It's a shame how much WWII memorabilia ended up in the dump. My mother's brother served in the China, Burma, India theater in the U.S. Army in WWII. He died young in 1964. I was a junior in high school, so wasn't into family history at the time. He and his wife had moved from NY State to California not long after the war. They lived there until he got sick, and they came back east to stay with us before he passed. They had no children, so our family, and his wife's sister, and her family were all that was left. My aunt's sister had one son.
When my aunt got back on her feet, she moved back to California. After my mother passed in 1990, I kept in touch with my aunt until she passed. I tried asking her about my uncle's service, but she said: "It was too painful to talk about." I wish I knew what that was about. My sister, when she was alive, told me that our uncle had been wounded badly overseas, but I haven't been able to verify that.
I don't know what memorabilia my aunt had from my uncle's service time, but after she passed, a friend of hers told me that whatever there was, was left at her sister's house. By then her sister, and her sister's husband were gone, and the only one left was the son. Her friend gave me the last known address for the son, so I wrote him, asking if he had any of my uncle's military memorabilia. I never got a response.
My uncle's military records were destroyed in the fire at St. Louis where they stored all the military personnel records. Although I've gotten a copy of his DD-214, it doesn't seem to be complete. It doesn't even list the original unit he was in, when he was headed to California to ship out. At some point, before he left the States, he ended up in another unit. Both units he served in, were in China, Burma, India. The one thing my mother did get a hold of, that had belonged to my uncle, was an engraved metal cigarette case. The top of the case said "India," along with scenes like the Taj Mahal. The bottom of the case showed the map of India and the surrounding countries. The map was from before Pakistan even existed. I gave the case to my oldest son a while back.
My brother was a Vietnam Vet. After my father passed in 1978, he and my mother had a falling out. I found out not long after, that she had thrown away my brother's letters from Vietnam. I could have killed her.
Several years before that, I was taking college courses at night. The English III course I took was taught by a guy who was interested in military history. To make a long story short, he was leaving to work on his PhD, and I asked him if he would be interested in having me go through my brother's letters, and typing up various paragraphs that he might be able to use in his classes in the future. He said he would, so I went through all the letters, and typed up various parts with their dates, that I thought he would be interested in, and gave them to him.
At least 20 years went by. By then I was into researching the Civil War, and joined a Civil War Roundtable about an hour from me. They only met once a month, and at the end of the Roundtable season in the fall, they'd have a big dinner, along with a speaker. To my delight, the speaker turned out to be my old English college instructor. I couldn't believe it. The first thing I asked him was if he might have a copy of those excerpts from my brother's letters that I had given him all those years before. Of course I hadn't kept a copy for myself, because at the time, the letters still existed, and I figured they'd always be around. Anyway, he made a copy, and sent them to me. I shared them with my sister-in-law, and my brother's daughter. She was only 14 when he passed. Now she's been married 20 years, with four kids of her own...the oldest son in his sophomore year of college.
Strange things do happen, and I've always felt that somebody upstairs was looking out for me, and brought me and my college instructor together that evening, just so I could get those copies of the excerpts from my brother's letters.
Wow, amazing story of how you eventually got pieces of those letters back!
My paternal grandfather served for Germany in WW I on the eastern front. He was taken prisoner by the Soviets and wrote some great memoirs of his time as a POW! I still have his original typewritten manuscript.
That’s a lot more than my Dad left behind or his brother (my uncle). My uncle was getting an engineering degree when WW II started and he wound up in the Army running a gaseous diffusion line at Oak Ridge! Afterwards he and his bride went to Los Alamos where he worked on H-Bombs. He didn’t like making bombs so he went back to school and got his medical degree, became a dentist, then an orthodontist. He spent his career post-WW II helping people.
My dad & uncle’s sister married an amazing guy who was a bomber pilot in WW II. I’m not sure how many missions he flew, but it was a lot. My cousin has almost no info about her dad. He didn’t leave any memoirs, either.
Such a shame all that history dying with the WW II vets.