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Originally Posted by TopHatsLiberal
Lunatock
This may be a stupid Q, but did you go to the records dept? They were able to put together most of my grandfathers records (that were not destroyed in the fire they had) for me. They are also sending me copies of all his medals. His records are awesome. Maybe when I get back home I will scan a few and post them. There are accounts that he had written when he got back about when they were captured and how they were treated as POWs. It really is the coolest.
The best part? Get this...this is awesome!! He was in the 44th Infantry Division so I was online searching for everything and anything I could about this and found some websites. I started sending emails and letters like a mad man. I have so far talked to 3 people from his division on the phone. One was with him @ Stalag IVb. I did not know this the first time I talked to him. See since my grandfather had no SSN, it is not listed on anything, but he had a Army serial #. This Army # is listed next to someone with my grandfathers last name but the name of Julian S. (my grandfathers name was Jesus S.) on one of the rosters that were sent to me from one of these men I have talked to. I dont know if they wrote it wrong intentionally or not. Maybe the Germans had a thing against the name Jesus or something  . Anyway, after I got this roster, I called the guy from Stalag IVb back and asked him about a Julian and he said he did know this guy with my grandfathers last name (Since I have the same last name, I am intentionally leaving it out - too many weirdos showing up here). This guy then sent me pictures of the guys that he was housed with at Stalag IVb and my grandfather is this "Julian"!!!!
When my grandfather enlisted, his middle name was Cervantes, but they spelled it wrong (Servantes) and so it is listed this way on all his papers. You know until the day he died he left it as Servantes. Even after he got out he did not change it back to a "C". Strange. But cool too.
I tell you, this is almost addictive, It is like I cannot get enough information from people about it. My aunt and I are even thinking about going to the reunion they are going to have this fall for his Div. My grandfather died very young...when he was 60, so I think it is just cool as can be that I can actually talk to people who know first hand what went on in bit€he, France
(darn profanity checker!) that day that they were captured. |
Well I guess I could check that source out, as well as have Bluesman's help finding info on my Grandfather's service record from North Africa to Berlin.
His shoulder patch indicates he served with the 66th Infantry division, "The Black Panthers". And the medal on his chest indicates he also earned the right to call himself a Tanker. Though for reasons unknown he was on foot through most of the war.
Aside from those copies of the original photographs my father had given me, he has a lot of old slides my Grandfather took or aquired during WW2. Lions, Chimps, and an Orangutan in North Africa. The US Army skiing in the German Alps.
And he has a lot of slides of Nazi Generals, guards outside a concentration camp, Lewelsburg (German Castle that served as the waffen ss HQ), and a pic or two of the cameraman, an ss Lt. leaning up against his luxury car...when my Grandfather took a camera off the hands of the aforementioned ss Lt. that he shot.