Funny War-Time Stories

[amadeus]

Anyone have any good funny war-time stories? Like, for example, when my grandpa was in World War II, he went to New York City, got on the subway and got off on the wrong station.

The WRONG station. He was in Harlem. A cop stopped my grandpa before he went too far from the subway station, and said, "boy, you better get out of here."

Standing about 30 feet away was two guys wearing purple and orange zoot suits, LOL.

 

[Apollo]

My great-grandfather was shipped off to Europe during WW1, but he got sick on the way over and spent the rest of the war in a hospital in England.

 

[Becka]

My great grandpa was too old to fight in World War II, but his sons did. He would get mad that some men were ignoring their duty and dodging the draft, so he would go downtown and turn them in.
Not exactly funny, but amusing.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

My father was planning to take a holiday to South Vietnam in time for the Tet celebrations in 1968, but something suddenly came up.

 

[joespaniel]

When I was in Somolia, I was the Commanders Radio Operator, or RTO for short.

On a patrol, the Captain told me to radio the 2nd Platoon RTO and ask him where his element was.

We say element instaed of platoon, company, battalion etc. That way, if the enemy is listening, he doesnt know what the strength of our unit is.

He radioed back that he didnt see any elephants .

 

[CurtSibling]

My grandad was a soldier in General Alexander's army in North Africa. WW2.

He had just finished working on a battleship in a port,
(he was a ship-builder by trade, like many Scots at the time)

He noticed some odd yellow and black planes approaching,
no-one paid the aircraft much heed until the crew cried out
that they had those infamous "bent wings"!

Ju87 Stukas!

My grandad watched the dive bombers and British AA crews duke it out,
as a kid he always told me that the whole thing had a
surreal slow look, He also said he remembers that sunny day
with the bizzare ochre coloured German aircraft very clear.

My grandad used to add he was always annoyed that the "nasties" as he called them,
had put a bloody big hole in the warship they had spent a week refitting!

My grandad died years ago, but he was a good old soldier and a great man.

 

[CurtSibling]

In the UK many old folks have memories of when the UK had
been hit with the fury of the German Luftwaffe during WW2.

Commonly known as the "Blitz".

Glasgow and Clydebank were hit hard, an attempt to stop the
ship building and resupply operations of the Royal Navy.
What this meant is that civilians bore the brunt of these attacks.

My Gran on the other side of the family, (my mother's side)
remember when the "Junkers" and "Heinkels" were rumbling
accross Glasgow's skies and dropping bombs and incendaries,

My gran was a young woman then and with her relatives were
in one of the government issued dug outs, or 'anderson' shelters.

When some more of the family poured in as the bombers roared
over head at low altitude. (Ju88s attacked in a dive)

As they sat cowering and flinching at the explosions and noise,
an auntie of mine (then a little girl) produced a foot long tube from
her duffel coat "look what ah found!" she grinned!

The tube was an incendary, complete with stencilled nazi eagle!

A male memeber of the family grabbed it a flung it into the garden
where the infernal thing exploded, fizzing a minute later!

Lucky my auntie had not kept the thing a secret!


My dad told me that when he went to school in the late fifties,
Clydbank was still mostly wrecked...while Germany got rebuilt.

Funny eh?

 

[G-Man]

My family don't have any special war-time stories, but living in Israel I've heard many from other people. Here are some:

- In 1948 Israel just got it's first fighter planes, S-199. Usually an army would take time to learn the planes but Israel was in war at the time. A day after the 4 planes landed they were sent to attack an Egyptian armored division. The Egyptian were only 20km from Tel Aviv (!). During the attack one plane was destroyed and another one was hit and barely made it to the airport. Despite that the Egyptian thought Israel finnaly had aan airforce and halted all their forces. Meanwhile Israel gathered more forced and soon the Egyptian were defeated.

- In 1956, during the Israeli-British-French assault on Egypt that followed the nationalization of the suez canal Israeli planes were sent to destroy the Egyptian communication systems. A special device was attached to the Mustangs and Spitfires that was supposed to cut thelephone and electricity cables. However, it didn't work and so the pilots flew with their planes into the cables, cutting them with their propelor. Surprisingly, it worked perfectly.

- This one is unbeliveable but it's 100% true. During the earlt 60s Israel focused on getting intelligence about it's enemies. One night, couple of Israeli pilots were sent to take pictures of a Syrian civilian airport that had an airforce base in it. During the flight the pilots argued wether the base was still active or not. The camera they had was of poor quality and could only show the airport itself and not any of the planes that were there. The next night the pilots were sent to take pictures of another airport nearby. On their way back they decided to check their theory from the night before. They approached the airport when suddenly the lights on the runway were turned on by the control tower that saw the plane on the radar and thought it was a civilian plane that was making an emergency landing. The Israelis landed on the runway and one of them took pictures of all the planes in there. Then suddenly one of the Syrians noticed the IAF smbols on the plane and opened fire. The Israelis quickly took off and got back to Israel.

- The famous Israeli spy in Syria, Eli Cohen, made a lot of contacts with the Syrians. At the time Israel was fighting the Syrian forces that tried to divert the rivers in their south so Israel won't get any water from them. Eli Cohen was taken to a tour in the area by a friend of his who was a Syrian general. They heard the soldiers complaining about the burning desert sun. Eli Cohen suggested his friend to take the trees that were scattered around and put them in his bases. The Syrian thought it was a good idea and did so. A few months after the Syrians made another attempt to divert the rivers. In ruturn Israeli planes attacked all the Syrian bases. They pilots just flew around and whenever they saw a bunch of trees they bombed them!

- A lot of you may know the famous picture from the six days war of the 3 Israeli commanders entering the ancinet city in Jerusalem. Today it's probably the most famous picture from the war. What a lot of people don't know is that the commanders were in there already. They just came back to get a photographer to take a picture of them entering the city.

 

[Whiskey Priest]

My Uncle was in the artillery in Vietnam. He said the only time he used his gun was when he shot at a pimp (and missed horribly)

 

[PinkyGen]

My grandfather was a sergeant in a tank destroyer battalion during WWII. The unit was independent (not party of any division or army) and just sent into general tough spots. I could keep you up for a while with his stories, but here are three of them.

1. My grandfather was considered a good luck charm. Overall, the battalion was commanded at different times by 6 captains and one Colonel. During the Bulge, the Colonel was in charge, and requested that my grandfather be near him in headquarters, both for lucky charm, and more practically in the case need arose for him and his language skills. (His Yiddish made him most qualified to speak German). A sentry asks my grandfather if he would be willing to serve part of the watch during the night, and my grandfather being somewhat bored, agreed. When he was serving watch, the headquarters was unexpectedly shelled by the Germans. When my grandfather came back from watch, he found an irate Colonel at first asking, "Where's Meyers (grandfather's last name)?" And then telling and yelling at the sentry "Meyers is to be around me!"
My grandfather has a lot more stories related to his luck, but most of those are with close calls

2. My grandfather is in a jeep with two other men in Germany, on a recon. Around 150 German's appear, and surrender. The result is three very nervous Americans marching 150 POW's back to base. The German reasoning was better to surrender to the Allies than to the Soviets.

3. Once again, my grandfather is in a jeep, and spotted by an enemy plane. The driver guns it and tries driving the jeep at full speed towards a forest. The plane is faster and enters a dive. My grandfather tells the driver to hit the brakes. The jeep stops, and the plane is already committed in its dive, and it overshoots them. By the time it is ready for another pass, the Jeep is in the forest.

 

[VoodooAce]

My uncle was in the war.

It was 1964. He fell in a ditch and......ah, never mind

 

[Adebisi]

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