doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Where were YOU, "D-DAY" June 1944?

Great topic. My parents weren't even born yet (I was born '88)! Both my grandfathers served. One lied about is age to serve, he never talked much about what he saw, and I never got to meet, much less hunt with him. I hunt fairly regularly with him at night tho. My other grandfathers brother was a POW for a long time. He escaped and made his way to Italy, where he left as a little boy. I need to brush up on all the details of the story, but it was incredible.

God Bless all those who served and who have served.

Alex

Dad was D-Day + 7, and Mom made bullets for the war.
Altho' I was along for the ride with 'em both - I did my part!

I was trying to learn to walk in Pullman, Washington, where my father, a bacteriologist, was working on something "hush, hush" for the Army at Washington State University. I was actually born in Bethesda, MD when he was still working at Fort Dedrick (sp?) MD on the same stuff the year before. His younger brother had the misfortune of being a Marine legation guard in China when the Japanese declared war on us. He spent the entire war in a prison camp in Manchuria. Never talked about the experience; never said a cross word about the Japanese people. Spent the rest of his life in the Marine Corps, including Korea. A very gentle man, who bore his demons silently--I remember once when he came home to us from one of the binge/AWOL episodes that took him every five years or so. He was helping us run a line fence and took off his shirt in the summer heat. His back looked like the test pattern on an old TV screen--a mass of silver lines that were the scars from a whip. Every time he snapped and went on a bender, the USMC broke him back a grade and sent him to us for a few months of ranch work, then back to the Corps, where he was a good Marine and a good father and husband until the next episode. I hope, but do not believe, that our vets with psychic and physical wounds are as well treated today.

I also never knew an uncle on the maternal side who was a fine artist who ended up in an engineer combat battalion. He was wounded and captured on the second day of the Battle of the Bulge and then murdered by SS troops who were angry at his battalion for delaying their advance and apparently used to killing prisoners on the Eastern Front. All we have left of him are a couple of paintings.

Among my first personal memories are of the second anniversary of VJ Day, when we were living in Redondo Beach, CA and I got to stay up after dark to see the fleet firing star shells in celebration. I also remember seeing (and hearing) the Lockheed Ventura PVs and "blimps" that the Naval Reserve was using as trainers coming over the beach at the end of their "patrols" out over the Pacific in 1946. Those old radial engines had a unique growl that still means "airplane" to me!

June 4th will always be a landmark day in my life. My Dad had been away for almost a year which was a very long time in a 3 year old life. I was told that he was in Iceland "working for the government" and a small fur seal doll had been tucked into a package that had arrived only a few weeks before dad himself appeared back on the scene. When he came through the door of our apartment in the Bronx that morning his suit was rumpled, his beard bristly and he smelled of pipe smoke and I'll never forget it. He scooped me up and carried me and his big brown Hartman bag into the bedroom. While he unpacked I played with a little tin airplane painted with the Trans Continental and Western Air colors he had picked up at an airport some place. He went to sleep and didn't wake up until supper time the next day. On the night of June 6th there was a blackout drill in our neighborhood and we sat in the kitchen with the gas jets lit on the stove to give a little light. My brother, 9 years my senior had just returned from his Boy Scout meeting with a quart of Tuti-Fruti ice-cream. My dad dished out generous portions for each of us, turned on Gabriel Heeter ...... "Ah, there's good news tonight" Heeter said. My brother jumped up and down at the news ....... my father puffed his pipe. "It's a start ..... it's a start" he said swapping the pipe for the ice-cream spoon and finishing off the last of the Tuti-Fruti.

I must admit that I am not sure that I "remember" all of this or if my memory has been enhanced by years of remembering the Tuti-Fruti story with my brother ..... and then my children.

Al

Hi all, My dad was an infantryman in the 88th Inf Div (The "Blue Devils" as the Germans called them.)in Italy, in fact he was in Rome on 6-6-44. The 88th was the first unit to enter Rome along with the 1st SSF (The "Devils Brigade")the day before D-Day.

God Bless all our Vets!

Greg

Vintage 303 Enfield used for the memorial twenty-one round salute to all the veterans.
cc

I wasn't quite two on D Day. Two of my uncles and my mother-in-law all served. My father was in the National Guard but was never shipped overseas. I have been a W II history buff since I was a child. I was fortunate enough to have several opportunities to chat with Mark Clark since he retired to the town where I attended college. I used to visit with Joe Foss all the time until he died a couple of years ago. My wife still stays in touch with his widow DiDi.
I for one will never forget the sacrifices the men and woman made.
Crosschisels: That's a very nice display you have there.
Jim

I have visited Omaha beach, and will never understand how they managed to get ashore much less take it. God bless them all. (When it happened, I was not even a gleem in my father's eye, because he was only four years old!)

Bouvier, that's the prettiest of pictures in a time when really nothing was pretty. It's a good copy for any father or mother to try to explain the feelings then. Thank you

Daryl

Derek,email,Atlanta. The'Chap' under the Brown Beret is mr 34yr old Father, He shipped out back to france next day. my Mother (The Hat')had the foto'taken at Marble Arch Studios Jan 4th 1945.He was on the"Push" up through Belgium, Holland,and was in Hamburg for the Wednesday,May 9th 1945, Surrender of the Nazi War Machine that Keitel signed in Berlin. He made it back to England,(All in one Piece)He never talked about the 6 plus years he spent in Uniform,That was untill I was called for 'National Service at 18.we sat in his 'Local' and I met 5 of his 'Mates' that 'Did The War" with him.I Bonded with my Old Man after hearing what they went through. He died 14 days into his 59th Year. DT.