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I know its been said so many times, but the Greatest Generation truly were something special.
Over the years I’ve found that history books written by military historians like Frank, or the books written by the veterans, tend to be much better than the more recent books written by journalists, like the 3-part series about the US Army in WWII. In those books, it seems like the author writes to sensationalize events as if it were investigative journalism. “An Army at Dawn” was so bad, I had to throw it away after reading a bit over a 100 pages.
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He was at his general quarters post, an anti-aircraft gun. They were firing at a kamikaze that was heading straight for them. He ran away from the gun mount. At that point he paused his story and teared up a bit, “I made it, they didn’t “, were his next words. I never asked him another question about the war again.
Speaking about kamikazes, I think this is some of the most incredible footage to come out of ww2 considering almost all the film you usually see is staged. https://youtu.be/yN-zEpXwf4s
Prior to that, he was on the USS Arizona, weeks prior to Dec. 7th, 1941. His new assignment came and he was on a train headed to the East Coast to board the USS Atlanta when Pearl Harbor happened. In that time period, my Grandma did not know. And for a few days, she still thought he was on the Arizona that fateful day.
My Great Grandparents came over from Spain and my Grandma was born in San Francisco. My Grandpa was from Texas and joined the Navy in '37 when he was 17 years old. They met each other in 1939 in San Francisco while his ship was in port. They were married 62 years until he passed and she lived for another 13 years. There's so much more, but it's an amazing story that I respect more and more everyday.
The Nov.13 1942 battle he was in, was at night, and it was chaos, Of all ship names possible, they took friendly fire from the USS San Francisco heavy cruiser after being disabled by Japanese fire. I know, it could have been any ship name, but somewhat ironic.
My wifes (step) grandad was a Naval Aviator in WWII. He flew dive bombers off of several ships during his tours, one of which was the Enterprise. There's a picture of him in the Enterprise exhibit at the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola. When I first met him, it was like meeting a rock star....actually probably better. I have always been extremely intrigued with WWII, especially the air war. So I wanted to ask him so many questions, but each time I kinda prodded, he deflected the conversation. I could tell he didn't want to talk about it, so I never brought it up again.
I read a book (Dauntless Helldivers) a few years ago written by his squad leader. There's a story in there about him in which they went out on a bombing mission and one of his bombs wouldn't release. He flew back to the carrier and they had him do a bunch of maneuvers to shake it loose, to no avail, it wouldn't release. The flight director thought that if it made it through all of those maneuvers, then it would probably stay attached during the landing. It didn't. It came loose and skidded across the deck killing four crew members.That had to be gut-wrenching.
https://youtu.be/7XPviVlNJaY
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zx3X08saO8&t=1326s
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