Tales of WWII
![PFC Cervetti [Ret.]](https://vanilla.29th.org/uploads/userpics/759/n00APG65BMFDL.png)
So I spent the Easter holidays at the country house where I grew up.
While I was walking the dog I looked into a ditch and I saw something odd:
That's it. Two PIAT rounds that have been sitting there for more than 70 years.
My house is on the gothic line, on its adriatic end, and in september 1944 a joint commonwealth-greek force launched an offensive to liberate the city of Rimini and gain a foothold on the lombard plain.
The area saw heavy fighting, my house itself was destroyed (from what my grandma told me, it was probably bombed by an allied fighter-bomber which was ordered to target this other nearby farm that was actually a german stronghold, later abandoned).
The whole place was dotted with remnants of the war, but while most were sweeped shortly after, many remained concealed and occasionally they come up.
I literally spent my early years collecting shrapnels in the fields around the house, I had a huge collection of them (the largest measuring up to 40 cm) until they were "accidentally" thrown away by my mom.
But something managed to survive:
A shot and impacted .50 cal bullet
A quite large bomb fragment
Other fragments
Can somebody help me identify them from these serial numbers?
Learn more about the battle of Rimini: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rimini_(1944)
I'll leave you with a photo of a Sherman tanks stuck in front of the 2000 years old Augustus arch:
PS If you're wondering what I did with the PIAT rounds, well I resisted the tempation to carry them home and I called the police to dispose of them.
One week passed and they haven't done anything yet, but this is Italy, so what do you expect.
(Anyway they're in open countryside so there's little risk that somebody will find them)
Comments
That is pretty awesome!
Resist the temptation to poke those bombs though, I like to see 29thers in one piece.
This made me thing of some of my family stories from the war, and this doesn't seem like a bad place to post them.
I'll start with one of my granfathers.
The 21st of March, the RAF initiated an attack on "Schellhuset" in Copenhagen, Denmark, it were to free the danish resistance fighters who were held there bu Gestapo. The attack were similar to the attack on the prison in "Amiens" two months ealier.
Because one of the "de Havilland Mosquitoes" chrashing close to "The French School" the 2nd wave thought it were "Schellhuset" and therefore they bombed the area.
My grandfather and his family lived some few buildings away, on the same road as "The French Shcool,"
so that day it were only by the luck that he and his older brother made it out, his parents were on work and out shopping.
Now going over to my grandmother on the other side.
Her Family lived in "Odense" on "Funen", Her Father were helping the danish restistance with hiding some few weapons and atleast one SOE agent, her mother were Scottish, so the family were pro-british.
She also tells me about; how some goodfriends of the family once had been at a dinner at her house, and that they next day were shot by Gestapo.
All these stories are taken place in Denmark, were i'm living, but you already have figured such out, i'm sure off.
The "quite large bomb fragment" looks like the remains of an 8cm german mortar round. The things below could be british bomb fuses, like shown here:
@PFC Egelund The markings on the Fuse seem to indicate it might be of British origin if this website is to be believed: http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/ordnance-ammo/unknown-piece-shrapnel-help-188007/
One thing that always helps identify British armaments from WWII and before, is Ordnance markings, predominantly the Broad Arrow. It is a very good indicator of British or Commonwealth origin.
Aside from that, a very interesting post PFC Cervetti. I envy the amount of wartime history around you. Though as 1Lt. says; Don't poke the bombs!
I remember story told from my grandfather to my own father.
So here it begins, once upon a time my grandfather lived as a butcher, he did not like the war at all, and of course he hated germany for invading his own country (Denmark) which was called 'flødeskumsfronten' wich basically means, the cream front roughly translated, since the germans loved our milk, cream and butter. Anyways.. one day an SOE agent jumped down in parachute and landed infront of his shop, and about 200 meters away from the agent were around 5 nazis looking for jews and people who don't belong there, so the nazis of course noticed the agent from the sky since they could hear the plane engines roar, and they basically went over to the agents landing spot, the agent was quick enough to get away from them and made it into my grandfathers butcher shop (or what it is called) and asked for help, as my grandfather could hear the nazis shouting he quickly found an apron and gave it to the agent and smurred it in blood, and when the nazis went inside the shop and asked if my grandfather has seen anyone going into his shop he simply replied 'I've only seen my step son here working hard all day' and while he was busy speaking the german he could, the agent smiled and tried to chop the meat. The nazis quickly got out since it smelled awful alot of blood.
And that's the story about my grandfather saving an agent from the nazis, hope you enjoyed!
What is an SOE agent? I found my answer, disregard
I hear in my grandfathers funeral that when he was in war (Continuation War) that he had bag hanging from a branch at my grandfathers head level.Then they heard a sound in the bag and they asked "What was that?". And they checked the bag and there was a bullet stopped in the thick bible. Otherwise bullet would had hit my grandfathers head.
But my grandmother told me that it was actually grenade/shell sharpnel that the bible stopped from going to his heart.
I have 2 stories:
My grandfather´s brother who lived in America was drafted to fight in the war. He was first sent to Normandy to one of the more dangerous landings (I can´t remember which one but he told me he lost a bunch of his friends at the beach).
After fighting in France he was sent to Burma (Myanmar) to fight the japanese. It was the scariest part of the war for him because of the infamous japanese brutality and the bad conditions of the Burma Campaign, plus he witnessed japanese kamikaze attacks.
The other story is of a different brother of my grandfather who was part of a squadforce of the Mexican airforce, squad 201. During one of its first missions to bombard the Philipines the whole squad saw a japanese recon airplane. Out of fear the squad began to retreat thinking that the whole japanese airforce would follow but then they continued to their original rout and successfully bombarded the Philipines. It is said that when the japanese emperor heard that a Mexican squad was about to bombard the Philipines, he ordered not to shoot any of the planes because those Mexican planes would eventualy fall by themselves.
I have a pretty cool story about a relative's involvement in the war. On Remembrance Day a couple years ago I was watching the History Channel's documentaries about WW2 (only day that channel has good programming on it) and about 2 or 3 episodes into this show's marathon a soldier starts talking about a Canadian soldier with the last name Rose. My greatgrandmothers maiden name was Rose and I knew I had family members from her side that died in the war. Well the show goes on and this guy is saying __ Rose was his best friend during the war and they were the crew of an artillery gun. I forget where they were at this point, but after a day of shelling they're told to dig a hole to sleep in, but they were so tired they found an empty barn and instead slept in that. The guy says he woke up to an enormous bang, and looks around for his friend ___ Rose. He finds __ Rose dead with a piece of shrapnel straight through his forehead. The next day I called my Grandmother and asked her if that ___ Rose was our relative. She said her and my Grandfather also watching the show and that it was my great-great uncle. It was really cool to be watching this amazing TV show and then you actually hear about how one of your relatives was killed in teh war.
I used to have the show on my PVR but my A-Hole brother deleted it so he could record MLP or something. They say his first name but I forget it, it may have been John. If anyone knows where I can find episodes of that show I would love to watch it again, the series is amazing in my opinion.
I have a friend who's Grandfather was in the Danish Resistance Forces in the southernmost region on Denmark, Sønderjylland (Northern Schleswig to none-danes) where I live. The details are off, but they were, I believe on a mission to sabotage something, some railroads I think. What happened I don't know, but on the way away from there the grandfather was spotted by a German soldier, who aimed his K98 and shot the grandfather, but he got away. They later found out that instead of hitting the grandfather, it hit a toothbrush in his backpack, and the grandfather got away safely. Yay!
Edit: P. S My Grandmother has a copy of the newspaper wherein she saw that the germans had surrendered in a frame of gold
Couple of little experiences from my grandfather who served on the U.S.S Dortch, DD-670 a Fletcher Class Destroyer in the Pacific War.
Often times while out escorting the fleet they would see an environmental phenomenon known as waterspouts.
They used their 5inch guns to try and interrupt the spouts so that the fleets they were escorting wouldn't be sunk by them. An unusual task for the destroyer screen!
My grandfather served in the RADAR and rangefinding area of the Dortch.
From there he helped the 5 inch guns to target incoming Japanese aircraft. You see, the 5 inch guns on the Dortch are a dual purpose weapon capable of both surface and air engagements. The shells, fuzed for proximity, would burst near the targets and hopefully the shrapnel would knock them down.
The Dortch was part of the carrier screen during the Battle of the Philippine Sea and then later off of Okinawa it did the same job.
Finally the Dortch was one of the ships in Tokyo Harbour where my Grandfather and his crew-mates watched the surrender signing on the U.S.S. Missouri through the high powered rangefinder.
(none of these images are mine)
Very interesting read SSgt.
I don't have much detail in any of these stories but I always found them interesting.
I've been told that my grandfather was a fantastic man. I only new him for a few years of my life. I was told by my father that my grandfather had helped build the Higgins troop transports which would eventually land men on Normandy. I always thought about things that could of been different had he not done what he had. Such as him being lazy and not properly having the armor in place. (My grandpa was not a lazy man and did the best he possibly could. He built many things, buildings included, and they're in great shape today.)
Another story. My step dad's father and uncle were on board 2 separate B-17's along with many others B-17's flying with them. I don't know what mission they were on at the time. I was told the my step dad's father saw his brother shot down. Think about the helplessness he must of felt.
I know I don't have as much detail as many of the others here, but this is some of my family history with World War 2. I could go back farther and say that the German side of my family came to America during the Revolutionary War because of the Hessian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessian_soldier
But that's to far.
Thank you for reading about some of my family history.
Here's the story of my grandpa during WW2. He was forced to join the Wehrmacht (he lived in Alsace, which was annexed by Germany in 1940) : he was what is called a "Malgrès nous" (roughly translated "against our will"). At first, he fought on Eastern front in the artillery.
But during the liberation of Strasbourg he flew away : instead of hoping in a train for Germany he kept his civil outfit and simply went home.
My grandmother was born in America to German parents. Her mother died in child birth and her father was never to be seen again. They left Germany after WWI due to Germanys poor economic state. She has pictures of my great uncle riding in a kubelwagen next to Hitler. (Somewhere.)
I don't have a personal story since I never learned Finnish and my grandfather never learned Swedish, so I sadly have no epic tales of the Finnish Winter War. However,and this might be old news to some of you, I found this collection of British propaganda from WW2. They are accounts of recipients of the Victoria Cross and come with cool illustrations:
Thought the link might fit in this thread.
Very exciting stories from everyone, i really like these kind of tales when it get's personal, even though if it's from the freedom fighters from Denmark and Poland, or the big heroes from the US, or the bad guys from the Axis.
The High-Tech Toilet That Destroyed a Submarine
Well if you do need a specially trained engineer to flush the toilet something in the design brief was left out.
I believe the rank was unterpoopenzier. Most prestigious. Many Iron Crosses won. (Typically Iron Cross 2nd class with potpourri leaves)