This Day in US Navy Losses in World War II

Lately, for some reason, I've been watching a number of WW-II documentaries on Netflix and Amazon.

My Ol' Man was a DI when the war started and also taught motor pool. He left for France, two weeks after I was born D-Day 6/6/1944. He was on the front lines until he was critically injured in the Battle of the Bulge. He received two Frontline Promotions, two Bronze Stars, and a Silver Star before a mine took off his left leg and a piece of shrapnel hit his left hand. The fire and heat of the explosion cauterized his leg so he didn't bleed to death. It was two days before medics reached his squad's position and he was evacuated. He then spent two years in a VA hospital for operations on his leg and a kind doctor, rather than amputating his hand since he was a mechanic, day by day pieced it back together.

He never spoke of the was but was a real SOB as a father. Mom, years after he passed many years ago, said she he was not the same man she married and that he needed her. That was her reason for staying with him.

Once he was talking with someone else, I don't recall who, and he mentioned that if the German prisoners weren't moving fast enough, they just stabbed them in the ass with their bayonets. I thought he was BSing.

I had studied WW-II but not extensively. I doubt 1 in 1,000 citizen's today have a clue as to the brutality, ferocity, viciousness, and cruelty in both wars, Germany and Japan.

What men and women in all branches of the military are impossible to comprehend. May God Bless each and every one whether they gave their lives or survived to suffer their battles daily until they died.

REALLY something for us to be thankful for on Thanksgiving!

mhansen2 · Nov 24, 2017

Thank you for your personal accounts, Markle. War can do irreparable damage to the survivors. My mother's first husband came back from the Pacific so changed they finally divorced. She never went into details. Fortunately, that allowed her to meet my dad. He fought in Europe and came back intact, physically and mentally. At least I never noticed any problems. He also did a tour in Korea.

Vietnam was my war, I was an aviation ordnanceman in the Navy aboard aircraft carrier Ranger (CV-61) in the Tonkin Gulf. The hours were long and the work was hard, but compared to the grunts ashore, I had it easy. I had my own rack to sleep in, all the hot food I could eat and no one was shooting at me.

God bless the foot soldier. :salute:

mhansen2 · Nov 24, 2017

25 November

1944

PT-363
USS PT 363 of the US Navy - American Motor torpedo boat of the ELCO 80' class - Allied Warships of WWII - uboat.net

Markle · Nov 24, 2017

whitehall said:
Operation Tiger was kept secret for forty years. Approximately 500 Americans died in a rehearsal for D-day.

There were about 1,000 fatalities.

It was not kept secret, it was published in Stars and Stripes and other military publications after June 6, 1944. It was kept top secret until that time, Germany could not learn of the rehearsal. After the D-Day Invasion, other battles and casualties in both theaters. It was simply lost in history as a footnote until the families of one of those lost began to dig for more information.

This Day in US Navy Losses in World War II

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