In my Hitler & Nazi Germany class we were talking about D-Day and it got me wondering what part my Grampa played. I know that he was in World War 2. He was in the army. I know he worked on the tanks. He has a pair of German bonoculars that he said a dying German soldier “gave” him. (I was a little kid; he couldn’t really tell me the truth, right?). So I know he fought against Germans. But that’s all I know. He died when I was 12 and I was a girl (still am) so he never told me the real stories.

But I want to know.

I have one of his dogtags, so I know his army number thing. But it doesn’t say what division or whatever he was in. I don’t necessarilly need anything other than his division (or whatever they’re called) because then I could google/research that group.

I looked it up on Google and it sent me to all the government Veteran’s associations but its a long wait for all the info, but I don’t want all the info. I just want his division…so do I go to all those lengths for just that? Is there any other way to find out?

EDIT: LATER TODAY

The answer? Call and ask Gramma. XP I didn’t know if she would know so much because many army dudes didn’t tell their stories at all. But she knew tons and said when I come to visit, she’ll show me the box of his war things.

What she told me:

  • He was in England during the preparation for D-Day
  • He was in the tank core
  • He went over to France during the D-Day attack on a little boat.
  • That little boat floundered before reaching shore and they had to walk through the water the rest of the way.
  • They landed in France and then went through Belgium to Germany
  • He was in the Battle of the Rhine, which she described as a battle for a bridge over the river and that the Germans were trying to keep the Americans from crossing.
  • He went through the mountains of Germany
  • He was in the battle of the Bulge
  • The Red Cross charged soldiers for donuts and coffee but the government gave the soldiers free cigarettes.

What she said about her brother Bud, my great uncle:

  • He was a baker going through baker’s school in South Carolina.
  • They sent him over to be a baker for the army.
  • They made him fight instead, in the infantry.
  • He fought in North Africa and then in Italy

And about the home front:

  • She worked in one of the factories in Macon, Georgia measuring gun powder.
  • they had to push the gun powder down into this little hole and if it didn’t go perfect, it’d blow up (she called it “exciting”)
  • There were 3 shifts a day and she was on the 2nd one.
  • They would bus the women there on old school busses.

See also: Followup on Grampa in WW2