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RE: The PG-HQ Oral History Project
I suppose I will add to this and then check Vince's links. Both my grandfather's, U.S. Army, served in WWII. My Grandfather Nicholson (father's side) served in the Aleutian Islands as a radio man but I believe that was after the Japanese had evacuated though he claimed to also have been in the Pacific theater proper, perhaps Guadalcanal or some other area that the U.S. Army served alongside the U.S. Marines. Of course he was quite mad after his wartime experiance so his "battle" accounts were questionable. He had once said that he was so bored in the Aleutian Islands that he called in a whale as being a Japanese submarine just to see if an airstrike would be called in. Also, told his C.O. that he couldn't function as a radio man because he had an actual radio in his stomach and was picking up odd frequencies and say's he was discharged on a section 8 for that -who knows the actaul truth.
My grandfather Swavely (mother's side) was a Chief Warrant Officer stationed in London during the blitz where he met my English grandmother. The only thing that saved him from the infantry was the fact that he knew how to type. He never talked much about the war other than that he never forgot the sound of incoming "buzzbombs" and that one night he debated about meeting my future grandmother somewhere in London and that that night out on a date with her, his barracks got bombed and many G.I.'s died in that attack.
On my English granny's side of the family, her brother (Basil) served in North Africa with the British Army. As far as my granny goes, she survived the bombing of Coventry (where she was born and raised) and then, after moving to London, survived those bombings. To this day she has not been back to England.
Anyway that's my limited family history.
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