World War II "My Grandfather's Beretta
During World War II, My grandfather; was in a Tank Destoyer Unit. His unit was in Italy and had the Nazis on the run. His tank, which was an M-10 Tank Destroyer, was seperated from the rest of his unit. This was due to one of the crewmembers being wounded and they head to break colum with the rest of the tanks in formation to bring him to a medical aid site. After this, they lost radio communication and could not locate anyone in his unit. So they became whats called a loan wolf tank. Roaming the Italian countryside and cities, searching out and destoying German tanks and troops. One evening my grandfather really had to take a leak, so they pulled over next to a bombed out building and as he entered he heard whistling. As he came around the corner he stumbled upon two German soldiers one taking a crap and the other pissing. He quickly swung his rifle, which he had slung on his shoulder; around and shot both men; killing them. Luckily one was an officer, who carried a side-arm pistol. In this case it was a 9mm Beretta. This and the German Lugar, were prized war tropheys for American GI's to aquire and take home with them after the war was over. He his very proud of his prized Beretta, and beamed from ear to ear when I asked him to let me take a pic of it and post it to here blog. So we've made an old World War II vet happy. Need I say more!
That is a very cool story and an awesome souvenir. My great uncle fought in World War II but does not have anything an interesting as this.
ReplyDeletelike the story because it shows the fragility of a soldiers life in war like in the part of the story where you say your grandfather heard whistling. I can imagine that if there had been no whistling, your grandfather might have been the fatality and not the German soldiers. One thing missing from your post is the historical context for the story, with a link. Your grandfather was most likely part of what was known as the Italian Campaign. Here is a link to the History Channel Website page about the Italian Campaign. You should edit your blog post to include this link--or another link about the Italian campaign.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/italian-campaign
Really enjoyed your post. Both of my parents immigrated here from two different countries and didn't have the ability to fight for our country so I don't have any war stories. Its interesting to learn about the things people did and saw to make this country what it is today. God Bless all of those people who are fighting for us even up until today to keep us out of harms way. I'm not much of a historian but one thing is for sure that you can never finish learning about it.
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