Remembering June 6, 1944

sobo · Jun 6, 2023

Let us never, not ever, forget this day...

My Uncle Frank had a little something to say about it.
I'm sure a lot of other folks' dads, grandads, great-grandads, brothers, uncles, and great-uncles on this site had something to say about it, too...
Remember them all...

(Frank is the smiling dude with the jaunty cap)

ilostmypswrd · Jun 6, 2023

Cheers to you and your family, this is a pic of my uncle Chic D -Day plus 21 fighting during the breakout, he was a close support mortars guy.H e was one of the nicest guys I ever knew, never talked about the war, just had a beer on VE Day and he always had us over to his house on D -Day for a big spaghetti lunch, he passed in 68.

sobo · Jun 6, 2023

ilostmypswrd said:
Cheers to you and your family, this is a pic of my uncle Chic D -Day plus 21 fighting during the breakout, he was a close support mortars guy.H e was one of the nicest guys I ever knew, never talked about the war, just had a beer on VE Day and he always had us over to his house on D -Day for a big spaghetti lunch, he passed in 68.

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Good on Uncle Chic! And thank you for posting about him!

C'mon, guys, let's hear some more of your relatives' stories and see some of your pics about this momentous day in the history of this great country!
I'm all eyes and ears...

sobo · Jun 6, 2023

And let's see how late it gets before the Potato-In-Chief observes this day.
We'll see if he can remember it before 9 PM, like last year...

Or if he completely forgets it, like he did in 2021...

ilostmypswrd · Jun 6, 2023

It is so sad, I was having a huge BLT for lunch today, and there was only 1 old pbs show about D -Day, and not even a mention in Task/Purpose or T he War Zone. sad time.

ilostmypswrd · Jun 6, 2023

sobo said:
Let us never, not ever, forget this day...

My Uncle Frank had a little something to say about it.
I'm sure a lot of other folks' dads, grandads, great-grandads, brothers, uncles, and great-uncles on this site had something to say about it, too...
Remember them all...

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(Frank is the smiling dude with the jaunty cap)

Yup, nice pic of your Uncle Frank, I think men back then were made of harder stuff( no hate on the Korea/Vietnam/GWOT Vets), they went through the depression, most of my Dads brothers (7) all worked as well as went to school, just so they had enough to eat, they all enlisted to fight the Japs/Germans, even his 3 older sister became nurses/aids and went to North Africa, and Sicily, then all went to france after june 12 th, can you see kids today doing that, nope, I feel we have lost our way as a nation, D -Day is no longer really remembered, Pear Harbor Day is all but forgotten, heck even 9-11 is a thing of the past now, the young men who walked into the Nazi machine gun fire on this day, get 24 hrs, and the queermos get 30 whole days WTF is going on.Ok sorry rant over..Im going to buy a mattress to remember all those who gave everything they had on this day,...sigh. Thats a pic from our hometown paper about my Dad and his brother, sad no mention of my 3 aunts also serving, but hey different times I guess.

Andy54Hawken · Jun 6, 2023

During the observance of the 50th Anniversary of the landings at Normandy...
My unit jumped in...from a C-47.
We had 3 Veterans ride with us that day.
Later in September when we jumped in for the 50th Anniversary of Market Garden...once again we jumped from a C-47 and had a Veteran jump with us.

June 6th 1944 , should not be forgotten .
Andy

titsonritz · Jun 7, 2023

sobo said:
View attachment 1433332
(Frank is the smiling dude with the jaunty cap)

That must be at a "Band of Brothers" get together. There is nice write-up about your Uncle Frank, you should post it.

sobo · Jun 7, 2023

titsonritz said:
That must be at a "Band of Brothers" get together. There is nice write-up about your Uncle Frank, you should post it.

It was indeed a BoB reunion. It was in Normandy in 2009. Frank had eschewed ever getting together with his old Easy Company mates or even talking about the war for decades after it ended. It wasn't until he got some serious outreach from his old war mates and his wife to actually engage with them, starting in the early 2000s. He finally "broke down" and agreed to go to a reunion. He found out that he had a ton-o-fun and it was really a weight off his shoulders, so he started to engage with his old buddies a lot, and he really enjoyed their times together. Sadly, it wasn't enough, and he ate his shotgun in June of 2017. I'd bet he'd still be alive today if he hadn't have done that. His younger brother, my Uncle Eddie, just died a few days after this past Christmas of natural causes.

Mu Uncle Eddie fought in the PTO and lived to the ripe old age of 96. He had tried to join the Army at age 16 in 1942, but they told him to come back in a couple of years. Undeterred by their rebuttal and worried he might miss the war, he tried the USMC as soon as he turned 17, and they had no such qualms about his age. Eddie never talked much (about anything at all), he lived alone, and never married, so we never really did know much at all about his service in WWII. All we know is that he was in the PTO, with the Marines, on some ship... :s0092:

How did you find this piece on Uncle Frank? I'd love to see it. I did find an oral history of his from a Professor Thomas Saylor of Concordia-St. Paul University. About 25 years ago, he was doing an oral history project of as many surviving Minnesota WWII veterans as he could. He finally convinced Frank to talk, which was right about the time that his old E Co. mates were wrestling with him to come out from under his rock. He couldn't budge ol' Uncle Eddie, though... he was as tight-lipped as ever...

Longwalkhome · Jun 7, 2023

My FIL was in the Navy during WWII. Told me he was at the D day landing in a Higgens boat rescuing those in the water that never made it to the beach. I asked how he was chosen for that job because he said normally he was with a 5 inch 38 crew? He said he was chosen as he was one of the few that could swim.

sobo · Jun 7, 2023

Longwalkhome said:
He said he was chosen as he was one of the few that could swim.

That's the same reason Uncle Frank was chosen to swim the rope across the Moder River in Haguenau for snatching German soldiers for interrogation! If you've ever seen Episode 8 (The Last Patrol) of the Band of Brothers miniseries and wondered how the rope they used to pull their rubber rafts back and forth across the river got attached to the other side in the first place, well... He talks about it at the very end of his oral history interview. I saw the miniseries before I even knew the oral history existed, and the very first question I had when watching that episode was, "How the hell did they get the rope anchored on the German side?" Turns out, I didn't learn until a few years after watching that episode, and after finding that online oral history, that Uncle Frank did that. It's kinda funny, to hear him tell the story in that interview... :s0140:

Longwalkhome · Jun 7, 2023

FIL told me a good story about after the landing. Said because so many American planes were in the skies that you had to get permission to shoot at a plane.

Of course a German plane flew over and dropped a bomb really close to the ship and it burst the blister on the ships hull. Then the German pilot came by low enough you could see him flipping the bird. Not one shot fired because of no permission to fire.

titsonritz · Jun 7, 2023

sobo said:
It was indeed a BoB reunion. It was in Normandy in 2009. Frank had eschewed ever getting together with his old Easy Company mates or even talking about the war for decades after it ended. It wasn't until he got some serious outreach from his old war mates and his wife to actually engage with them, starting in the early 2000s. He finally "broke down" and agreed to go to a reunion. He found out that he had a ton-o-fun and it was really a weight off his shoulders, so he started to engage with his old buddies a lot, and he really enjoyed their times together. Sadly, it wasn't enough, and he ate his shotgun in June of 2017. I'd bet he'd still be alive today if he hadn't have done that. His younger brother, my Uncle Eddie, just died a few days after this past Christmas of natural causes.

Mu Uncle Eddie fought in the PTO and lived to the ripe old age of 96. He had tried to join the Army at age 16 in 1942, but they told him to come back in a couple of years. Undeterred by their rebuttal and worried he might miss the war, he tried the USMC as soon as he turned 17, and they had no such qualms about his age. Eddie never talked much (about anything at all), he lived alone, and never married, so we never really did know much at all about his service in WWII. All we know is that he was in the PTO, with the Marines, on some ship...

How did you find this piece on Uncle Frank? I'd love to see it. I did find an oral history of his from a Professor Thomas Saylor of Concordia-St. Paul University. About 25 years ago, he was doing an oral history project of as many surviving Minnesota WWII veterans as he could. He finally convinced Frank to talk, which was right about the time that his old E Co. mates were wrestling with him to come out from under his rock. He couldn't budge ol' Uncle Eddie, though... he was as tight-lipped as ever...

I'll send you a PM and let you post it if you are comfortable with it.

oremike · Jun 7, 2023

I know not 1944 but my nephew is on the Normandy (CG60) and is on his first deployment over that way. Beings it's the Navy we never know where he's at until after they leave. But last year : https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/N...65/uss-normandy-cg-60-visits-namesake-region/