My grandfather was a seargent and stormed Kiska in WWII in the Aleutian Islands. In the civil war my great-something or other uncle was Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan (confederacy) who lead a 3000-man insurgency from indiana to ohio called Morgan's raid, and some long lost relative was Leiuntenant Patterson in the revolutionary war.
Originally posted by Flamboyant4Life
My uncle's (by marraige) uncle was in WWII, also in Iwo Jima I think. He was involved in a firefight, and killed a high ranking officer. The high ranking officers have swords that they carry. It turns out, that how he killed the guy was he shot the guy's sword. The bullet went through the metal sheath, shattered the sword, and exited the sheath. He took the sword as a token. My uncle is in possesion of it now. I got to hold what is left of it. It's pretty cool.
Thats a cool keepsake man...
i still have my great grandfather on my fathers side's ration tin from ww1...i think he served in the battle of Ypres or the Battle of Passchendaele (ypres 3)
i also traced back my ancestry to a man who fought in the battle of bannockburn and who was responsible for the invention of caltrops which were used to neutralize the English heavy cavalry and is shown in the film braveheart as being "long spears....twice as long as a man"
he was made and earl and given scone palace as his home in Scotland
so technically this is my ancestral home
Well, there's a story that's been passed down the generations in my family about an ancestor who was a wealthy woman in Greece, but wasn't allowed to fight, because she was a woman. So she bought her own ship and fought anyway, and apparently turned the tide of the battle. I would think that something like that would be well-documented, but the only possibility I could find was Artemisia I at the Battle of Salamis. She was Persian, but my family tree extends to Greece and Syria, so who knows. Plus, word-of-mouth stories are very unreliable.
On my mom's side, my great grandfaher was a recon unit on the Soviet Union side. He had many glorious moments and some medals for his job, but unfortunately to this day we are not accurately sure what he did and what he was doing. It was confidential secret information and missions, so it's a pity.
On my dad's side, my grandfather was an eleven year old boy who survived the siege of leningrad. He was sleeping with his brother, his mom and his dad one night, and when he woke up both his dad and his mom were dead. When trying to bring food for his mother the previous day as she was sick, he had to walk. His feet were frostbitten and he couldn't walk, and he had to tie his feet in a sack and crawl.
Darn World War 2 🙁
here's a few pics of relatives of mine that were in wars...some of the original pics never had names so i couldn't find out who they were
the one on the right is my grandad with his friend dave watt
this one has a wee story on the back...it has "mother's mother's relative" and then "To Annie...we have just had word from Willis(?) that peter went to france 3 weeks ago and very sorry to inform you that he has been wounded in the side and thigh and is in hospital in france. this is his photo sent for you