r/ww2 • u/UrbanAchievers6371 • 7h ago
A Tale of Two Brothers
The left is a picture of my grandfather Roger. He was in the US Army Air Corps and drove fuel trucks in France during the war. I'm not sure what unit he was in. It's been a long time since I've heard his stories. There were stories of his convoy getting strafed by Luftwaffe remnants. Stories about guarding Italian prisoners with a Thompson submachine gun. The story that sticks out the most is about a bayonet from the Franco Prussian War. Being of French Canadian descent the brothers could speak both French and English fluently. A GI owed an outstanding laundry bill to a French family. My grandfather was able to mediate and convinced the GI to pay his debt. The French family gifted him a Model 1866 Chassepot Yataghan bayonet that had been in their family since the Franco Prussian War. They would have had to hide it throughout the occupation as under Nazi law weapons including swords and bayonets were illegal. My father has the bayonet now. After the war my grandfather worked in the civil service at Brunswick Naval Air Station until he retired. There he would drive fuel trucks, plow snow from runways and roads, and operate other heavy equipment and trucks. Another one of his jobs was to transport men by bus from the base to the SERE survival school in Rangeley Maine. His older brother Camille (right) would never return home to Maine from Europe. Camille was a tanker in Company E, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Armored Division "Hell on Wheels". During Operation Grenade the 2nd crossed the Rohr river and spearheaded the assault into the Rhineland. The 2nd faced intense opposition and Camille's Sherman was knocked out in the fighting. He was grievously wounded and several days later would succumb to his wounds in a field hospital near Dusselfdorf. Camille rests permanently at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten at Plot K, Row 10, Grave 12.
r/ww2 • u/Gmeroverlord • 18h ago
Discussion Found this photo and I'm wondering what force and country he belonged to
I am genuinely wondering as my father and grandfather both say he's a German, but to my research the uniform is an RAF uniform, it anyone could help me find out what country he belonged to that'd be great.