kearns in early fall of 1943. he was later sent to Kansas from Kearns after being assigned to a group.

He flew a total of 26 missions, 21 in combat and 5 with a weather observation crew of the 39th Bomb Group. Buchinski was first with a B-25 unit or group and then transferred to a B-29 group.

Bottom row, second from right

This message has been edited. Last edited by: greywolfghost,

My old friend awhile back told me another story about his time in an anti-aircraft unit before he got his battlefield commission.
They were rolling accross France and German aircraft attacks were rare.
So the troops started collecting valuables from the country side. He called it loot & plunder.
Anyway one day they were traveling along all happy when some German planes dove on them and straffed them some. Causing several wounded.
The trucks scattered in a field but none could return fire because the truck beds were full of loot and they could not swing the anti-aircraft guns do to all the loot.
The CO was pissed and had the trucks back into a circle in the middle of the field and dump all the loot into a pile. Orders were then give that there would be no more loot gathering until the war was over.
A few days later they were attacked and straffed again. Everyone scattered. He dove to the ground as the german places swooped in straffing and he could see the aircraft's bullet impacts along the ground coming right at him. The anti-aircraft guns open up and drove off the air attack. The stream of bullets coming at him stopped about 10 feet away.
He did bring back a nice old German rifle he took off a german farmer near the end of the war.

quote:

Originally posted by mrg567:
My neighbor across the street was an engineman on an LST in the Pacific, from the Solomons to Okinawa and was at Pearl when the big ammo ship explosion occurred.

Would you please ask your neighbor if he was on one of the LSTs that landed the First Cav Div at Lingayen, Luzon, January 1945? If he was, I would like to interview him for the documentary book being written on the Flying Column.

Thanks