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The Magnificent Infantry of WW II
Self
| May 29, 2017
| Self
Posted on 05/29/2017 8:46:16 AM PDT by Retain Mike
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This essay is my way to remember annually the extraordinary men who surrounded me growing up; men who seemed to consider their WW II service as a common rite of passage. My contact with these men started about age ten when my dad began taking me out golfing on the weekends. There was a man who used the first golf cart I ever saw, because as a brigade commander of the 41th infantry in New Guinea he was debilitated by sickness. I remember one fairly good golfer who had a weird back swing. I found out he was crippled while serving with the Big Red One in Sicily. My Economics professor in college served with one of the first UDT teams to clear barricades and mines in the surf zone before Pacific landings. I often ended up as a dishwasher at the country club and noticed the chef always limped as he moved around the kitchen. He saw my puzzled look, and said he got the limp from a wound received when he was with the Rangers at Pointe De Hoc. Those are just a few of the stories I remember among so many others I could tell or have forgotten.
Men like these, who at the same time are both extraordinary and ordinary, should never be forgotten. The reference and links contain much more information.
To: Retain Mike
My Father was a combat engineer in WWII.
He spoke very highly of the infantry. He also admired the armored divisions.
2
posted on
05/29/2017 8:52:22 AM PDT
by
yarddog
(Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
To: Retain Mike
And just what were the ROE for WWII infantry?
The infantry we have today is just as good. And much better equipped.
And with the right civilian leaders....
3
posted on
05/29/2017 8:54:27 AM PDT
by
2banana
(My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
To: 2banana
And just what were the ROE for WWII infantry? Kill Krauts. Kill Japs.
4
posted on
05/29/2017 8:59:40 AM PDT
by
TADSLOS
(Reset Underway!)
To: 2banana
And just what were the ROE for WWII infantry? Watch the opening of the movie Patton and you will get a sense of what the rules were.
5
posted on
05/29/2017 9:02:06 AM PDT
by
mc5cents
(Pray for America)
To: Retain Mike
6
posted on
05/29/2017 9:02:18 AM PDT
by
ATOMIC_PUNK
(I think therefore im Dangerous to the liberal agenda !)
To: Retain Mike
Very well done. I was not infantry, I was a Headquarters Pog. My dad was not infantry, he commanded an LCT on Utah Beach. He had an Army engineer company, with bulldozers and TNT.
7
posted on
05/29/2017 9:04:27 AM PDT
by
real saxophonist
( YouTube + Twitter + Facebook = YouTwitFace.com)
To: Retain Mike
Nice job, Mike, but why exclude mountain, airborne, and armored infantry? You also left out the Mediterranean Theater which had infantry elements.
To: Retain Mike
9
posted on
05/29/2017 9:12:50 AM PDT
by
PIF
(They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
To: PIF
I’m currently reading ‘Battleground Pacific’, by Sterling Mace. I also like all the books by Robert Leckie.
10
posted on
05/29/2017 9:20:46 AM PDT
by
real saxophonist
( YouTube + Twitter + Facebook = YouTwitFace.com)
To: yarddog
My Father was a combat engineer in WWII.Mine, too.
11
posted on
05/29/2017 9:23:00 AM PDT
by
Jeff Chandler
(Everywhere is freaks and hairies Dykes and fairies Tell me where is sanity?)
To: Retain Mike
I saw on Book TV a few years ago, an author taking highlights out of his book on the organization the processed the effects of dead service personnel.
So, the usual, live munitions, etc, as well as embarrassing stuff from any and all paramours, particularly if the deceased was married, was filtered out.
The book covered the expansion of the facility (in MO, iirc) as the war went on.
It also went into the steady lowering of the physical requirements for a rifleman as the supply was “depleted”.
To: real saxophonist; Jeff Chandler

This is of the 208th Engineer Combat Battalion landing at Utah Beach, June 1944.
This could have been Real Saxophonits's Father's ship.
13
posted on
05/29/2017 9:44:38 AM PDT
by
yarddog
(Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
To: Retain Mike
If anyone reading knows anything about 109th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division Army in Nov 1945 or can tell me where to look, I am starting research on Pvt James M Derflinger, MIA. His widow (married 4-6 days while on leave before deployment) told me about him and I have pics on my phone. She is 92. He is a Virginian. I'll upload tomorrow.
14
posted on
05/29/2017 9:46:27 AM PDT
by
huldah1776
( Vote Pro-life! Allow God to bless America before He avenges the death of the innocent.)
To: Retain Mike
I too grew up with WW II vets all around. Rarely was the war spoken of by them on an extended basis, but it was often referred to in popular entertainment and figured large in our boys’ games and in our imaginations. To a remarkable degree, we live in a world that remains deeply shaped by America’s sacrifices and victory in WW II. As a Baby Boomer, I know that much of what my generation and those following have enjoyed came from the WW II generation.
To: yarddog
Great picture. That’s an LST (Landing Ship, Tank). Dad was on an LCT (Landing Craft, Tank), about 110 feet long.
16
posted on
05/29/2017 10:20:14 AM PDT
by
real saxophonist
( YouTube + Twitter + Facebook = YouTwitFace.com)
To: Retain Mike
I hear you, Mike. My own father and uncles are a fine microcosm.....somehow, though, they all served in the Pacific, and none of them were infantry.
My father’s army engineer battalion built airfields across the pacific, from Hawaii starting in Jan 1942 through VJ day on Okinawa. McArthur asked for the battalion for Japanese occupation duty, but didn’t get them, as they had the longest term of overseas duty of any army construction battalion.
My uncles service included a navy fighter pilot, aircraft mechanic, a sailor type, a marine officer (don’t recall his speciality) who received a great deal of ribbing because his name is McArathur.
Then, I had a school teacher who appears in a famous photo from the Korean War. Four marines crouching in the ruins of Seoul after the landing at Inchon, one shooting back at a sniper with an M1 carbine. He said that he was so terrified, could hardly even remember his own name, but kept fighting and advancing because he was a Marine.
Most of the sons of the WW2 and Korea generation in my family have served our own terms in the military. I did 6 years in the USAF. A nephew is currently a foreign service officer, with an office in the US Embassy in Kabul. He, of course, is serving his own time in a war zone. He hears bombs detonating somewhere in town most weeks.
17
posted on
05/29/2017 10:20:54 AM PDT
by
jimtorr
To: Retain Mike
18
posted on
05/29/2017 10:22:45 AM PDT
by
xp38
To: yarddog; real saxophonist
My father fought in the European theater. Their job was to conduct commando raids ahead of the front lines, secure river beachheads and have the bridges built by the time the front lines caught up with them, then disassemble the bridges after the regular troops had crossed the river.
Rinse and repeat.
19
posted on
05/29/2017 10:29:28 AM PDT
by
Jeff Chandler
(Everywhere is freaks and hairies Dykes and fairies Tell me where is sanity?)
To: Retain Mike
“100% or more casualties.”
Didn’t know there was more than 100%.
20
posted on
05/29/2017 10:29:34 AM PDT
by
CodeToad
(If it weren't for physics and law enforcement, I'd be unstoppable!)
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