Posted by Caleb in Kansas [108.162.216.109] on Friday, December 07, 2018 at 13:59:08 :
In Reply to: Remember Pearl Harbor posted by Don Tucker in Oakland, MD [172.69.62.199] on Friday, December 07, 2018 at 04:25:20 :
I was just doing so. It hadn't even crossed my mind, but as I was posting a response to The Dodge Boys, I thought about my Winchester. Grandpa bought it right before Grandmas brothers joined the War effort. They joined after Pearl Harbor.
They were both very mechanically inclined. One was sent into the Air Corps and served as a B-17 mechanic, he maintained and repaired bombers during crew training, and also as they flew across the country on their way to Europe and the Pacific. Somewhere there is a photo of him sitting in the front seat of an open cab half ton Dodge WC. I have never seen it, but both of my Aunts mentioned it immediately after they saw photos of mine. The other was trained as an engineer and was sent to the South Pacific. I remember being in awe as he told a story about coming under attack from some estimated 3,000 Japanese soldiers while they were building a bridge during the advance on yet another speck in the ocean. He had ended up on a .30 caliber machine gun and fired until the barrel melted. He spoke about the fight and the bodies, and the river running red as if it was a simple run to the parts store, but the most memorable thing from the story was his excitement of having built a solid mahogany bridge over some un-named river and how pissed off he was about having to blow it up before they moved to the next island.