#ww2 veteran

[asshole-rebel-psycho]

My adorable grandparents ❤️

Right after surviving getting shot down from a b17 in ww2, my grandfather Eugene and his captain stole a plain from his airforce base in Texas to go party in New Orleans.

This is where he met his wife Anna :) he fell in love with her after he saw her perform on stage. She was a professional dancer and singer and toured with Bob Hope to entertain the troops in the pacific. They went on to raise seven children in NY where my grandpa was from. She was an Oklahoma girl. :)

( I will say I met my future wife on Bumble after drunk swiping)

I just thought I'd share this cute vintage pic from the 1940s or early 1950s.) 😍

[thefoilguy]

Bill Strong - Aluminum Foil Sculpture

[llanonelson]

Thank you and God bless!

This is Stancy Cardwell. He stormed the beaches of Normandy carrying a 60mm Mortar. He’s 101 years old and deserves endless retweets

[floridaboiler]

[girlactionfigure]

He admitted he "was just a schmuck", a regular guy, who worked at his brother's liquor store in Southern California. He lived quietly and died on December 5, 2015 at the age of 86.

Not many knew that this same humble man, an immigrant, had "the remarkable courage and forbearance of a . . . American hero, a man who joined the United States Army to thank the nation and the troops that rescued him from the concentration camp where he had been imprisoned as a teenager, and for whom recognition was delayed for decades because he happened to be Jewish," according to the New York Times.

He said his mom taught him that "There is one God, and we are all brothers and sisters. You have to take care of your brothers, and save them."

"To her, to save somebody’s life is the greatest honor," he added. "And I did that.”

You probably never heard of him. His name was Tibor Rubin. He had to wait 55 years to receive the Medal of Honor he deserved. He was the only Holocaust survivor to receive the Medal of Honor.

He was born in 1929 in Hungary.

At the age of 14, "Tibor Rubin was . . . was deported in 1944 to Mauthausen, the Nazi concentration camp complex in Austria," according to the Washington Post. He never saw his parents nor his younger sister again.

A commandant told him that he would never get out alive.

After 14 months, according to writer Adam Bernstein, Rubin had become "a disease-ridden skeleton."

American troops liberated Mauthausen on May 5, 1945. He was so grateful that accoording to a 2013 documentary film, “Finnigan’s War,” about veterans of the Korean War, Corporal Rubin said in broken English, “I promised the good Lord that if I get out of here alive, I’d become a G.I. Joe, to give back something.”

It took him a while to get to America, but when he finally came to the United States in 1948, he kept his promise and tried to enlist. But, because his English wasn't good enough, he had to wait until 1950, when he literally "cheated his way into the Army, he said, by cribbing the entrance exam, according to the Washington Post.

Because he was not a citizen, he was told he didn't have to fight, but somehow made his way to the Korean front lines, when he said, remembering his mother's words - "Well, what about the others? I cannot leave my fellow brothers.”

His sergeant, according to Bernstein, was "a sadist and anti-Semite" who repeatedly "volunteered" Rubin "on seemingly certain-death assignments."

One of those missions had him "single-handedly [hold] off a wave of North Korean soldiers for 24 hours, securing for his own troops a safe route of retreat." That in itself should have earned him the Medal of Honor.

Corporal Rubin would also "spend 30 months as a prisoner of war in North Korea, where testimony from his fellow prisoners detailed his willingness to sacrifice for the good of others," according to the New York Times.

Because he was not a citizen, his captors offered to return him to Hungary, but he refused, deciding to stay in the isolated camp that the Americans called “Death Valley.” He would not forget his mother's words.

He would risk his life sneaking out of the camp, only to return after he foraged for food and and stole enemy supplies, to bring back "what he could to help nourish his comrades."

“Some of them gave up, and some of them prayed to be taken,” Mr. Rubin later told Soldiers magazine. He did his best to rally them, reminding them of relatives praying for their safe return home.

“He shared the food evenly among the G.I.’s,” Sgt. Leo A. Cormier Jr., a fellow prisoner, wrote in a statement, according to The Jewish Journal. “He also took care of us, nursed us, carried us to the latrine.” He added, “Helping his fellow men was the most important thing to him.”

The prison camp survivors remembered Rubin, crediting him with keeping them alive and saving at least 40 American soldiers.

Rubin received the Purple Heart with 1 bronze oak leaf cluster, but not the Medal of Honor.

He returned home, to the United States, where he would lead a quiet life, rarely talking of his war experience.

When he did talk of his war experience, he said he felt guilty, seeing the countless maimed and lifeless bodies and hearing the agonized screams in Korean from the wounded.

“I had the guilt feeling what I did here,” he later told an interviewer with the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center in Philadelphia. “I killed even the enemy but I killed somebody’s father, brother, and all that. . . . But then again, the truth is that if I don’t kill him, he kill me and vice versa. It’s war. War is hell.”

In the 1980s, he attended a reunion of veterans, where he learned that he had been nominated four times for the Medal of Honor by his grateful comrades, but the sergeant, who hated him for his religion, deliberately ignored the orders from his own superiors to prepare the appropriate paperwork.

In 2002, after Congress passed the Leonard Kravitz Jewish War Veterans Act, Rubin's records were reviewed and the affidavits recommending Rubin for the Medal of Honor were found.

He finally received his Medal of Honor at a 2005 White House ceremony.

“I waited 55 years,” he said. “Yesterday I was just a schmuck. Today, they call me, ‘Sir.’ . . . How I made it, the Lord don’t even know. I don’t even know because I was so many times supposed to die over there, but I’m still here.”

Rubin kept his promise to give back something to the country who saved him, and, in doing so, he also remembered his mother's words to consider everyone a brother and take care of them.

The Jon S. Randal Peace Page  ·

[safedistancefrombeingsmart]

Martin Freeman begins the D-Day 80 service by reading the memories of veteran Joe Mines

Joe Mines, 2nd Battalion Essex Regiment, landed here on Gold Beach 80 years ago today. He joins us and allowed me to share these memories with you: “I've never been back here, for 80 years. I’ve often thought “What do I go back for?” After all the terrible things I’ve seen. Like a picture book, up there, I can visualise everything.  I landed on June the 6th 1944 at a place called Vers Sur Mer. The Germans pulled back, so it allowed us to clear the mines on the beach.That was the 1st job I got, clearing mines. All over the place they were. Joe Mines clearing mines. One of our fellas trod on one and blew his leg off. The whole leg went. War is brutal.  Back when I signed up, I met a fella on the train. I went to Normandy with him. But he got killed within about an hour of landing here. He was only young. I was 19 when I landed, but I was still a boy. I don’t care what people say. I wasn’t a man. I was a boy. And I didn’t have any idea of war and killing. I was lucky. Yeah, I had lots and lots of luck.  So why would I come back? Well, this is the last and only opportunity for me.The last there will ever be. And it’s because of the lads. I want to pay my respects to those who didn’t make it.  May they rest in peace. “

[gaysails]

remember when sledge's brother asked him if he got laid overseas and eugene just says "there weren't any women" and doesn't elaborate. oh I'm sure

[mrfouris]

Sleeping Marine by Esther Bubley 1942

[cock-guillotine]

web taking a break from complaining about his catastrophic diarrhoea to talk about how much he hates republicans. he really was born to be a blogger

[pilot4008]

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F22 RAPTOR Phone Case

[opelman]

Warbirds by Treflyn Lloyd-Roberts Via Flickr: A matching pair of Hurricanes that had seen active service during World War II display over Sywell during the 2024 air show. V7497 is a Battle of Britain veteran, while P2902 crash landed on a beach during the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. Aircraft: Hawker Hurricane Mk.Is V7497/SD-X (G-HRLI) and P2902/R-DX (G-ROBT). Location: Sywell Aerodrome (ORM/EGBK), Northamptonshire, UK.

[petermorwood]

This film came out in 1942, and yesterday (17 July 2024) in Dublin, an old, old gentleman celebrated his birthday.

Group Captain John "Paddy" Hemingway DFC...

...was born in Dublin in 1919 and joined the RAF in 1918 1938.

(Typo! Remember that post about proofreading before posting...? And it's already been reblogged a few times. Oops. Egg on face time.)

Now 105 years old, the only pilot still alive who flew in the Battle of Britain. he's the Last of the Few.

Distinguished Flying Cross;

1939-1945 Star with Battle of Britain clasp;

Air Crew Europe Star;

Italy Star;

War Medal 1939-1945 with Mentioned in Dispatches Oakleaf.

And when he's gone, a already-legendary part of history will finally become myth.

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

one of my most popular posts on here is a quora answer about the Navajo code talkers from WW2 by Erik Painter. Its long but a really great read that explains how the code worked. link

[asshole-rebel-psycho]

My grandfather Eugene was Lt and pilot of a b17 bomber plane in ww2.

He completed 19 successful bombing missions over Germany. Destroying Nazi military bases.

He got shot down on his 19th mission and survived to becoming a POW in a German prison camp.

He left the camp after the war standing 6'3" and 120 lbs.

God bless you grandpa and may you rest in peace 🙏 🇺🇸