pabloesqobar
Well-Known Member
He was wounded too? How?He was a combat engineer under General Patton. He went ashore on D Day with Pattons tanks in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, where he was wounded at Anzio....
He was wounded too? How?He was a combat engineer under General Patton. He went ashore on D Day with Pattons tanks in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, where he was wounded at Anzio....
German artillery shell......they hated pattons tanks, so they took it out on the combat engineers trying to clear mines & repair roads & bridges the germans had destroyed in their retreat.He was wounded too? How?
Huh. But he was ok? Which beach did that happen to him?German artillery shell......they hated pattons tanks, so they took it out on the combat engineers trying to clear mines & repair roads & bridges the germans had destroyed in their retreat.
He made it thru the beach landing at Anzio and was wounded a few days later near Solarno and was evacuated to a US hospital. That was the end of the war for him. He did mostly recover and married my mom.....the rest is historyHuh. But he was ok? Which beach did that happen to him?
I wonder if he served with my grandpa. Not sure his unit but i cut and pasted this from his obituary..He made it thru the beach landing at Anzio and was wounded a few days later near Solarno and was evacuated to a US hospital. That was the end of the war for him. He did mostly recover and married my mom.....the rest is history
... which only exacerbate his seriously negative buoyancyat first i thought is was boat noise but I'm pretty sure i can hear this guys brass balls clanging when he jumps onto that sub....
Thank you things are looking good so far. Those were big campaigns bro they probably did serve together someplace. These campaigns were really diversionary strikes to keep the germans preoccupied and drain their resources leading up to the Normandy invasion in France. My dad was buried with a purple heart and a bronze star, but i'm not sure he received them at the same time...I think he said he got a bronze star in Tunisia...I wonder if he served with my grandpa. Not sure his unit but i cut and pasted this from his obituary..
An Army veteran of World War II, he served in the European and African Theater, and was recipient of the Purple Heart.
Gardens look great by the way jj!
Today in military history:
Japanese sink the USS Indianapolis
"There were 1,196 heroes aboard the USS Indianapolis when she was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-58 on the night of 29-30 July, 1945. Some of them had only recently reported aboard, but most of the crew had already distinguished themselves in some of the most critical battles of the Pacific War. Her crew had already succeeded in close-in shore bombardments supporting U.S. Marines and shooting down multiple kamikaze suicide aircraft, any one of which could have crippled or sunk a critical U.S. aircraft carrier. While serving as the flagship for one of the largest and most costly naval battles in history off Okinawa, the Indianapolis was hit and nearly sunk by a kamikaze; she was saved only by the skill, courage, and determination of her crew. All of those aboard when she was torpedoed were instrumental in the successful accomplishment of Indianapolis’ most important mission of the war; the safe delivery at maximum speed of atom bomb components to Tinian Island (her speed record from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor still stands today.) In doing so, the Indianapolis Sailors served to forestall additional years of carnage, in the long run saving many hundreds of thousands of U.S. and Japanese lives.
Beyond the defeat of the sinking itself, USS Indianapolis’ story is compounded by grave errors in U.S. Navy command, control, and intelligence, which, beyond those Sailors who initially went down with their ship due to Japanese torpedo attack, resulted in hundreds of needless and horrific additional deaths to exposure, dehydration and shark attacks. And as if the sinking were not bad enough, the U.S. Navy’s poor handling of casualty notification, and perhaps the most controversial court martial in U.S. Navy history, led to years of bitter recriminations. Why, after 70 plus years should we remember? Because, even in the worst defeats and disasters there is valor and sacrifice that deserves to never be forgotten. The story of USS Indianapolis can serve as inspiration to current and future Sailors enduring situations of mortal peril. There are also lessons learned (and in the case of the Indianapolis, lessons re-learned) that need to be preserved and passed on, so that the same mistakes can be prevented, and lives saved. Lest we forget so we may learn."
Indianapolis : the true story of the worst sea disaster in U.S. naval history and the fifty-year fight to exonerate an innocent man / Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic.
In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors by Doug Stanton
Out of the Depths: An Unforgettable WWII Story of Survival, Courage, and the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis by Edgar USMC Harrell and David Harrell
All the Drowned Sailors: Cover-Up of America's Greatest Wartime Disaster at Sea, Sinking of the Indianapolis with the Loss of 880 Lives Because of the Incompetence of Admirals, Officers, & Gentlemen by Lech and Raymond B Lech
@doublejj"On 2 May 1968, 12 Green Berets were surrounded near Loc Ninh, South Vietnam, by an entire battalion of NVA. They were thus outnumbered, 12 men versus about 1,000. They dug in and tried to hold them off, but were not going to last long. Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez heard their distress call over a radio in town and boarded a rescue helicopter with first aid equipment. He did not have time to grab a weapon before the helicopter left, so he voluntarily jumped into the hot LZ armed only with his knife.
He sprinted across 75 meters of open terrain through withering small arms and machine gun fire to reach the pinned down MACV-SOG team. By the time he reached them, he had been shot 4 times, twice in the right leg, once through both cheeks, which knocked out four molars, and a glancing shot off his head.
He ignored these wounds and began administering first aid. The rescue chopper left as it was not designed to extract men. An extraction chopper was sent for, and Benavidez took command of the men by directing their fire around the edges of the clearing in order to facilitate the chopper's landing. When the aircraft arrived, he supervised the loading of the wounded on board, while throwing smoke canisters to direct the choppers exact landing. He was wounded severely and at all times under heavy enemy crossfire, but still carried and dragged half of the wounded men to the chopper.
He then ran alongside the landing skids providing protective fire into the trees as the chopper moved across the LZ collecting the wounded. The enemy fire got worse, and Benavidez was hit solidly in the left shoulder. He got back up and ran to the platoon leader, dead in the open, and retrieved classified documents. He was shot in the abdomen, and a grenade detonated nearby peppering his back with shrapnel.
The chopper pilot was mortally wounded then, and his chopper crashed. Benavidez was in extremely critical condition, and still refused to fall. He ran to the wreckage and got the wounded out of the aircraft, and arranged them into a defensive perimeter to wait for the next chopper. The enemy automatic rifle fire and grenades only intensified, and Benavidez ran and crawled around the perimeter giving out water and ammunition.
The NVA was building up to wipe them out, and Benavidez called in tactical air strikes with a squawk box and threw smoke to direct the fire of arriving gunships. Just before the extraction chopper landed, he was shot again in the left thigh while giving first aid to a wounded man. He still managed to get to his feet and carry some of the men to the chopped, directing the others, when an NVA soldier rushed from the woods and clubbed him over the head with an AK-47. This caused a skull fracture and a deep gash to his left upper arm, and yet he still got back up and decapitated the soldier with one swing of his knife, severing the spine and all tissue on one side of the neck. He then resumed carrying the wounded to the chopper and returning for others, and was shot twice more in the lower back. He shot two more NVA soldiers trying to board the chopper, then made one last trip around the LZ to be sure all documents were retrieved, and finally boarded the chopper. He had lost 2 quarts of blood. Before he blacked out, he shouted to one of the other Green Berets, "Another great day to be in South Vietnam!"
Suffering from 37 bayonet, bullet, and shrapnel wounds in various parts of his body, Benavidez used the last of his strength to pull himself on board the helicopter, the last man to leave the battlefield. The helicopter was completely riddled with holes, covered in blood, and without any functioning instruments, but the pilot somehow took off and got the team out of there. Benavidez lost consciousness as soon as he knew they were clear.
Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez of the 1st Special Forces was credited with single-handedly saving the lives of eight men during six hours of non-stop battle. When a recovery team went through the site a few days later they discovered over 30 empty NVA foxholes with heavy weapons, and saw the battlefield littered with more dead than they had time to count.
After the rescue helicopters landed at the base, Roy Benavidez's motionless body was carried off the helicopter, and after a preliminary inspection by the medical personnel on-site, the hero was gently laid onto a gurney and wheeled into the coroner's office.
Just as they were zipping up his body bag, Benavidez used the last of his energy to spit in the doctor's face.
The mostly-dead Benavidez was rushed into surgery immediately, then transferred to Saigon for many months of intensive rehabilitation. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroic balls-out actions, and once the full details of the battle came declassified the award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, the highest award for military bravery offered by the United States military. He lived to be 63."
Have you watched "They Shall Not Grow Old" ? It's a historical documentary but it is a outstanding technical achievement in film processing. First 20 min or so are ho hum but then you will be amazed.There isn't enough WWI movies out there for some reason. Seems like we oftentimes forget about the sacrifices all those brave men made during that first world war. I suppose it is overshadowed by WWII. Can't wait to see this, looks like it's gonna be pretty good.
I have not but I will see if I can find it. I really enjoy history.Have you watched "They Shall Not Grow Old" ? It's a historical documentary but it is a outstanding technical achievement in film processing. First 20 min or so are ho hum but then you will be amazed.
Keep reminding yourself this is the real deal and not actors playing a part. They did sub some dialogue in afterwards, they had lip readers determine what the soldiers were saying.I have not but I will see if I can find it. I really enjoy history.
*edit: am downloading it right now