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RE: The PG-HQ Oral History Project
These are interesting and good to understand and hear. I have talked with Vince about some of his family, I did not realize the extent.
As for me, my father was in the Army Air Corps, flying B-25's over Italy and Austria. Came over just be before the bombing of Cassino and was part of that as well as missions over northern Italy to hit the railyards, bridges and mountain passes. He was a pilot, but had alot of the post bombing pictures of the raids.
One uncle was killed in the Philippines near the end of the war. He was not drafted as he was 4F due to a foot issue as a kid. He pestered my grandparents and they let him go near the end as the demand for men was still great. He was killed in a friendly fire incident while helping the clean up of the large island. Never quite knew the details of this, or at least my grandparents did not say. However, his brother went into the Army Air Corps as well, he became a very good pilot that they made him an instructor for training B-29 pilots in Alabama. Never got overseas, but he did know and train Paul Tibbets. He and my uncle use to write each other right up until Tibbets death in 2007. My uncle is still going at 90+, good old Maine genes I suppose.
One last point, not on WWII legacy, but on American Civil War legacy. About 20 years ago, I was finishing college at a local university. One night while studying in the library I came across the volumes of the official government records of the ACW. I always wondered about a relative that was in the war and died in New Orleans on pneumonia. The family had discovered old letters from him in a wall of the family farm. We believe these were his last before he died. In reading them he describe the Red River campaign in Louisiana, quite well, including the mud march where he probably first contracted the pneumonia.
But this is not the only interesting part, as I had learned from my wifes side of the family, they also had a relative in the war and survived to be discharged. Well, I looked him up and found the unit and lo-and-behold, his regiment was in the same brigade with the regiment of my late relative too. Same time same places.
I found this quite the coincidence, sense my relative was in a Maine regiment while my wife's was in a Mass. regiment. I would doubt they would have met, but the regiments probably were side by side in some of the battles.
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