My Uncle Joe!
This is a picture of the Fioretti crew of the USAAF 8th Air Force, 384th Bomb Group ,545th Bomb Squadron just after flying a mission in March of 1944 in the B17 "Damned Yankee II" My uncle Joe is in the front row, second from the right. He was the Tail gunner. This crew was shot down by German fighters in the B17 "Mrs Geezil"on April 13th 1944 on a mission to the Schweinfurt ball bearing plants. 4 out of the 10 men in this picture were killed during the attack. My Uncle and the other enlisted men who survived spent the rest of the war in Stalag 17B. This was my Uncle's 25th mission. The Gent to the left of my Uncle is the Left waist gunner Phillip Chaperon who is still alive today and the one who gave me this picture.
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Semper Fi
Phil
Thanks Patrick. Nice photographs.
7a.jpganother pic of dad,I think looking at the chap with the stick, this must be dad in a military hospital in Sicily, his records state he was hospitalised for a time with malaria, dad on the right!.
cheers,
John.
Last Saturday our local newspaper (Eindhovens Dagblad) created a large special issue of many pages to commmorate it is now one hundred years
ago that World War I started. We, the Dutch, were neutral, but locals had their stories to tell, as I had!
It was about my grandmother, who was Dutch and went to German to work there as a maid in a household. She met there a German (my
grandfather) and felt in love, married (at Hilden) and got 5 children. In 1916 my grandfather was send to Belgium to take part for the war and
soon he was shot.
Herewith I do include my story for the edition. My grandmother can be seen with a photograph with four of her children (one had died). My mother
is the young girl at right (the boys are the ones from post 93). Years later my grandmother returned to the Netherlands, while she had a severe
life as a Dutch women, and settled where I live now. Her children came a few years later. My mother got married and so it was my turn to see where
I (still) live.
It is practically sure that when my grandfather had not been killed, my mother would have married a German for sure and me (another Wilhelm anyway)
would have been born in Germany. Would I then ever have been collecting TR material and would I ever have written a book? Who knows? For those
who don't know me by face: the article included me in color.
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With post 3 I showed my German grandfather and a photograph from his grave, when he was shot during World War I. My Dutch father you can see in post 5;
the brothers from my mother, serving in the German army, can be seen in post 93.
Last edited by Wilhelm Saris; 05-28-2014 at 10:27 PM.
Here are my German grandparents, Hans and Wilhelmine Ritter on their wedding day in 1944...My grandmother was a BdM girl and one of their duties was to correspond with single soldiers. Hans was from Mannheim/Waldhof and Wilhelmine from Lampertheim, only 14km distance, which made it possible for them to meet when he was in Mannheim on home-leave to see his parents...Apparently Love at first sight, and after his promotion to Unteroffizier in April 1944 he was granted marriage-leave from the Ostfront. He was later awarded the EKI...When the war ended on 8 May he simply walked home...never spent a day in captivity...Unfortunately, he passed away far too young at 45yrs in 1969 of Lung/Brain Cancer (Worked in a steel-foundry making huge ship's anchors)...I lived with my German grandmother for several years and was able to ask her about the events from '33-'45-- from Kristallnacht, Air Raids, to the Occupation, she related her experiences to me...Btw, the wedding dress was later traded on the Black Market for two loaves of French Bread...
I am forever grateful to my Oma, who also lost two brothers serving in the Wehrmacht and believed in Final Victory until the last...
cheers, Glenn
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Last edited by bigmacglenn; 07-05-2014 at 11:02 PM.
That's very touching Glenn, I never got to ask my Grandmother about wartime in Dublin due to her dementia/Alzheimer's and I never got to talk to my grandfather who built ships for the British Navy in Belfast because he had a heart attack before I was born. Two of his houses were bombed by the luftwaffe in Belfast. He was a boiler engineer and he went over to Glasgow to work on the HMS hood for a while I believe. After the war he worked for the Irish Lights. Lighthouses exc.
IMG_20130824_185532_860.jpgMy Great uncles Carl (in greatcoat) Albert (head & shoulders) Karcher. Erwen Mutschler (RAD) and I was told one of the few who came back after being a Russian POW years after his capture in Stalingrad. My uncle Peter Perchacz (Polish).The couple are my Grandmother Anna & Grandfather Jurko. He was in the Austo-Hungarian Army in WW1, fought for the Ukrainians against the Poles & Russians in their war of 1921 & hid in the forests when called up for the Polish Army in 1939.The photo shows them upon their return from 10 years in Siberia after WW2. Will post pic of my Grandfather George who served in the Swiss Army during WW2 when I can find it. My family seems to have most bases covered and have always survived.Well apart from my cousin who was skinned alive serving as a conscript during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. IMG_20130824_185041_898.jpgIMG_20130824_185104_064.jpg
Here are my great-grandfathers medals that I received recently, I didn't know that they even existed. They are in poor shape, because of bad storage (he didn't like talking about the war or wearing his medals expect one for civil service).
He was a corporal and fought in Kiestinki 1941, he was discharged in late 1941 because of old age (40 years old).
Medals from left to right:
Northern Viena Cross
Civil Defense Medal, 2nd class
Commemorative Medal of the Continuation War
Medal of the White Rose, 1st class with golden cross (given for civil merit as a forester).
.
Here's my great uncle Mikko Pentti.
His story started when Winter War began and he was called to service in the Finnish army. He was awarded two medals of freedom for valor. In 1940 when the war ended, he took reserve officer training.
When Operation Barbarossa was about to begin, he joined Finnische Freiwilligen-bataillon der Waffen-SS. He was wounded in his chest and lost multible ribs, but he survived. He used to keep the ribs in a jar and showed them to everyone..
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