Isn’t it amazing how these guys did the things we read about and watch in the movies and documentaries, and then, when it was all over, came home, hung up their uniforms and put on their work clothes and suits, and went back to their everyday life, living it, for the most part, as if nothing had happened?
I mean, most of the WWII vets I know don’t go around complaining about having to fight that war, nor do they seem to have allowed the stuff they saw, and the stuff they had to do, really change who they were or how they felt they should be.
If you ask them about the war, almost to a tee they can tell you stories that curl your toes and scare the crap out of you, but they tell you the stories with a straight face, as if it was no big deal to have a ship blown out from under you, or to have your bomber shot up, have to bail out of a burning aircraft over occupied territory, and then to sneak your way back to your side.
My Dad and I were fishing, years ago when I was a kid, and I got him talking about his ship and his service.
He told me about his DE depth charging a U boat so badly it had to surface, which was a rare thing.
His captain assumed they were surrendering, and ordered boarding parties to assemble.
Well, the U boat crew came out on deck, then went for their deck guns and opened fire, along with small arms fire…all the while the sub was turning towards my Dad ship.
His captain thought they were trying to line up a torpedo shot, so he ordered return fire, and my Dad got to the AA gun, sat there and blew holes in the forward section of the sub, while the rest of the deck guns chopped up as much of the U boat crew as they could find…the boat sank, with only a few survivors, who told the DE crew that their air delivery system had failed, and they had to no way to blow ballast normally, or compress air to fire torpedoes, so the U boat captain was planning on ramming my Dad’s ship.
Now he is telling me all this, while sitting there