What did your grandparents do in the ww2?

truck driver in Korea*

Go up to the Finnish border and lied in a ditch.

Shot towards a Russian once.

Went home.

One of my great grandfathers I`m told was a POW, the other was in London during the blitz and my grandmother fled to Scotland from London.

Maternal side: Granny's first husband dropped bombs on England until his plane was shot down over the Channel. Spain veteran too, KG26.
2nd husband and actual Opa sat in some airfield office.
Paternal side: Opa werfed Flammen into Russian bunkers and sniped reds,12th Inf. Rgt., 31st Inf. Div. His brother played tuba and served as a medic in the LSSAH. Their cousin "fought partisans". No idea which unit. That one was a real bastard up to his end.

>That one was a real bastard up to his end.
Why so?

Father's side: My grandpa didn't need to fight because he was a veteran of the Finnish Civil War, in his 40s, and a father to like 6 kids.

Mother's side: My mom's dad was born in 1942, so he didn't do anything. My great-grandfather was an officer in the Italian army. Don't know if he actually fought or had a comfy desk job in Rome.

break communist presses then some ugly fucking shit in NEI

Burned

Hard to describe. He was the one to slap the waitresses butt on my Opa's funeral meal. Stingy motherfucker but always first to the buffet when invited. He was openly nazi and always had that smirk on his face when the old guys talked about the war. "Y'know, partisans" wink wink.

great grandfather fought for the British in the 1944 Burma campaign

Shoot Germans.

Maternal grandparents had a similar story, when they were kids they had to hide from ustashas and handschar division members. Grandma was born in the mountain during one punitive expedition actually.
Paternal grandma was just a kid and for her occupation was uneventful. Paternal grandpa was in POW camp in Germany, officer camp to be specific.

Grandpa joined Dutch-Indonesian army.
Get's shipped to the East Indies.
By the time he get's there it's too late: Japs took over.
Straight to the camps.
Worked on the Birma railroad.
All kinds of torture and disease.
He makes it through.
Back to Holland to mary qt3.14.
Dies in 1987.

Worked for the germans.

German user here.

One grandfather was too young to join the Hitler Jugend like his older brothers did at the time of the war. When it was over, he found a brown shirt and brought it home rejoicing. He told me that this was the saddest moment of his childhood when his mother immediately took it away and dyed it black.

My other grandfather was a Wehrmacht-soldier. Didn't see much combat, fortunately. Was stationed on one of the channel islands. Some decades later he returned there for vacation, he always remained very fond of the place.

My grand aunt was a nurse in a big German city at that time. She was responsible for the safety of the patients in one wing of the hospital during the time of the air-raids. When the alarm sounded one day, she couldn't find the keys to their designated bunker, however, and had to find shelter elsewhere. After the raid was over, she found the bunker completely destroyed. She was engaged to an SS-officer who never returned from the war.

One of them was Royal Artillery, after Dunkirk he spent the rest of the war manning AA guns in Britain. The other was 7.

Great grand mother almost dead in a bomb blast at a parking lot at a parachute factory in Texas that she worked at as quality control inspector. I believe the date was November 25 1941 a few hours after lunch. Yes that was before pearl harbor. Also a party of 8 Japanese businessmen had visited the day before... Lets just say that it makes me feel a little differently about Japanese internment camps.

Grandfather on my fathers side was a Seabee.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabee

Also died a few times to air strikes, later on his work site was bayonet charged by the Japanese soldiers. He ended up killing one with a bulldozer and got a taboo on his right forearm to remember it by.

Almost died a few times to air strikes*

At the end of the war, were American soldiers redeployed to China?

Grandfather's brother went to fight the Russians in Spain's Blue Division along the Wermacht during WW2. Was captured by soviets in 1943 and remained captive in the Gulag until 1954, when he returned home.

My grandpa hid a nazi body under his desk, which traumatized him
My grandmother's brother was starved to death in a work camp
My other grandfather hid in Groningen
My other grandmother saw a bunch of random guys getting executed by a firing squad, I think this was after a terror attack, I think it's the one Harry Mulisch wrote a famous book about

>My grandpa hid a nazi body under his desk
Why did he do that?

I don't know, some resistence guys told him to

He also probably would have been shot if he had been seen with some dead nazi

Absolutely nothing. Rather happy about the whole neutrality thing.

My Grandfather joined the Dutch army as an anarchist, wanting to sabotage the army from the inside. Thing is, he joined right before the german declaration of war.

So when they declared war he went from full-communist who was ready to sabotage the guns of his fellow soldiers to full on nationalist. He defended an airfield from german Para's but they had to put down there arms after the military surrendered.

He fled from the PoW camp and joined the resistance. He had a very hard time talking about his time as a resistance fighter, he once told me that after they captured and executed a Dutch-police officer for collaboration the Gestapo executed 10 random civilians from a village in the neighborhood. After that he never was involved in assassinations again.

Paternal Grandfather was a Groundsman at a local Victorian estate run by Oblate Fathers, the Oblates took control of the estate from a Protestant Lord. They lived on the estate.

Maternal Grandparents were farmers in County Kerry, they migrated to London in the 50s.

Grandfather was a member of right wing death squads, not even memeing.

My maternal grandfather fought against the British in Khuzestan and almost got killed. Remained a Loyalist to Reza Khan until today.

My grandfather signed up as a boy soldier at 15 and was moved to the Signals. While on training he caught a disease from a friend in the barracks whom subsequently recovered. There's an anecdote someone told me about my grandfather running around the base screaming in agony as all his nerves died from the polio he caught. He was permanently disabled by it and lost the proper use of his legs. He was invalided out of the army, though thankfully given a full army pension which still sustains my gran to this day. He didn't give up on life though, and set up a typewriter shop up on Edgeware Road which went on for decades. Anyone who uses physical disability as an excuse for unemployment is a tit.

How did he knock up your gran if he had polio at 15?

Polio doesn't destroy your pingas user.

>Edgeware Road
My family used to live on the Harrow Road. Amazing how Kilburn is now a shithole full of non whites.

On my father's side:

My grandfather never got drafted and had no real interest in joining up to fight the war. He hated guns and violence of any kind. He had a college degree, cushy engineering job, a wife and my Dad's older sister was born in the early 40's too. He didn't want to give that security up. He was a pacifist until the day he died.

My grandmother was a housewife at the time.

On my mother's side:

both were too young when the war hit, but if he was old enough he would have joined up. my grandfather loved the military but he was in that age group that was too young for WWI and Korea but too old for Vietnam. He eventually took up construction as a trade and would go on to help build the Alaskan pipeline in the 70's. He was also a huge hunter.

My grandmother would end up a housewife.
The contrast between my parent's respective families has always fascinated me.

Jumped off a truck and survived the extermination at the hands of the nazis which was to follow.

My two grandmothers pretty much just moved to the "free" part of France for a while, then waited until the end of the war. One of them was from a rich family, so she almost didn't notice the war, her father was accused of collaboration, but the charges were dropped. Other than that, some estates were requisitioned by Germans, some factories bombed by the Allies.

My grandpa on my mother's side was a Spanish refugee. Never talked about his life before coming here, I just know he was a teacher. He was put in a refugee camp, escaped right before the end of the war, did some minor stuff for the local resistance.

Paternal grandfather was in the army. Father's family is an old rich noble family with a long military tradition, great grandpa was in the cuirassiers in WW1 (before they realised cavalry charges are not that great against machine gun fire), royalists then turned to more proto-fascist veteran organisations. When war broke out, he fought until we lost, then escaped to England. He joined the Free French Forces, fought in North Africa, Italy, then France. Came back home to find that the family estate was burned down by retreating Germans. His father had volunteered to be taken as hostage after the resistance attacked a convoy near the village he was the mayor of and died of typhus in a camp. His two younger brothers were executed after they helped out the resistance, one by the Germans, one by the Milice. They hated Jews and communists, but they just hated the Germans more.

After the war, he also found out that most of his mother's family (minor polish nobility, relatively rich landowners) was killed by either the Germans or communists. He became a diplomat after the war, working mainly in Asia. He's getting very old now, but I try to see him as often as possible. He's the one who made me love History.

One fought against Mussolini in Albanian mountains and the other against Stalin (and Hitler) in the Belarussian woods.

My grandfather arrived in Europe for the last few months of the war. Shipped over right after the Battle of the Bulge. He survived the war and died on a golf course in the late '80s. I wish I'd known him, everyone says we have a lot in common.

Father's father was a kid at the time and hid on an island that got bombed sometimes during the Italian Campaign. His father was a deserter from the Italian Army.

Mother's father was a Murikan who was too young to serve in WW2. Ended up serving in the Marines in Korea. I don't know exactly what he did there, but I do know he got taken POW at one point. He liked to say "chink" a lot back when he still had his mind.

Stayed home cos we are a peaceful clan

My grandfather escaped a German POW camp and went to America

He commanded a unit (idk what it's called) of 100 churchill tanks in north africa and italy.
Apparently the fucker went to a military academy and had fucking house servants.
Mfw lower class now.

One fought in the 82nd Airborne (his brothers served as well) and became a stock broker after the war, the other was colorblind and had leg problems so he did some office work in the states or something, he became a lawyer. My biological grandfather was too young but apparently was a Marine in Korea.

My grandparents were all born 1949 or later

my Maternal Grandpa's father was a Tank Sgt back in WW2, saw action in North Africa and Italy. Not too sure what others were up to.

They just did their normal work, shopkeeping in the case of my morther's side and banking/homekeeping in the case of my dad's side, because their country was not a participant.

Fuck off back to riddet, you worthless worm.

>US army ranger
>was somehow in Japan before also being at Omaha
The 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions formed in April 1943
That makes it even less unlikely an army or usmc volunteer could have joined in '43 after finishing an earlier tour.
This story is basically impossible

Grandfather was a Polish worker in Dachau near Trostberg during the war. He would put on a French armband (Polish prisoners were not allowed to leave) and go to Trostberg to drink beers and play cards sometimes, apparently my grandmother helped run a restaurant that he did those things at and thats how they met. Her father was in the Wehrmacht, not sure what unit, and was captured by the Russians. They didn't find out what happened to him until 1953, he died in 1949 in a prison camp.

my great-great granddad worked on the nuclear bomb.

my grandfather was an Italian citizen. He was too young to fight, but he was kidnapped by German soldiers and forced to dig fortifications for a while.

>Mom's side
1944, crying and getting slapped on the butt because he was newly born.
no clue about grandma

>Dad's side
no idea on both of them.

>He was a grouchy old Buddhist

He was originally an officer in the Greek Army under Metaxas, fought against the Italians then later became a collaborator, was arrested after the war, but let out to help fight in the civil war

Mom's father was an electrician for both Philly Naval Yard and New York Shipbuilding across the river in Camden. Did a ton of wiring on the Jersey and a few other ships.
Dad's Father was an electrical engineer in the signal corp. Served the early war in Cairo before being shipped to the Philippines. He "captured" a Jap officer who'd gone college here. Poor dude realized the war was hopeless the whole time, and was glad when he finally got a chance to surrender. Grandad was also part of the Atomic Bomb relay message. Him and his buds thought they were sending the go ahead for the invasion till the finally heard the news.

One grand-pap served in some capacity. I'm not really sure what he did, but he served. His medals (I believe a purple heart is among them) are among the immediate family's most precious possessions, including the deed to the parent's house etc, in the safe. This grand-pap died before I was born so his life is fairly opaque to me.

The other grand-pap died when I was like four years old. I have a faint living memory of him from a few times, but that's all. He was also enlisted and served for a time, but he was discharged I believe, due to onsetting multiple sclerosis (he had been obliged perhaps to move around the country a few times in the course of all this) - mom described once how there was a suspicion/resentment among some that he was faking, but she wasn't "there" to know any of that - mom was the baby of her family, being born many years after this other military service. So mom got a family version and I got it third-hand.

At any rate, both grand-paps are buried in the same national military cemetery nearby, and I can visit their graves any time I want. the latter grand-pap's wife, my meemaw, died seven years ago, and so she's with him now. The other meemaw, my last grandparent to die, had long since divorced the first grand-pap, and so she is instead marked a few miles west, next to her sister.

Maternal grandfather tried to enlist, was turned down for having flat feet. Paternal grandfather was a Sherman crewman in Europe, only other bit I know is he once survived a bullet or shrapnel fragment that bounced around inside the tank.

my grandfather got ptsd from torturing a nazi to death. he was 16 and acting on orders from a member of the dutch resistance. bleak af.

>torturing a nazi to death
That's kinda rude.

Father's mother had to flee her home town as a little girl. Father's father was too young to take part in war. Mother's father got to take part, but not that many months. He rarely ever talked about it. One of the few occasions was how he told how a battle brother fell next to him. We even visited the grave.
Later I read how he lost most of his squad in beaching some island.

Lost three great uncles during WW2, one of them was sunk by Das Boot

maternal grandfather was only 11 when ww2 ended. Paternal grandfather worked on a sea plane tender in the Pacific. He was in the navy before the war broke out and he was at a basketball game when it was interrupted and a guy called out all the people in the military by name to report to their stations. He had a friend on the Arizona who died in Pearl Harbor.

Wife's paternal grandpa was awarded a German Cross in Gold. Had his own Kampfgruppe in one of the battles shortly before Berlin fell. Even survived it. later sold the gold for his gambling habit.
Her maternal grandfather served on a minesweeper during the Norway invasion.

Also an uncle of my Opa was a policeman who was responsible for the hanging of a downed allied pilot. A cousin of my Opa watched that.
That policeman, whose name was Adolf, is also responsible for another hanging of some Polish guy for impregnating a local girl. She got cold feet and claimed he raped her. Adolf served as policeman well into the 60s.

My grandpa was a marconist (guy with the phone backpack), did boring much during the war, fires his gun once and missed, got caught by Germans and deported to a POW camp across half the continent to be freed ~1 1/2 year later

Great grandfather killed Italians in North Africa

Nothing, grandfather was legally blind.

My grandparents were really young. My grandfather helped the resistance in the Netherlands as a small kid, and my grandmother got sent to Switzerland as part of some deal as she had asthma, and they didn't quite have enough food at home.

Radio operator in the Pacific turned nuclear physicist

>in THE ww2

they farmed in THE ukraine

They were farmers in Cuba so not much

My grandparents continued to farm. Grandpa was 52 at the time

They did however grow slightly less corn than normal as grandpa anticipated a labor shortage for harvest with all the men going off to war and they had a big operation by independent farmer standards. Grandpa also served on the draft board

Fun fact: he was born a few months before Hitler

most of the family moved to the far east during the crop failures of south-west russia(/east ukrain too) in the 30s, lived pretty well fed and comfy from then.

A few of my great granduncles went back to the hometown of Voronezh to defend the hometown and family still left there. Most died, though some made it through the first couple of Battles of Voronezh to live long enough to partake in the Battle of Kursk, from which none came back.

One of my other great granduncles made it to Berlin.

tfw I will never get the chance to talk or spend time with them

My grandfather fought in Manchuria, 1945, against Japan.

Paternal grandparents were air-raid wardens in north London (both had served in WWI as young adults).

Maternal grandparents: engine driver in Scotland (apparently had to stop in a tunnel once when a German air-raid began); granny was a housewife (who also traded in stolen sugar for eggs racket).

Both sides survived numerous Luftwaffe bombing raids.

Same with my granduncle, he was naval infantry

>Swam across a river under fire for a dare
>Was injured later and medically discharged
>Returned to London and opened a car door in a copper's face before driving away
>Turned up to court with crutches and in full uniform
>Never convicted

Grew corn and soybeans in Iowa.

chemist

died before I was old enough to ask him what exactly he did

Nigger behaviour.

Grandpa was shooting ruskies fuck out of Finland. Took couple grenade pieces under skin but still walk away after war and build a house, summer cottage and teach in vacational school till retirement.

Grandma was in healing patrol and what I know they met sowhere there. And yes, they were my father's parents.

Regards '91

They were kids during the occupation of the Philippines by the Japanese. They pretty much just ran and hid from Japanese soldiers.

But apparently they got to witness the USN sail into Lingayen Gulf when they came back to the Philippines and see them bombard the hell out of the coast.

One GF was a train driver, shipping troops, especially US troops, and equipment from one camp to another. The other was still in school, but his elder brother was part of a gun crew in the navy, died in the Mediterranean. One GM almost died in the blitz even though she lived in the countryside. Apparently the Germans had a habit of dropping any excess bombs wherever they fancy in order to make it back to Germany and one landed in the field just on the other side of the hedge from her house.

kids
im 33 and my grandpa was a toddler when the war broke out

are you all bullshitting me, all older than me or your parents didnt have children into their 40s and thats why you are all a bit crap in the head?

I'm 25 and my grandfather was born in 1921.

Here, I'm 32

It does add up, mother and GMs had kids in their 20s and 30s. My GMs and GFs were either teenagers or early 20s during the war. The great uncle that was in the RN was 22 when he died. They are all dead now but their memory isn't.

>Germans had a habit of dropping any excess bombs wherever they fancy in order to make it back
That's not just a German thing. My Oma survived that exact same scenario with allied pilots in the middle of nowhere.

I'm 43 and my gfs were born in 1911 and 1921

Funny how we have two stories of near-misses in the middle of fuckall, yet both sides needed to level an entire city just to target one factory. I don't know whether our grandmothers had good luck or bad luck.

She was lucky indeed. Oma was changing my aunt on the kitchen table when a bomber dropped its load on its way back from Berlin onto the dairy on the other side of the road. Windows were shattered but nobody was hurt. The dairy wasn't hit either. Oma died in December '15 aged 94.

Grandmothers family was jewish and hid in the country until they could get out

They sat around wondering if this person was male or female.