ORIGINAL: Extraneous
My father was in the United States Navy in WWII and parked P-40's in Pensacola, Florida. He was scheduled to go overseas as a radio operator for a PBY Catalina but the war ended.
My uncle on the other hand was in the United States Marines in WWII. He started at Guadalcanal and continued throughout the Pacific until Japans surrender. The only thing he ever had to say about the war was that he felt President Truman saved his life ending the war. Otherwise he would have been part of Operation Coronet during the invasion of Japan.
My dad was an infantry first sergeant in the 24th ID and I probably wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for the atomic bomb being dropped.
When I was stationed in Germany, I listened to many stories from German veterans of WWII. I knew a night fighter ace that was running a bar in Heidelberg, then the maintenance man of the house I lived in at Gieblestadt was an anti-aircraft gunner at Ploesti and was captured by the Russians. Another regular patron of a guesthouse I stayed at was in the Kriegsmarine at the start of the war and got blown of the E-boat he was on and was picked up by the British and spent the rest of the war in Canadian PW camp. He was 17 at the time and it was mid September 1939.
There are so many other stories, like when a couple buddies and I at Schweinfurt walked into a downtown bar and felt as if we were sent back in time 50 years. Horst Wessel was playing in the background on an old record player, there was a bust of Hitler up on a shelf above the bar and all of the coasters at the bar were Nazi armbands. The people inside got pretty quiet while we were there, but the bartender was pretty friendly. That was back in the 80's, I doubt it is still there.
