20th Century Stories about WW1 or WW2 you have been told about your grandparents or great-grandparents

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Great aunt was married to a Frenchman, now deceased. His father fought in WW1, used to come home at the end of the days fighting for dinner, until one day he didn't, so they went looking for him and found him dead not far from home. In WW2, now a man in the French Navy, he was on the Richelieu when it was attacked by the British, not long after France had switched from allied to Vichy.

Both great grandfathers were in WW1, one of them in the 10th Light Horse at Gallipoli. Never got to hear their stories.
 
skilts said:
Blamey was accused of being a crook because he set out to (successfully) raise funds (ten thousand pounds) for this purpose from the Moonee Valley Racing Club and the Australian Jockey Club, during a visit back to Australia. Unsurprisingly to me, Blamey refused to dignify those accusations with an answer. In many ways, he was his own worst enemy.
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He was an incredibly tough bugger ol' Blamey.
He had kidney stones during WW2 and instead of opting for surgery, went for a long hours-long horse ride through difficult terrain to "pass it".
Came back, had dinner, got on with things.
 
Mofra said:
He was an incredibly tough bugger ol' Blamey.
He had kidney stones during WW2 and instead of opting for surgery, went for a long hours-long horse ride through difficult terrain to "pass it".
Came back, had dinner, got on with things.
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I think that was quite a common option back then since the surgery was just as likely to kill you as it was to save you. Passing the stones yourself was more painful but safer.
 

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thejester said:
No, they weren't. By July 1943 the Soviets had such a massive advantage in men and material that they were not only able to achieve a clear local superiority in the Kursk salient but also build up their forces for offensives to the north and the south of the salient and maintain a large central reserve (Steppe Front). On 12 July - the high water mark of the offensive for the Germans, with the fighting around Prokhorovka between II SS Panzer Corps and 5th Guards Tank Army - the Soviets were already launching Operation KUTUZOV to the north of the salient, and then proceeded to launch a series of offensives to the south that culminated in the liberation of Kharkov. Worth noting that the same panzer units that had done such hard fighting at Kursk spent August trying (and failing) to defend Kharkov.

tl;dr, the Soviets were never close to 'being on the run again' after Kursk - the Red Army had the strength to not only absorb the offensive handily but to initiate action that made any German gains at Kursk strategically irrelevant.
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Its accepted that had the allies not invaded Sicily, the Germans would of made good on the serious damage they did at Kursk. Unfortunaley massive resources had to be diverted to Italy. That was the game changer.
 
Mofra said:
He was an incredibly tough bugger ol' Blamey.
He had kidney stones during WW2 and instead of opting for surgery, went for a long hours-long horse ride through difficult terrain to "pass it".
Came back, had dinner, got on with things.
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He was indeed a hard man. He was an accomplished horseman too.
 
little graham said:
Its accepted that had the allies not invaded Sicily, the Germans would of made good on the serious damage they did at Kursk. Unfortunaley massive resources had to be diverted to Italy. That was the game changer.
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Not really.

The battle of Kursk was well and truly lost by then. Sicily did draw away some troops and probably meant the Russian counter attack was more successful than it would have otherwise been, but not by all that much.
 
telsor said:
Not really.

.
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If you read the historians studying Russian records released after the fall of the Berlin wall > if you study the numbers diverted to Italy as the Germans were about the finnish the Russian reserve, then yes really.

However the allies could of landed alot earlier, which would had a massive impact. They should of probably landed in France if they were serious about ending the war. Again if you have done the study, you'd of known the Americans were dragging out the war as long as they could to weaken Russia and Brittan.

You would know they only landed when did because the Russians were staggering.
 
little graham said:
If you read the historians studying Russian records released after the fall of the Berlin wall > if you study the numbers diverted to Italy as the Germans were about the finnish the Russian reserve, then yes really.

However the allies could of landed alot earlier, which would had a massive impact. They should of probably landed in France if they were serious about ending the war. Again if you have done the study, you'd of known the Americans were dragging out the war as long as they could to weaken Russia and Brittan.

You would know they only landed when did because the Russians were staggering.
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The British and Russians were already impoverished by the war.

And if they had any foresight they would never have engaged in Operation Market Garden
 
On the other hand the horse can some times drink but the water is poisen.

You keep believing that the allies were more evil than the nazis. In the end though the nazis caused the death of about 55 million. Don't you ever forget that. 55 million. No matter what happened to the German people via trade wars, forced treaties etc they reacted in a way that is indefensible and you defending them,and the Chinese CP murder of million as well, says everything about you as in individual. Got any nice words to say about the Khmer Rouge while defending totalitarian regimes? I need a good chortle.
 

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LanceRomance said:
And if they had any foresight they would never have engaged in Operation Market Garden
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We had invested heavily in parachute battalions. Had to do something with them, their officers were chumping at the bit wanting to be unleashed. Everyone else was getting a go. If you can take s**t of experienced German units, you could handle Russians. Operation probably wasn't as successful as result of the American soldiers being so wet behind the ears.

Also, invaluable experience in case they needed control to Danube or Elbe.
 
little graham said:
If you read the historians studying Russian records released after the fall of the Berlin wall > if you study the numbers diverted to Italy as the Germans were about the finnish the Russian reserve, then yes really.

However the allies could of landed alot earlier, which would had a massive impact. They should of probably landed in France if they were serious about ending the war. Again if you have done the study, you'd of known the Americans were dragging out the war as long as they could to weaken Russia and Brittan.

You would know they only landed when did because the Russians were staggering.
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Do you want to name some of these historians who have come to the conclusion that only the invasion of Sicily saved the Soviets in 1943? Because the most prominent of them, Dave Glantz, says the exact opposite.
 
thejester said:
Do you want to name some of these historians who have come to the conclusion that only the invasion of Sicily saved the Soviets in 1943? Because the most prominent of them, Dave Glantz, says the exact opposite.
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So Glanz thinks the allied invasion of Italy helped the Germans in Kursk? Must off pissed of the Russians doing stupid things like that.
 
little graham said:
So Glanz thinks the allied invasion of Italy helped the Germans in Kursk? Must off pissed of the Russians doing stupid things like that.
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That's called 'shifting the goalposts', well done. You've said repeatedly that only the Allied invasion of Sicily saved the Soviets from defeat at Kursk. Glantz's work shows that is clearly not the case. Please, name the historians who say otherwise.
 
thejester said:
That's called 'shifting the goalposts', well done. You've said repeatedly that only the Allied invasion of Sicily saved the Soviets from defeat at Kursk. Glantz's work shows that is clearly not the case. Please, name the historians who say otherwise.
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I suspect it was deep in some Eric von Daniken book.
 
Sorry for the bump.

Went to my Uncle's house this afternoon after a dentist appointment and we ended up on the topic of World War 2 as he had received a large amount of letters, telegrams, etc that were his fathers and was in the process of photocopying them so that he could share them with his siblings.

It then reminded me of the other half of my parents, and my Grandfather who was part of the Dutch Resistance with my late Uncle and the other Uncle. Having heard some of the stories such as hiding in pantry's when the German's stormed the underground 'bunker(?)' trying to find everyone is really quite eye opening.

There's another part of the story when they moved to Australia where one of them was too old or something and they had to lie to get through.. but I am not 100% sure how that one went so I will come back when I do.

Going to buy a video camera/voice recorder or something and try and get as much information out of my grandfather as I can as he enjoys talking about it.
 
clogged said:
Great aunt was married to a Frenchman, now deceased. His father fought in WW1, used to come home at the end of the days fighting for dinner, until one day he didn't, so they went looking for him and found him dead not far from home. In WW2, now a man in the French Navy, he was on the Richelieu when it was attacked by the British, not long after France had switched from allied to Vichy.

Both great grandfathers were in WW1, one of them in the 10th Light Horse at Gallipoli. Never got to hear their stories.
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My great grandfather was in the tenth light horse. Didn't fight in Gallipoli but fought in Palestine, didn't sign up until 1917 after his little brother joined. Know little about his attitudes to the war and why he left at the time he did.

His brother died in the Germans spring offensive of 1918 and is buried in Senlis Le-Sec. No relative has yet to visit his grave. Nobody knew where it was until he was reburied and the record digitalised.

The war did him few favours. He was already a troubled individual from the sounds of things. His father was a harsh and cruel man being the bastard son of a convicts daughter, she was raised by another family. A family she would eventually marry into, but not before getting herself pregnant to some English fellow, he must have been a great dad because my great great grandfather eventually changed his last name back to his mothers maiden name.

He eventually institutionalised my great great grandmother and when my great grandfather came back to Australia and started a family of his own it wasn't too last either. He was too remote to raise his own children and left my grandfather to be abused in a Christian Brothers School while fathering children to other women elsewhere around WA.




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Eastern Rangers said:
My great grandfather was in the tenth light horse. Didn't fight in Gallipoli but fought in Palestine, didn't sign up until 1917 after his little brother joined. Know little about his attitudes to the war and why he left at the time he did.

His brother died in the Germans spring offensive of 1918 and is buried in Senlis Le-Sec. No relative has yet to visit his grave. Nobody knew where it was until he was reburied and the record digitalised.

The war did him few favours. He was already a troubled individual from the sounds of things. His father was a harsh and cruel man being the bastard son of a convicts daughter, she was raised by another family. A family she would eventually marry into, but not before getting herself pregnant to some English fellow, he must have been a great dad because my great great grandfather eventually changed his last name back to his mothers maiden name.

He eventually institutionalised my great great grandmother and when my great grandfather came back to Australia and started a family of his own it wasn't too last either. He was too remote to raise his own children and left my grandfather to be abused in a Christian Brothers School while fathering children to other women elsewhere around WA.




Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk
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My great grandfather was on the first ship out of Perth in 1915 - the Mashobra. Didn't come back until 1919. Quite a few of them stayed and fought after the war against the Arabs. The idea that it was a just war is nonsense, anyone paying serious attention knows otherwise.

I imagine your family is from the Wheatbelt? What you say is a similar story to what I've heard from my forebears.
 
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