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1945-08-19

Started by grouch, August 19, 2017, 05:58:29 AM

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grouch

Seventy-two years ago the U.S.S. General M. B. Stewart printed a "Souvenir Edition" of its shipboard newspaper, "The Trooper". The troop ship started its journey at Leghorn, Italy and its passengers expected to pass through the Panama Canal and continue fighting the war in the Pacific after landing in Manila. On August 15, 1945, the ship's destination was changed to New York.



One of my relatives was onboard amongst the Army Engineers. (At the time of that paper, I was still about 9 years in the future). I received the little newspaper amongst a bunch of photos I scanned fifteen or more years ago. The scanned images  were posted on my website back then, but I think the document may be more interesting to folks here than perhaps the general public. It's been converted to a PDF for presentation here.

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florida

Good stuff! Hard to imagine fighting in Europe then being told you were shipping out for another war zone. I have a small fold out flyer from the same time period from a ship announcing that night's boxing matches.
General contractor and carpenter for 50 years.
Retired now!

whitepine2

  Hard to believe I was two years and two months old at this time but I think I've
lived the best of times in these United States thanks to those who gave it all for
us to be free. Had kin that was a POW in Germany,he was a pilot in a B-17 that
got shot down,he was lucky and made it home.I can just remember going out in the
yard and see the planes coming and coming back home this is one of my earlyest
memories as all in the house came out to see it was a joyful time. 

samandothers

Have not read all yet but enjoyed what I have read. 

Interesting talking about storming the beaches of the US.  Also the comment about the men and women's roles.

grouch

At the age when I was beginning to worry about payments on a new mortgage, car payments and keeping groceries on the table, my father was driving a '6 by 6' in Italy -- you know, the place Hitler thought the real invasion would come through. He picked up two purple hearts, a bronze star and a silver star that I never knew about until after his death. He'd always leave the room if a war movie came on tv. The war didn't get him, but alcoholism added considerable misery to the rest of his life.

My mother went from typical farm work -- feeding chickens, cows, pigs, and a few horses, hoeing tobacco, driving a team of mules to cultivate the corn that would feed them -- to go to the biggest city in her state to become a welding inspector, including "aerial bomb casings". I learned that when she was in her 60s when she helped me figure out what I was doing wrong with my then-new AC/DC buzz box.

(She had come for a visit and I wanted to finish a bead. When I told her not to look at the arc, she said, as she was turning her back, "I know."

After I finished, I said, "I don't think I'm ever gonna get this right." She was already walking toward my welding table -- I swear she must've 'heard' where I screwed up -- and looked at the weld.

"This looks pretty good; there you got off to one side, where it's barely into the 2nd piece; and that part you need to grind out and lick your calf over because you're in too big of a rush. Slow down and you'll get it."

"Mom, that's exactly what I've been needing! Somebody to point out what's right and wrong. Thanks!"

She looked sad and said, "I wish those girls on the line had felt that way. Some of them took it personal when I made 'em do their welds over."

She smiled when I said, "I'll bet the guys flying those planes appreciated you making sure the welds were right!")


'Uncle' Harvey went from his secluded cabin in the middle of the woods to go build floating docks, bridges and whatever else the Engineers did. He liked to needle the Marines, "They claim they're the first in and last out, but I don't know how that is since they usually landed on the docks we built." He lost two sisters when that cabin burned, years later, and never again lived in a house. He pitched a tent near his dirt driveway in the woods and had an old Army cot to sleep on. The only direct reference I ever heard him make to the war was when I suggested some government official might condemn his tent. He answered with a scary look on his face, "I didn't go over there to fight them Nat-zees to come back home and have some home-grown ones tell me how to live. I'm still armed."

It's tough to imagine what it was like then. An insidious evil took over the governments of three nations and then turned those nations' wealth and might toward subjugating the rest of the world. It's like a bad plot from a comic book or 1930s pulp fantasy. A generation of people around the world dropped what they were doing and learned and did what was required to stop it. And then, a great many of them tried to go back to their lives without talking much about what they endured.

That little newspaper always strikes a little awe in me. It's a first-hand, contemporary account and illustration of the relief of a bunch of soldiers learning that their terrifying work was done and they could go back home.
Find something to do that interests you.

samandothers

Yes the story is very captivating.   Dad was in communications and went to North Africa but the transport he was on was quarantined due to malaria.
By the time it was lifted his first landing was Anzio.  His first wound was there.
His second came within 3 miles of the Germany boarder.  This one sent him home.  He too did not talk about it and didn't watch war films.
Mom left rural community and worked in a textile mills.
Had an uncle whose feet were frozen during the battle of the bulge.  Doc told him some alcohol in moderation would help circulation.  I am afraid the uncle lost the moderation comment.

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