December 7th

[ship]

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Many of you know that my dad was a Pearl Harbor survivor, Battleship USS Oklahoma.  I read in the news today that another USS Oklahoma survivor is attending the ceremony today at the USS Arizona memorial...he's 101 years old.

 

My mother's only brother served under Patton's 3rd army and was killed in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.  While reading topics in the "other forum" I find out that Ronnie's dad also served under Patton's 3rd and was in Belgium.

 

Let us not forget those who served our country in time of war.

[2seater]

My father was in New Guinea very early in WWII. A farm boy joined the National Guard to help pay for college, but of course when Pearl Harbor happened, they were the first to go. The 32nd Division was scheduled to go to Europe and actually travelled to the east coast before reversing course for hurried training in Louisiana and then on to the west coast to board commandeered Matson liners to travel to Australia. At the time the largest single move of an entire division intact. Those battles in New Guinea didn't get the same press as the Marine landing at Guadalcanal which was happening at the same time. He never talked about it much, except the silly and stupid things they did to keep from going crazy. He talked fondly about Australia and the exceptional treatment Americans received. Several years after he passed in 2005, I found his battlefield diary. I can only read bits and pieces of it at a time, it is so intense.  

[Ronnie]

 My father served in Patton's army as a gunner in the 377th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion. His discharge papers show him participating in several major campaigns in many countries throughout Europe.

 

At a family reunion one of my older cousins interviewed Dad when I was a kid and asked him about his time in WWII. Below is what he wrote about Dad's time in the military. I'm glad he talked to Dad about the war because Dad talked to me very little about the war as he got older. Maybe his memory was failing or maybe he was just tired of talking about it.

 

"Arnold was inducted into the United States Army on August 14, 1942 at Fort Ogelthorpe, Georgia.  He was a Private First Class in Battery C of the 377th Coast Artillery Battalion.  He served his first thirteen months of military service in the United States, training in Georgia, Florida, and finally Tennessee.  His unit traveled by freight train to New York City where they boarded a ship for England.  Upon his arrival in England he entered World War II which took him across England, France, Austria, Belgium and Germany.  Arnold entered France at Normandy but not on D-Day. What he remembers about the beach at Normandy was it was covered with backpacks and other items the infantrymen had thrown off so they could maneuver better or were left there by the people retrieving the bodies of the dead. Arnold told me about seeing the concrete pillboxes the Germans had used to shoot at the Allied forces as they hit the beaches. When he saw them the pillboxes had been destroyed by explosives so they could not be used again. Arnold talked about being in the Ardennes Forest during the Battle of the Bulge. He said it was so cold there that his wet boots would freeze to the floor of the truck he was sleeping in at night. Arnold said at the end of the war he was assigned to guarding German soldiers and taking them out to work in the fields because the German people were starving. He said the German soldiers gave no trouble at all. The were happy the war was over and wanted to move on with their lives. After serving twenty five months overseas in combat Arnold was discharged on November 11, 1945 at Camp Atterbury Indiana."

 

I'm so proud of my Dad for what he did to help keep our country free. Many thanks to all who served. We should all remember that what happened at Pearl Harbor 80 years ago could easily happen again...

 

This is a photo of Dad and his water cooled machine gun. I believe this photo was taken in Belgium.

 

 

[Padgett]

My family generations each had at least onewar, grandfather-war 1, father-war 2 & korea, me an all expense paid tour of SEA (USAF, didn't want to walk there).

 

Always found it interesting that none of our carriers was at Pearl.

[DAVES89]

Nobody on my dad's side of the family served in any world war, but my great, great grandfather served in the Civil War and fought in only one battle, the battle of White Oak Road which was one of the last battles of the Civil war. He was one of only 3 soldiers killed for the North on March 31 1865 leaving behind a pregnant wife and a 3 year old son.   

[Ron Walker]

My father and all three of my uncles were in WWII - 3 in the Navy and 1 in the Army. Only my father saw combat, but all survived. Very little information was ever said by them about their experiences.   I was born 4 years after the WWII ended so I was too young to appreciate anything that may have been said early on, and then as time marched on, the topic never came up.  My father became an alcoholic and died at the relatively young age of 58 - 43 years ago. I regret that we never discussed his experiences, but when I was in my youth and then as a young adult, his alcoholism superseded any such discussions.  It wasn't popular then to blame alcoholism on war experiences, but now I wonder. . .

[2seater]

I never served, so it's hard to judge what the experience can do to you. First I was 1S, then 1Y and finally 4F with a draft number of 27. I read as many accounts and books about the New Guinea campaign as I could find. The one common thread was how unprepared the U.S. was, the inappropriate uniforms, camouflage, equipment etc... for jungle warfare. Had to be hard for mostly northern boys, to go into battle almost on the equator, to fight the climate as well as their adversary. As I mentioned before, I found my dad was quite eloquent and clear in his description of the terrors they faced. I don't know how that couldn't have an effect.

[Ronnie]

I didn't serve either. I was a 1A and thinking I was on my way to Vietnam. When some of my friends who were my age got draft notices I got a 1H card. (Not eligible for service at this time.) I never officially knew why and I didn't call to ask. I've been told that it was because I was an only son but I don't know that for a fact. I carried that card for years until it was nearly worn beyond being able to read it, mostly out of guilt for not having to go when a lot of my friends did, then I put it away for safe keeping. I intended to keep that card forever but somehow it must have gotten misplaced when moving from one house to another and now I can't find it.

 

After making my last post I got to wondering what kind of machine gut that was in the photo with Dad. I think I have found one like it online. It appears to be a 50 caliber water cooled Browning machine gun. You can clearly see the hoses going to the water pump that kept the barrel cool.

 

Dad had always told me he was in the 377th Anti-Aircraft Battalion but I believe him telling my cousin he was in the 377th Coast Artillery might be correct according to what is written below.

 

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"At the beginning of World War II the U.S. antiaircraft artillery force was very much the poor stepchild of the Coast Artillery Corps. The units were mostly three-battalion (a gun battalion, an automatic weapons battalion, and a searchlight battalion) regiments and separate battalions. They were equipped with a motley mix of obsolescent 3-inch guns and single-barrel, water-cooled, .50-caliber machine guns. The German Blitzkrieg in Europe forced a widespread re-evaluation of the Army's AAA capability and, beginning in 1940-1941 a vast expansion of the arm (it finally achieved an identity separate from the Coast Artillery in 1943). On September 30, 1942, it was proposed that 811 AAA battalions be organized (with a total strength of 619,000 men)."
 

Two views of the Browning .50-caliber, water-cooled antiaircraft machine gun, differing only in the type of mount used. The men of the 225th were trained to use this weapon in their airfield defense role along with searchlights and radar.

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[ship]

My dad was career Navy, entered as a Kansas farm boy in 1936 and retired in MA in 1966 as a Sr. Chief Gunners Mate.  During WWII he did 2 tours with the Pacific fleet and 1 tour with the Atlantic/Mediterranean fleet on convoy duty (met my mother in Quincy, MA shipyard waiting for a ship to be completed for Atlantic duty).  First Pacific tour included Pearl Harbor attack on the USS Oklahoma and then to Figi/South Pacific.  2nd tour was with Adm Bull Halsey's task force in a heavy cruiser.  Two Korea tours were on heavy cruiser and LST transport ship.  After Korea he was  DI at the San Diego Training Center, then ended his career back with the Atlantic fleet mostly on heavy cruisers and one aircraft carrier.  I had one uncle who was a submariner in the Pacific and one uncle who was with 3rd Army in Sicily through Italy and eventually Belgium.

 

I did not serve, tried to get into the Navy in '69 via OCS (had 2 years of college at the time) but was designated 1Y and a very high draft number.  Brother inlisted in '69 with the Army Corp of Engineers and did 2 tours Vietnam "in country" as they say, '70-'73.

 

I had a great-great grandfather who served in the Civil War for the North out of a Ohio regiment...the Shipman family migrated from eastern PA in the early 1700's through the OH valley and eventually IA, NE landing in northeast KS where my dad was born.  

[Ronnie]

My great grandfather served in the Civil War but it's something I'm not so proud of. He was a member of "Lillard's" 3rd Tennessee Mounted Infantry fighting for the Confederacy.  Records in the Tennessee Archives in Nashville also show him as enlisting in the Union's 7th Regiment, Tennessee Mounted Infantry 22 Jan 1865. All the records indicate is his name, enlistment date, birth date, and a note saying for enlisting he was given $50, a horse and "campage". No one knows for sure how he came to enlist in the Union Army unless it was for the money because that Regiment was dissolved in July 1865. As if that wasn't bad enough he was Indicted in 1866 for the murder of Joseph Graves, killing him with an axe while they were arguing about the Civil War. After hiding out in the mountains for a while he fled to Texas to avoid prosecution leaving his wife and children behind.  He never returned to Tenn. and no one knows for sure what happened to him.

[ship]

Family history is a lot of fun to research...the Shipman/Shagley/Parrish on my father's side (Wales), and the Coletti/Cedrone/Tampesta on my mother's side (Italy).