With the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, I thought it might be cool to see who on this board had family/friends in WWII.

My Italian Grandfather served as a pharmacist in the US Navy. His ship was stationed in the Caribbean. My Scottish Grandfather was in Britain's RAF. He has told me stories of seeing dogfights in the sky. He was a mechanic and worked on bombers primarily (Lancasters and Wellingtons). I had a Great-Uncle that was either with the Canadians at Juno or landed in the wave after the initial DDay landings (we arent sure), he died August 1944 near the Belgium border with France. I have actually found his war grave, if anyone is interested. There was a Criscuolo (my last name) that died on the USS Arizona, but we do not know if he was a relation, the family remembers him as if he was though.

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Per Mare, Per Terras
KC

My Stepfather served in Germany towards the end of WW2. He would never talk about his war experience, but became an ardent anti war protester during the Vietnam War ERA.

What made this unusual was that he had a mainstream business on the main thoroughfare in town, and he used the large picture windows of his business to put up large peace signs and anti war slogans. Everything else about the guy was normal, middle class american 40 something year old guy. Boating weekends out on long island, fishing trips, bbq, ski vacations. Generally conservative in most of his other attitudes. No long hair, regular dresser, etc. IOW, a typical 40 something yr. old guy his age in the mid-late 60's.

So to use his business to make such a strong anti war stance in our conservative blue collar neighborhood created quite the stir.

I was proud of it though.

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Good depth often has to come from within, in the form of younger talent. Depth is hard to build overnight, but it’s easy to deplete. Jeff Sullivan

My father served state-side during WWII. He "washed out" during training, physically unable to handle some aspects (flying was one, which is why he rarely ever flew in planes throughout his life).... but the Army used his science knowledge to advantage, so he taught navigation skills to his fellow servicemen.

My dad's biggest fear was public speaking, so teaching did NOT come easily to him. But he remained fiercely patriotic throughout his life--and often told us that you were obligated to follow orders when you were in the service, even when you didn't like them.

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Scouting for baseball fans in Nepal

And now we have rolled on to the 70th anniversary of Victory over Japan.

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Per Mare, Per Terras
KC

My cousin is an English instructor in Costa Rica. When he was visiting in December, he recorded this conversation, for his website (for Spanish speakers to hear different accents...in this case Scottish). My grandpa is describing a strafing incident and also a bombing.

http://www.englishclique.com/conversati ... n-the-raf/

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Per Mare, Per Terras
KC

My father was a Marine stationed in Guam, and an Uncle in the Navy also in the Pacific.

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There's no success like failure
And failure's no success at all

Well I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland right now and can't understand a thing they are saying.... And I'm of Scottish descent. Lol! We are on our way to Inverness and then the west coast of the Highlands. The accent is surely going to get thicker.
Started in London where everything was clear comparatively.

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"Grit Happens"
YBC-Dog, DBBP

"There's NO Crying in Baseball"
Tom Hanks- "A League of Their Own"