How did the war effect your family

[I have questions]

3. Great-Grandfather WW1 - Imperial Russian Army - 166th "Rivne" Infantry Regiment - 42nd Infantry Division, served as an infantryman and fought in several major campaigns and battles from AUG 1914 until JUL 1916 when the regiment was destroyed during the Battle of Kovel, part of the Brusilov Offensive. He was wounded in that battle and held as a POW, possibly in Mauthausen, Austria for 2.5 years until his release in JAN 1919. Somehow he was not involved in the Soviet Civil War or the Polish-Soviet War.

Correction, the 166th IR was actually destroyed in the Baranovichi Offensive, thanks to teg and Art for confirming it.

4. Great-Uncle WW2 - US Army - enlisted 7 MAR 1941 as an infantryman, he was already stationed in the Panama Canal Zone when Pearl Harbor was attacked, he is believed to have fought at Okinawa but do not know the unit he was with.

Correction, he never went to Okinawa, instead he volunteered to become a B-17 pilot in 1943 and transferred to the Air Force. However, he was trained as an avionics specialist instead due to his technical aptitude. He was sent to Great Falls Army Air Base, MT to become an instructor and he remained there until his discharge in 1945.

number 4 was lucky not to go to Okinawa, that island was a blood-bath

[daveshoup2MD]

Father enlisted in 1941 as an E-1 equivalent with one year of college; got out in 1946 as an O-3. Saw combat in Europe and the Pacific. Fugitive from law of averages, obviously; do the math.

Mother worked on the railways because so many men were gone.

They met after the war, when he left the Army after occupation duty. Was recalled during the Cold War and did two years on active duty.

Various male relatives had similar stories. No fatalities, due largely to chance.

[BatEater]

Father and Grandparents were Hungarian Jews. Hid during the Holocaust for some of the time by a 16 year old boy in a basement of an apartment complex so they managed to avoid the transports to the concentration camps.

They hid after my father, 15 years old, was sent to a brickworks and made to work chipping old mortar from bricks. The next step was to the concentration camps. My grandmother paid someone to free him after a week.

[Linkagain]

American revolution
had relations on Both Sides {Patriots and Loyalists] 3 died

War of 1812
a few realatvies

Mexican American War
1 great-great-great uncle

Civil War
Relatives on both sides!! at least three died
Only one direct ancestor Ohio Natioanl Guard he was in his late 40s!

Spanish American War
1 distant cousin enlisted from Kansas bu the nearest he ever got to Cuba was chicakamuga Georgia where he died (Typhoid/mentagitius)
<y great great grandfather tried to enlist but was rejected [he was 38 years old!)

World War I
Father side
A man who had the same surname as my grandmother came from Italy to US; was in US Army Regiment and killed in France 1918 (I think he may have been distant cousin but cannot prove]
Mother side
My grandfather had a 1st cousin several times removed who was killed in US Army 1918 in France; ironically he joined the US Army after serving several years in US NAvy! {Considering the US Navy lower casualty rate than the Army he probably would have survived the War!}

World War II
Father side
My father brother Served In Pacific {USS New Jersey}
Two-three distant relations served US armed services...
My father parents came from Old Country {Italy} family story there was a distant cousin killed North Africa...
Mother side
My grandmothers brother tried to join up..but he was rejected for bad eyesight--but he did join Coast Guard Auxillary Power Squadron {instruct boat safety for weekend boaters]
My grandfather was considered A-1 {Subject to service] but was exempted....he was in his 30' he was in a occupation helpful to the war he was a farmer--but he did join Civil Defense and was a civilian Air Raid Warden,,,,

Korean War
Father served USMC his brother served US Navy

Vietnam
Father side
4 relatives in service during this time
Uncle served USMC
3 distant relatives also served:
1 I Dont Know about
1 joined US Army KIA
1 joined USMC KIA

[Topspeed]

In Finland in addition to killed relatives also many people died in diseaces usually lugns related inflammations...my aunt lost husband and both her kids.

[Ivan1987]

My grandpa's uncle from Slovakia was liberated by the U.S. Army in Dachau concentration camp.

[rcocean]

like many Americans I had relatives who fought in WW2, Korea, and WW 1. Thankfully, no one was killed, although the other side tried. Amazingly, although one fought as GI in Europe he was one of the few that did NOT liberate a Death camp or win the Medal of honor.

[Jarnob]

So many families are influenced by the war... I dit not even exist if the war didn't happen: both my grandfathers fought the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies, both survived POW camps (even being on the same transport without knowing it...). After the Indonesian war they relocated back to the Netherlands in the same town, were they got children. These became my father and mother.... weird how life makes its path

gr. Jarno

[Topspeed]

I just buried my aunt who died at 96 yrs.

She served possibly a year in the organization called Lotta-Svärd...at the end of the war...making sandwiches for the soldiers.

Organization was deemed fascist by the soviets and stopped working.

Her husband and kids died of tuberculosis already in 1947.

Her sister died who also served in the Lotta-Svärd in the frontline died of tuberculosis.

They never carried any weapons..more like taking care of the wounded and dead.

Luukkonen_ja_Hitler.jpg

I do not see anything fascist about it....albeit Fanny Luukkonen did pay a visit to Hitler in 1943..as a courtesy.

[jbroshot]

My father was from Wisconsin. He enlisted in the Marines right after Pearl Harbor as his number was about to come up in the draft. He was lucky and spent most of the war in the States. He finally went overseas in 1944 in the 5th Marine Division and was on Iwo Jima, he was discharged as Technical Sergeant (5 stripes)
My mother was from the West Coast and enlisted in the Marines after she graduated from college. She was a "personnel specialist" and was discharged as a Staff Sergeant (4 stripes)
My parents met at Camp Pendleton in 1944 and were married a few years after the end of the war

My mother's brother wanted to be a pilot but could not be one in the USAAF so he went to Canada and enlisted in the RCAF. He gained his wings and was an instructor in Canada for most of the war. He was sent to England and died in a night flying accident in April 1945, he was flying a Harvard. He was a Flight Lieutenant.

One of my mother's first cousins served in the Canadian Air Force (I don't think it was Royal yet) in Canada in WWI, and in the United States Navy in WWII.

[Topspeed]

I also had distant relatives in the AF. One had Mannerheim Cross and the other was an ace.

[Larry D.]

No blood relatives in World War II. My father was exempt from the draft because he was a special category defense worker employed by Eastman Kodak and working on aerial reconnaissance systems; a maternal uncle who was 39-y.o. and general manager of Kodak sales in South America with main office in Buenas Aires; and a second maternal uncle who was c. 35-y.o. and spent the war as an executive with the War Production Board in Washington. The closest the family got was my Godfather who an Army captain attached to the USO in Scotland and then sent to the Battle of the Bulge area to interrogate German POWs in Dec 44, and my sister's Godfather who served as a Navy surgeon Lieutenant in the Leyte invasion and occupation of the Philippines, Oct 44 - Aug 45.

L.

[Hans1906]

Both german great-grandfathers served in WW 1, my german grandfather in WW 2, my american father in Korea and Vietnam,
after 1945, I was the first man in the german family to serve in a "democratic" army, the Bundeswehr.

Am I proud of it, no, I have done my duty to the fatherland, no more, no less.

I could have refused, I didn't want to, and I didn't regret my time as a soldier, but I didn't appreciate it either, it wasn't anything more.


Hans

[Hans1906]

Today, party-political gits, who have never had to hold a gun, tell us how to behave in a crisis.

More than well-paid career people, studied and highly educated, who think they absolutely have to express themselves.
Political elite, theorists, what can one say about that...


Hans

[Yoozername]

My grandfather, on my Mother's side, was in the merchant marines and went up to Murmansk taking all sorts of stuff to the Soviets. They would board the ship and search everywhere. They also would try and take everything that wasn't nailed down. Even wooden decking. He said it was nerve wracking, and he developed a bad smoking habit, and along with an erratic heart beat, he was told not to smoke or go on the convoys. But the money was good. He woke up one morning and was supposed to take a Liberty ship out (he was a captain), but he had a premonition and declined. That ship went down. He went on to be a principal in a NYC school. A self-taught civil engineer also. he had a port hole put in the wall of his office in his house. I would see him staring out it sometimes and probably mulling the past.