War stories from YOUR ancient relatives

[Haig]

Hiya, does anyone know their family line way back into history?

I always love to hear stories about the past, and war stories (although not many veterans like to discuss them!) and as civfanatics has several nationalities there might be interesting ones.

Even better if you know stuff from centuries back.

- - - - - -

My grand-grand father (or was it grand-grand-grand father, too tired for math) fought in Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_(1877–78)

I'm from Finland, which back then was part of the Russian Empire, and from Finland too a brigade(something like 5000 men) was sent. My relative was no professional soldier, and he was very young, 18 years old.

He was sent into Carpathian mountains, where disease and conditions were the way biggest killers instead of bullets.

He came back shaken and became a drunkard, but still managed to make nine babies with his missus!

Also I have bunch of stuff from Winter war but it's a bit recent and I don't have time to type now.

 

[History_Buff]

I don't know any story around it, or even if there's a story to tell, but my Grandmother still has a portrait of my Grandfather's family, including the separately painted-in vision of my Grandfather's older brother who died during the Great War, fighting for Austria-Hungary. My fraternal grandparents emigrated from the newly founded Czechoslovakia to Canada shortly thereafter. That painting stands as an amazing reminder of how real war can be, and just how lucky I am to live in a generation almost entirely removed from that.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

The furthest back I know of for my family is the Civil War with my father's side one ancestor that served in the Second Florida Infantry CSA and another who was a guard at Andersonville who served in the Georgia Reserve. It's always been a family story that the conditions for the guards were almost as bad as those of the prisoners. On my mother's side I have an ancestor who served in the 50th Georgia CSA. Family lore there that I actually was retold at a recent family reunion is that he was one of the defenders of Burnside's Bridge at the Battle of Sharpsburg.

 

[Joecoolyo]

No idea the specifics, but my family is in possessions of photos of our distant relatives in military uniform. We're still not sure what military they were in, or what wars they could have served in though. I think we've kind of narrowed it down to either Austria, or Russia, but I'm not 100% sure. It would be somewhere right before the turn of the century.

Dunno, interesting nonetheless!

 

[sophie]

My great-grandfather (or maybe great-great?) served in the Royal Artillery in the Great War. My family still has his service medals.

My great uncle on my mother's side was in Korea. Got his leg blown off.

Most of the family on my mother's side came over to Minnesota/Iowa/South Dakota from Norway/Denmark in the 1840s and 50s. One of the patriarchs of one of our families may or may not have served in one of the Schleswig Wars. That may be apocryphal. I don't know about the Civil War.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

No idea the specifics, but my family is in possessions of photos of our distant relatives in military uniform. We're still not sure what military they were in, or what wars they could have served in though. I think we've kind of narrowed it down to either Austria, or Russia, but I'm not 100% sure. It would be somewhere right before the turn of the century.

Dunno, interesting nonetheless!

If you could find a way to post those photos on here, there's enough expertise on this forum I'm sure we could help you out with that at least a little bit.

 

[Joecoolyo]

If you could find a way to post those photos on here, there's enough expertise on this forum I'm sure we could help you out with that at least a little bit.

Next time I'm back in my hometown, I'll make sure to take some pics and bump this thread.

 

[Lord Baal]

My grandfather fought in the Yom Kippur War, in the Sinai. He saw Egyptian P.O.W.s gunned down by a Lieutenant in the IDF, and reported it to his superior, a Lt. Colonel. The Colonel then summarily executed the Lt. Not his favourite story from his time in Israel.

 

[Cutlass]

I've heard of one ancestor who served in the War of 1812 as an officer. But no more details than that. No one knows about the Civil War except 1 woman in the family who was a nurse. Both of my grandfathers were drafted for WWI, but neither saw combat as the war ended before their units were shipped to France. My father was in WWII, he was on a ship in Pearl Harbor during the attack, and served on ships throughout the end of the war. 16 battles in all. An uncle was part of the Iwo Jima invasion and narrowly avoided death several times.

 

[Carras Dad]

my great grand father was with the ss in the balkans, probably killing partisans that used to be his neighbours.

 

[TheLastOne36]

My family was heavily involved in the war in Poland. My great great grand father was an officer or something in Pilsudski's army and following and because of Katyn, he was one of the more experienced Polish officers during WWII. Don't remember what he did during the war though. Great-Grandfather fought against Germans on Polish western front and fought briefly in North Africa or Italy before going back and rejoining the Polish resistance as the Soviets came in. He was one of the first soldiers to walk into Auschwitz. My Great-Granduncle also had a similar story, fighting in the western Polish front but instead he went west to join the Polish army in the UK. He was a Polish paratrooper during Market Garden.

Don't know how true it is, but supposedly the founder of my house back in the 12th century or so, was ennobled for being the bodyguard for one of the Piast dukes or kings.

On my mother's side, unless you count putting down a slave uprising in Haiti (yes, I am descendent from slave and plantation owners ) as a war story, there is less stories to tell.

 

[Haig]

Thanks for cool stories, pretty exotic backrounds too! Everything from the SS to American Civil War to Operation Market Garden and a slave rebellion in Haiti.. Whoah!

Yeah and Joecoolyo's photos would be a blast to see.

 

[NickyJ]

My great grandfather fought for the Germans during World War I. He was shot in the mouth at the Battle of Verdun and thought dead by his fellow soldiers. The French captured him and held him for the rest of the war.

After the war, he burned his uniform before returning home. (German citizens were hanging soldiers from the lampposts) Not knowing that his mother thought he was dead, he entered the kitchen as she was cooking dinner. She thought he was a ghost. Soon after, he immigrated to America to escape the threat of hanging, and from that point on, he lived an ordinary life. My grandfather from one side of the family and my grandmother from the other worked in the government during the second world war.

 

[Domen]

NickyJ:

During World War 1 my great grandfather also fought in the battle of Verdun on the German side. He was a Polish guy from Provinz Posen (part of Poland which was occupied by Prussia, then Germany, since the Partitions). Who knows, maybe my great grandfather and yours even met in one trench?

Other members of my family fought in the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920 and in WW2.

Regarding my great grandfather who fought in the battle of Verdun, I don't know any details about his wartime service. But he survived the war.

I know more details regarding my grandfather's and great uncle's military service during the Polish Campaign in 1939. My great uncle fought in the battle of Bzura as infantryman in 69th Infantry Regiment. My grandfather in 1939 fought in South-Eastern Poland against both the Germans and the Soviets.

I have also heard that some members of my family from Koźmin Wielkopolski fought in the January Uprising of 1863 - 1864, but no details.

 

[Gucumatz]

My grandfather on my father's side served in the Guatemalan Cavalry and fought during part of the Guatemalan civil war.

On my mother's side our family is mostly from a small town in southwestern Germany. One of my ancestors fought in Napoleon's army in Russia and made it back out [Apparently Napoleon recruited a lot of soldiers in that area and personally visited my ancestor's small town]. My grandfather on my German side fought on the eastern front against the Russians in WWII. I believe he was stationed in/near Finland and he saw some heavy fighting. Both his wife and mother were sick near the end of war and he was given a leave of absence to see to them. He had some sort of premonition to not get onto the plane he was supposed to get back to Germany with and instead walked home across both friendly and enemy territory back to Germany. The plane that would have brought him back to Germany was apparently shot down.

Oddly enough his poor sense of direction apparently helped him survive several times on the trek back to Germany

 

[Tahuti]

My maternal Great-grandfather enlisted for the Belgian army during WWI and served as a medic, despite being Dutch. My grandmother (his daughter) told me he felt pride for never having killed anyone during his tour of duty. One of my grandmother's brothers fought for the Dutch Communist resistance during WWII, while her sister lived in Indonesia at the time and was imprisoned at a Japanese concentration camp, and survived. The father of my grandmother's future husband resisted the German workdraft (i.e. to work in the Ruhr) by running away during one of the stops, but was later extrajudicially imprisoned by the Post-Occupation Dutch government for a few days after he publicly defended a woman accused of collaboration.

In addition, my father and mother lived as expats in Israel when the Gulf war began, and remember the war for the gas masks they were issued by the Israeli government. And of course for the fact that I was born in Israel shortly after.

 

[CivCube]

My paternal grandparents met as medics in London during WW2.

 

[Dachs]

An extremely early relative of mine in the paternal line is recorded as having served in a local militia unit during King Philip's War in 1670s New England. Don't know much other than that.

My paternal great-great-great-grandfather served in the 121st New York Volunteer Regiment, Upton's Regulars, during the American Civil War, and saw action in the Peninsular Campaign and at Fredericksburg. Didn't write down much about his service that I've ever seen, unfortunately, but he made a cameo in the regimental history. During the Mud March in early 1863, he contracted dysentery, but the unit surgeon, a Dr. Valentine, refused to grant him a medical discharge unless he were bribed for it (my great-great-great-great-grandfather was a judge in New York with no small amount of financial resources; those ended up with another branch of my family due to TRAVAILS but I digress). My ancestor called in Upton, he got rid of the offending surgeon, and the discharge was granted. Apparently my ancestor reentered military service in 1864 but the records on that are spotty. He was very active in the Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans' organization, after the war.

My great-uncle was in the Army in the Second World War and saw action in the Ardennes and in Germany, but he never said anything about, well, anything. We respected his privacy.

My maternal grandfather was in the US Merchant Marine in the same war. He saw some pretty incredible storms, and apparently he was in a convoy with a ship that was sunk by a U-boat, but he didn't see that when it happened.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Looking through some of these entries so far it struck me on how ironic it would be is some of our ancestors actually shot at each other. It might be more common than we all think if we all have ancestors who fought on different sides of some of the bigger wars, Civil War and WWII ect.

 

[say1988]

One of my father's cousinns served in WWII, but that is all I know. One of his uncles served in WWI wand was apparently shot November 10, 1918.

Few of my family served as their ages just ahppened to not fit well and were busy working the farm to supply the troops.

And we can't really trace much of my family beyond when they came to Canada in the mid 19th through early 20th centuries..