II World War [ experience of family members in the conflict]

Our great grandparents might have met. May they rest in peace.

Thanks for the answers :)

can we continue talking about the topic ???

Great grandfather fought the Japanese in China with Chiang Kai Shek’s army. He came from very poor farmer family in Guangdong province and he had 5 siblings. He wanted to enlist in 1934 but his mother would not let him but eventually said it was alright because enlisted personnel families get small allowance of food. Great grandfather was oldest so he felt he had duty to feed the family. He enlisted in November, 1935 at age 19. His unit was the 88th, one of the German trained divisions and he felt he was very lucky because most people from his province were only sent to second rate divisions. He always said later that he was glad to be trained by the Germans because the training helped him survive the war.

He wanted to be artillery man because it meant that he would be far from front line. But ,there were not enough artillery pieces and too many people were already in the artillery company so he was assigned to a assault platoon. At first he said he was given an old Hanyang 88 rifle but he traded it away for MP-18 submachine gun. For trade he added a vase of moonshine that he had made secretly during training with his buddies. He said that the sub machine gun would save him many times during the urban fighting in Shanghai. Only thing he did not like about having a submachine gun is that during fighting, he always was into a building first because only he had a submachine gun in his squad.

Anyways that is it for now, I will share more if people want to hear.

youtu.be/oz5jVBH10zc

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interesting story, continue if you wish. corresponds to the first war?

Medal of honor ??

one of my grandfathers was a championship boxer in the pacific fleet who had been at pearl harbor

my other grandfather, a polish jewish immigrant, was i believe training at an army base in north carolina for deployment to europe when another recruit called him a jew. my grandfather hauled off and punched him, breaking his own hand in the process and so was unable to ship out with his unit of men, all of whom died en route when their ship was sunk

My Grandfather was in the 11th armoured division, after he was rejected from the airforce for medical reasons. He remembered quite well the initial arrival in France. He later captured a German Officer surrounding Calais, who’s details I still have.

He was part of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, and saw a lot of stuff which scarred him. I was very young, but he told me never to trust Germans.

After the War he was stationed in Ethiopia, where he met Haile Selassie. He later met Eleanor Roosevelt. He went into a depression and bought a farm in Ethiopia, and tried to move my Grandmother there, but eventually sold it and came home to England.

He struggled with his arm from an injury in the war and worked in engineering.

Wow
the fight changed the course of his life. Intense history

>tfw Latino American
>tfw no relatives who fought in any world wars
>tfw father was in the navy during the end of Vietnam but was stationed in Spain

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great story, sorry for the things he lived :( Greetings

>great grandad fights in WW1
>Ends up running messages for the Black Watch (even though he was living in Australia he took a fucking boat to sign up in Britain to not be with "the colonials")
>Wounded 4 times
>Comes back
>is a total cunt to everyone
>Becomes mailman
>Reads everyone else's mail
>Signs up his own kid for WW2 when he was underage
What a guy

another great story.
worthy of movie,do not you think ???
:)

I'm sure you'd be sucking my dick if I said he served in the Sturmtruppen you bootlicker cuck

You might think so because of the old weapon he used but he only fought in WW2. The Nationalist army at the time was very underequipped so they used any weapon they could get, even very old weapons like Hanyang 88 and MP-18 which were used in the first world war.

Anyways, during the fight for Shanghai in 1937, he was sent with 88th division to push the Japanese amphibious landing near Zhabei back. The Japanese were occupying most of the buildings around the city and his unit was tasked to push them back into the sea.

During the urban fighting he said that the best thing to have are grenades. Because his unit had very little artillery, a lot of the time they were sent into fight without support. Only sometimes with a heavy machine gun cover if they were lucky. He said, many soldier in his platoon had long rifles not good for close urban combat. A lot of his unit would leave their rifles behind and take more grenades and also a bayonet or dadao.

One thing great grandfather is very hesitant to tall about for battle of Shanghai is that the Japanese used flamethrowers to burn them out of occupied buildings. He said that, with artillery and air strikes, you can hope to be not hit if lucky. With flamethrowers, if the enemy aimed at your building you were dead. He lost half his platoon to defending a building near rail junction by flamethrower. He only got out because at the time, he was sent to get more ammo and grenades from supply station down the street. He says he will never forget the smell of burning flesh and his buddies charred bodies in the building. He gets very sad talking about it.

I do not know if it came to sucking
Hahaha just humor

the hardest and raw part of the war. honestly I do not think there is anything good about this type of conflict :/

Please do

Oof, that's ArmA 3

Mmmmm ok

>Be great granddad
>Leaves Ireland for the UK and signs up for the army in the late 30s.
>Hitler spergs out, WWII happen
>Sent to France with the BEF
>He and all his mates surrender to an SS unit
>Spends the rest of the war in a concentration camp doing forced labor
>Liberated by Soviets in 1945

Ou shet :(

Paternal grandfather was stationed in France during the occupation, was allowed back home though due to his position in some business producing important stuff for the military.
Maternal grandfather was too young to fight, his older brother was assigned to help an anti-aircraft position in his hometown.
Two of my grandmother's brothers fought in Poland, Greece, Ukraine and 1945 in the defence of Germany. One of them was allowed to return after some fighting to continue his medicine studies, the other fell in march 1945 in Silesia.
Two of my relatives (by marriage) were gassed in 1940 during Aktion T4.
My grandma's old aunt was killed in a bomb raid on her town in 1944.

a lot of his relatives involved :o

That is far from the end of his story though. After losing Zhabei, his unit was sent into Shanghai International Zone and engaged in an offensive to take out the fortified garrison of Japanese troops there. After getting bombed by naval gunfire from Shanghai bay, the Japanese send in tanks. Great grandfather's unit had no antitamk weapon so they waited on top of building and when tanks passed through the street, they dropped sticks of dynamite attached to grenades. When the dynamite ran out, they were told to hold ground at all costs but were pushed back by artillery and air strikes.

By the time reinforcement came, they were down to only 4 men in the platoon. Great grandfather, his buddy, a mortar man, and a signal battalion soldier. Reinforcing them were second line troops with no combat experience because all the reserve in the 88th division were dead, wounded, or already engaged in the fight. As the battle turn and Chiang ordered a general retreat, his unit was tasked to hold onto Sihang warehouse to be a blocking force so the rest of 88th division could retreat. As his unit was moving into the position, he was hit in the calf by a mortar shell. His leg was fine but he was evacuated along with the rest of the division. He always said that if the mortar did not hit him, he would have died alongside the rest of his unit defending the warehouse.

Anyways, that was great grandfathers first battle experience. He has more battles that he participated in during his time with the Nationalist army after he recovered from the mortar wound. Will continue if there is interest.

Nazi time and WW2 affected every single family in some way, at least here in Germany (and probably most of Europe as well).
Go on please

woww remarkable story follow hahaha :) thanks for your time

this is fascinating, many thanks user, and please continue if you feel like it. it's incredibly rare afaik to get such a detailed account in english about soldiers fighting for the nationalists.

a question Is it possible to continue talking about this out of Veeky Forums? or for privacy ?

goes for everyone :)

My great grandfather used the mosin my great great grandfather used in the civil war and great war. He was surrounded and ran away, but ran westward. He eventually walked from Western Ukraine back to the Stalin grad area in 43, where he reenlisted, and helped to take Berlin

Kill yourself cunt, you're shitting up this thread with your passive aggressive faggotry

something on the Russian side well. That story continues ??

you're right

did he get into trouble for having 'run away' not in a bad sense, but afaik some Soviet PoWs or soldiers whose units were lost but managed to rejoin the front lines were considered deserters)

too strict do not you think?? :)

>tfw some of the guys who were in sent in France thought they were gonna stay in the trenches like the great wars instead of being encircled and stuck on a beach

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as it happened in the battle of Dunkerque??

yes,it was supposed to be a bloody long slugfest not a short straight up decisive war

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My grandparents were too young to have more memories than 'it was very cold and we didn't have much to eat in the last winter'
my maternal great uncles have different stories;

>my grandfather had three brothers, 20, 17, and 13 years older than he was.
>his eldest was conscripted and fought at the Grebbeberg in 1940, spent most of his time as a POW near Dresden where he was able to work in a bakery. My grandfather actually met the owners family when he went there in the 90's. didnt talk much about his experiences in combat.
>the second brother was rounded up for the arbeitseinsatz and killed when the factory he worked in was bombed (Recklinghausen, 1943), the family didnt find out until 1947
>the third did some low-key resistance jobs, spreading papers etc. he went into hiding when his older brother got rounded up.

most of my maternal grandmothers extended family died in the holocaust

My grandmother's uncle fought for the Spanish Republic during the civil war (he was one of these lads en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardia_de_Asalto) . His older brother had been executed by the fascists in 1936, and he was one of the many who fled to france in 1939. He chose to remain in France, joined the resistance there and was eventually captured by the Germans. He survived, and in the 60s his remaining younger brother managed to find him.
That's what papa always tells me anyway.

MMM
they broke the spirit of the boys :/

>the third did some low-key resistance jobs, spreading papers etc. he went into hiding when his older brother got rounded up.

caught my attention :)

Grandpa joined the dutch army in 1939. He was an anarchist and wanted to sabotage the armed forces. Then war started looming, things got serious and he changed himself into a serious soldier. He defended an airport during the German invasion and escaped from a POW camp after the capitulation and joined a resistance cell. He never really liked to talk about his time in the resitance. He told me he had executed a German officer in a raid, and as revenge the Germans killed 20 random guys in a village near the place of the raid.

Other grandpa was 16 in 1944 and was forced to work in Germany in a trainyard. he was bombed by allied bombers and but generally didn't mind the work.

One great-grandfather was on the Eastern Front but I don't know any details
Another great-grandfather was part of the reserve police
My grandfather saw the English bombers destroying Lübeck cathedral from his house when he was around 7 years old

My grandfather was in the 82nd airborne, saw action in the Ardennes, and helped liberate a concentration camp.

My great great uncle was in the SS and hanged after the war. AMA I guess.

If they activelly tried to return to the army it wasn't a problem after 1942. Officers had it a lot stricter then privates.

Source: Ivan's war.

He left the conflict to enter another worse :O

grandparents and great grandparents

They are more effective history books!!

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I was raised by my great grandparents who both had interesting WW2 experiences.

>great grandpa born in Italy
>forced into military at 16
>3 years later escapes to France and then US
>enlists in US Army
>gets sent back to invade Italy
>watched his own father and brothers executions and killed a bunch of dudes
>gets US citizenship

>grandmother
>austrian jew
>whole family gets caught
>sent to Belzac
>her father manages to bribe a guard to "lose" her on the way to the camp
>makes her way across Soviet Union alone
>had family in America who helped her get over from there

They met after the war and had a bunch of kids. Great grandpa told a lot of stories but grandmother was very reserved. Pretty sure my great grandpa killed a guy he knew from the fascist army during a trip to NYC when I was six.

My great grandfather fought for the Ustase during the war

>hated the formation of yugoslavia with a passion his whole life
>when he heard the Germans were invading he signed up for the Ustase immidiately
>was stationed in greece helped take out resistance cells in the country
>as the soviets came in during 1944 he was recalled back to defend Croatia from the commies
>got trapped in Karlovac in 1945 and was captured by a bong division
>kept stirring up trouble and managed to escape camp
>rejoined the Ustase and kept killing commies until he was recaptured by the partisans in 45
>got rounded up and executed body thrown into the Danube

My grandmother said he was executed by Tito himself

many processes
good anecdote

>forced into military at 16
>her father manages to bribe a guard to "lose" her on the way to the camp

hard times :/

> be grandfather, Alsacian (French) and 17
> live in Obernai
> sing the Marseillaise in the streets, comes a german patroll.
> got his ass saved at the Kommandantur (don't remember the details)
> sometime later get selected to be in the Wehrmacht, even though he was French (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malgré-nous).
> get sent to Stalingrad
> get injured (lost an eye)
> hide in a bomb hole for 2 days with a friend from Obernai
> get to a german war hospital, still with friend
> flee with friend
> cross the whole Europe to get back to Obernai
> never speak a single word of german or alsacian (very closely related) again

The end

He never told this story, we only know from said friend. In fact, I don't know much more.

> Fun fact, he had a medal and a pension from the French army.

My grandfather's uncle was a Lt. Col. in the artillery, not too sure about his actual wartime experiences but I do know he was on the jury that found Skorzeny not guilty.

of those priceless friends
¿Más datos? heheeh ??

the one with the scar??

The very same. The case against him (using enemy uniforms as a disguise) got blown out of the water when a British SOE agent revealed they'd done the same thing multiple times, so they couldn't charge him for fear of having to do the same for their own men.

I understand
rare types :)

My grandpa was going to be a pilot but since he was colorblind he wasn't allowed. Instead he became a paratrooper. Just as he was about to jump on his first assignment the war in Europe ended and he did not see combat. He still fucked a bunch of French bitches. Later he punched an officer and was detained.

Great grandfather.

>Drafted into ww1 hellhole.
>Receive iron cross and Frontline medal.
>War ends.
>Well thank god that is over.

>Get drafted into the luftwaffe in ww2.
>Fuck.

Grandfather.

>Join panzer armee.
>Sent to butfucking Russia.
>Fight in Stalingrad.
>Three toes freeze off.
>Retreat.

Fast forward.

>Taking shelter in house during bombing.
>Bomb crashes through roof.
>Doesn't explode.
>Crushed friend.
>Try to pull out friend.
>lower body gives way but upper body stays right where it is.

Grandfather on dutch side.

>Join German army (its a family thing)
>Fight in the battle of Arnhem.
>Beat some guy to death in hand to hand combat.
>Get shot.
>Get captured.
>Escape.
>Get captured again at end of war.
>Get sent to prison for war crimes.
>Dutch government is embarrassed with being overrun in a week.
>Start new special forced division.
>Need men with combat experience.
>Grandpa released and became one of the first green berets here.

comic and entertaining story, at least learn to use the parachute :)

each with its own history
Well thank god that is over. :)
>Fight in Stalingrad. Hard
ower body gives way but upper body stays right where it is shockeante and sad
>Grandpa released and became one of the first green berets here. wow

As with everyone here in Finland, I too have family members that fought in the winter war and continuation war (some still alive)
Basically
>war is hell

>war is hell
Right
some anecdote the winter war
basically it was finland vs urss??

whats with the retard replying to everyone here?

great grand fathers: sent in with the first expeditionary force in WW1, both made it home, one set up a pub with his mates
grandfathers: one was a spitfire pilot, the other was captured in italy, force marched all the way to poland where he was kept in a POW camp until the war ended, apparently had to eat his own shit to survive fucking germans

My Great Granda was at Dunkirk, he said that he witnessed his CO shoot a German Tank Commander in the head, the German tank stopped and the crew bailed. They also played rock paper scissors to see who'd set up in a barn and who'd set up in a trench, my granda lost (everyone wanted into the barn) not long later the barn was blown up by artillery.
After Dunkirk he was sent to Orkney were they dropped an AA gun on his foot, he lost 3 toes and got a medal.

My grandfather (pic related) was a civilian merchant sailor in the US Merchant Marine. Although never given any pensions or veterans benefits, those guys had huge casualty rates and tough working conditions. He had gone to sea at 18, and even before the war was going around Cape Horn with nothing but a couple changes of socks, etc. Absolute badass. Anyways, during the war he was 2nd mate on a "liberty ship" cargo carrier, and got torpedoed in the Pacific, near Tonga, by a Japanese submarine. (ironically in general the Japs, unlike the Germansn never seemed to get how to vital to the war targeting supply ships was, but they got his, anyways). Supposedly the ship started going down and the captain and first mate took off on the only motorized life boat. My grandfather was only 21, but he took command, organized the crew to get into the other (oar powered) life boats, and navigated them to a small uninhabited islet near Tonga, where they holed up for two weeks living off of crabs until rescue found them. I know a lot of this sounds like
>implying that happened
but I used to have a newspaper clippings about it. No idea what happened to the captain and first mate, tho.

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>great grandfather was in the merchant navy
>sailed to the americas picked up supplies came back
>always told the same story about how they would take the gristle from their meat, tie it to a fishing line with hook, throw it in the air, wait for a seagull to try and eat it, fly the seagull like a kite.
>he had a brother in the merchant navy, died when his ship got u-boated
>had another brother in the grenadiers, was killed in the last week of the war, sniped.
>when they gave my great granfather his brother's medals they didn't say anything other than they 'got the bastard that killed your brother'.

i have a semi interesting story about one of my relatives from ww1:

>i think my great, great grandfather
>join the army even though 16/17
>go to france
>get a qt french gf
>have sex, get her pregnant
>get killed a few weeks later
>my great great grandmother get's kicked out by her traditional french family for having sex out of wedlock (she said that the tipping point was that the father of the child was english, kek)
>no home and now heavily pregnant
>she goes to my great great grandfathers family in england
>she doesn't speak english
>all she has is an address and a few love letters from the father of her child
>my great great grandfathers family take her in satisfied that she is who she says she is.
>help her raise the child and get a job.

must have been pretty tough going from rural life in northern france to suburban london within a few months if you don't speak english.

I bet you made him cry. Asshole!

kek which aa gun user,don't tell me its a 3 incher
what a badass
it reminded how jfk rescued one of his injured crewmates life vest strings to his teeth and swimming 5.6 km and a place infested by sharks and crocs

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>Husband of the sister of my grandmother
>gets drafted as a pontoneers for the germans
>in the same group with a childhood friend
>retreating in france from the allies
>he and his guys have to stay behind to break down bridges to delay the offensive of the allies
>sometimes got shelled by german aetillery that fired too short, said he's never been in so much rage his entire life
>one day on retreat his childhood friend steps on a german landmine in front of him and gets ripped to pieces

>his wife and her sister (my grandma) stay in austria to work in a factory
>jews and other forces labourers at their factory get treated like utter shit
>grandma and her sister sneak for into the factory for the forced labourers

>grandpa of a friend of mine is a german officer in north africa
>food starts going out, the rations become so little the soldiers begin starving
>two soldiers steal food
>friends grandfather has to execute them

>After Dunkirk he was sent to Orkney were they dropped an AA gun on his foot, he lost 3 toes and got a medal.

well that's one way to get discharged

great-grandfather fought with Russia in WW1, was shot in back

after the war he taught at the state maritime academy, got his captain's license, and worked for a few shipping lines. He got his "any ocean/any tonnage" captain's license at age 25, which is something a lot of master mariners never get their whole careers, and basically the most qualified you can get. He then applied for a ship pilot position on the Panama Canal, which is basically the most prestigious ship pilot position there is (or at least was, before the Panamanians started running the canal like a game of bumper boats). They supposedly were really impressed with his resume, record, and qualifications, and were all set to offer him the job, but then they realized how young he was and started saying there was an age requirement that wasn't in any of the official materials or written down anywhere. He supposedly said "no, fuck that, give me the job or I'll see you in court," got the job, moved to Panama, and lived there for several decades. My dad grew up in the Canal Zone before the US turned back over to Panama in 79.

>colorized photo of a soldier who lost a leg in algeria

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heheh just a little

good stories

Jesus learn how to greentext and work on your English

wow that's awful
>kid ends up in a concentration camp because of his dick father

something failed men
I do not speak English,only one very basic

did he stay in the army to fight against the communists?

it probably helped that the operation was a massive failure

Two WW2 stories.
Great grandfather got shot in the leg in france. Dont know that much about him besides that he was a convinced nazi and remained so till his death(always pointed out "half-breeds" on tv).
Grandfather from the other side of my family avoided the draft for some time because he was in an catholic boarding school. Got finally drafted in 43 or 44 and worked as an radio operator for the luftwaffe praying everyday that he would never have to fly(he was scared of flying his whole life). At some point gets drafted into the wehrmacht. Injured his leg in an accident. During night time in the hospital he stood on the leg preventing it from healing, because he didnt want to see combat. He only saw combat in the last couple of months on the eastern front. After the war tried studying theology because his uncle was an auxiliary bishop, but failed. Eventually worked as a tax collector. He died last year.
I probably have more great grandfathers wo fought in the wars but i dont know their stories.

My grandad enjoyed the war. He was in the navy and got to fuck off to the far east and chill out in Baghdad and Colombo. Always tells me how he got to get drunk with the officers because he was one of the only people on the ship who could play music. Also used to throw dynamite off the ship to catch fish.

Other grandad was captured in Malaya so his experiences weren't as great.

My great grandad wasna driver for the Royal engineers and was in the dispaches for 1943 but we cannot find why and he never said. But there was story where his lorry broke down and had to sled the supllies across the dessert

lol i'm sure your grandfather was pretty happy he got called a jew after that

Vikings migrated to Russia which lead to the establishment of Kievan Rus which was cut down by the Mongols only to lead to the rise of Muscovy which eventually became the Russian Empire and stretched to the Pacific. That Russian Empire survived until World War One when it was overtaken by the Soviet Union which through diplomatic events was at war with Nazi Germany which lead to them overrunning the Balkans.

All of that happened just so OP's ancestors could be told "Germans, Kaput!"

God I love history

You are all welcome, I am just happy to be able to share great grandfathers experiences. Alright back from lunch, yes he stayed but eventually became very disillusioned with fighting his own people. He could fight the Japanese because they were invaders but the civil war was not something he wanted to take part in. Great grandfather eventually was "discharged" from the army and went home to farm.

Anyways, after receiving the mortar wound and being evacuated, Chiang retreated the forces towards Nanjing to defend the capitol. Most of the German trained divisions like great grandfathers were shattered and would never recover from the losses of experienced troops and officers. He was then moved away from the front to an army hospital. With the Japanese force marching their way to Nanjing, and the Chinese Hindenburg line fallen, great grandfathers unit, even though having taken 80 percent casualties moved to the capitol to defend it. He remembered seeing the 3000 new recruits to reinforce his 88th division that some were even younger than he was. Particularly, a young boy of about 15 was assigned to be his newly reformed platoons messenger. The boy would not survive Nanjing, killed while crossing a street to run for more ammunitions for a machine gun. Sniper bullet hit him in the chest and he bled out while none of grandfathers unit could get to him because of Japanese machine gun in the building across. Talking about it was the first time ever great grandfather cried. He said the young boy reminded him of me, I was 12 at the time. After that great grandfather would not talk anymore about Nanjing, only that his unit lost even more men after the battle and retreat.

That is it for now, stay tuned, and thank you to anyone reading.

Thanks user
Are there any good books on the nationalist army in china that are in english that you know of?