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This forum has a lot of military veterans from around the world. A lot of us brought "stuff" from our service. Other than war brides, firearms, explosives, and VD, what is the craziest thing you or someone else brought home from your military service?
One of the craziest items that I saw someone bring home was a piece of steel track from a T-34/85 tank. The soldier was always trying to get some else to carry it for him. The piece of track must have weighted at least 40 US pounds.
I don't know when exactly the policy started, but were taught, beginning in USMC boot camp and reiterated throughout my time, that war trophies are strictly prohibited under article 103 of the UCMJ - and the bringing or mailing back of firearms under any circumstances is a serious crime.
Nonetheless, claiming abandoned US property wasn't so strictly enforced. Grenade boxes, ammo cans, empty shells packed full of trinkets, rocks, and other benign items of novelty. I heard of a guy who mailed home the broken steering wheel of a vehicle blown up by IED with him inside. I have a couple wooden grenade boxes in the attic packed full of silly stuff - uniform items from friends I made in other NATO forces in Kosovo, Sadaam dinars offered by civilians for cigarettes, and other such small things.
Sorry, Kosovo, Iraq, and other modern places weren't quite as interesting in comparison to previous times.
War trophies have always been a bag of contention. Troops looking for "Stuff" aren't watching their arcs and booby traps are set with neat stuff as subject. Many times guys trying to procure become a casualty. I picked up a helmet in the UNPA in Nicosia right after the war and the NCO I was walking with just stood dumfounded as I walked over in a grassy area to get it. Never occurred to me that area could have been mined or an anti lift on the helmet... I still have it though. Weapons brought back by individuals are strictly frowned on here too. More by the country firearm laws but also by the military.Quote:
Originally Posted by ssgross
I seen wool and other types of material/ clothing from WWII German soldiers that was sent home and then turned over to the local seamstress to fashion into winter and other clothing for the local women. And I don't mean a piece or two, but 2 wheeled racks like you would see at a clothier.
I'm sure for some that wouldn't be too awful of a stretch to the imagination and have seen that before but it was a moment of realization for me that I had never considered.
My grandfather brought home 75mm Trench Art and casings, a personalized bracelet made from a Japanese Zero, and captured nicknacks from GUAM in WWII. My Dad had a bunch of stuff he brought home from Korea I remember seeing it as a kid but when he passed a way much of it "disappeared" like his firearms so my step-mother says. At least I got his KA-BARS, his decorations and a few odds and ends, mostly field gear and tools in one of his footlockers I grabbed when I visited him about a year before he died.
Most of the stuff I had from my service years is long gone, most with my first divorce thanks to my EX.
That's too bad too...Quote:
Originally Posted by usabaker
My craziest thing I brought home after 20 years of service is a tail rotor blade for an OH6. If you know about ‘hunter/killer teams’ you know why.
Attachment 115210Attachment 115211Attachment 115212Long time ago when I was an armorer, there were some tanks that were going to be sent to the 3.5 in rocket range. I thought
that it might be interesting to remove the mount next to the cannon, it was not difficult. just to have something that no one else
had in their stuff.
.30 cal Co-ax?Quote:
Originally Posted by RCS
Was it from your chopper? Pink team?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rockandroll
My dad brought my Mom home to Michigan. I thought that was pretty awesome, especially a few years later when I was born.
That coax mount from the tank was for the .30 cal Browning. You can see the adjustments on the rear mounting so the gun could be moved to co-iincide with the main gun reticle. Loader needed to keep a dime in his pocket to set the clearance on the solenoid that allowed electrical firing by the gunner.
I think it was from a Sherman tank, the M1919A4 was used in the mount
My Grandfather brought home a Lattey sight for an SMLE from when he was at headquarters in Sydney in WW2. He gave it to me as a small child and it sat in my socks and undies draw for 10 years. When I was old enough and started shooting I fitted it onto a SMLE and shot with it. The sight picture was that terrible I sold it to a chap at an arms fair being young and naive.
Well I have been trying for the last 10 years to buy it back as there is not much left of the Grandfathers things and we got along well.
Still praying that one day he will part with it.
...at least you know where it is. keeping bugging him to come look at it every Sunday afternoon. wear him down.Quote:
Originally Posted by martins8589
The same mount was used for the coax up through the M48's out started out on. By that time we were using the final version of the .30 cal Browning, the M37. One of the little things that shows the genius of John Moses is that the front and rear mounting holes are the same size and the same distance apart. A mount that will hold a an M1917 will take also hold an M240 or an M2.Quote:
Originally Posted by RCS
Attachment 115306Attachment 115307
My father was UK Navy. When the Germans surrendered in 1945 his ship
was order to Wilhelmshaven as the Army had not reached that far north.
The Captain ordered my father and some of the crew to load on to
the ship a large amount of Persian type carpets found in a warehouse.
When they had finished the only thing he could find to loot was the Police
Station typewriter. He said they were not happy about it but he took it anyway.
Later when our Army finally arrived he got drunk fell off a tank and broke his leg.
He called it his war wound, he was only 19. I can just remember my grandad using
the typewriter years later.
Old photo when I was an armorer, one of these was a M37 converted to M1919A6Attachment 115308
An old WW2 veteran I knew (an Air Force armourer who was already a keen gun collector) staggered off the troopship back in NZ with 2 Arisakas over his shoulder, his issue SMLE, a pack that contained at least 4 pistols, and an unissued .30-06 ANM2 Browning aircraft gun with a string loop around his neck and concealed under his armpit by his greatcoat. He died about 20 years ago and I got the Browning which was still solid from hardened WW2 grease. It is pictured in Dolf Goldsmith's 'The Browning Machine Gun' Volume 1, page 463.
I had one of those come to hand about 25 years back and had to fire it. Mine was in .303 and I had 100 links, ammo was available through the system but of course I used reloads. They all worked fine with only one case separation. I used a .30 cal ground mount and modified a T&E to work. I had to fire it with a side plate trigger and a lever that came with it protruding from the bottom back end. It went through the first 50 and had the separation, went through the second half...all in about two one second bursts... Wouldn't have missed it for anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodsy
Robert, where in East Tennessee are you? I'm in Kingsport
In 1946 when my father mustered out of the Navy at the ripe age of twenty, his Naval station was being decommissioned as well. There were many items that simply weren't going to be reclaimed or accounted for. Amongst those were a large number of mechanic's tool kits. So, the station commander did the logical thing: He had the sailors break out the tool kits and put the tools into separate piles in a row and the tool boxes at the end of the row. The names of the sailors who were mustering out were put in a hat, mixed, and drawn. As each sailor's name was drawn he walked down the line and drew one of each tool, a tool box, and his papers and "Ruptured Duck" insignia, until the lot was gone.
By this method and because his name was called early, my father arrived home in his uniform with his sea bag and a complete mechanic's box of tools to start his life. It served him well and I've inherited some of these tools.
Bob
Re-reading this thread got me to thinking about something that my father gave me not too long ago.
It's just a simple piece of white fabric folded in a square with some yellow hand embroidered stitching around it.
Anyway, I was told that my great grandmother used to travel from PA down to Delaware on a train on a weekly basis to work in a factory like a lot of women did during the second war.
Because she was handy at clothes making and had experience from knitting she evidently went to work in a factory where sewing was done for the war effort.
What she brought home was piece of the first production run of a new fabric designed for parachute making called nylon.
It was turned into a doily that she could use to protect furniture and what not but it must have been special to her because it appears to never really have been used for that purpose.
Not really a war trophy per-se but a relic from the past of a woman who was born in 1888 and did what she could to contribute to the effort none the less.
Attachment 115396Attachment 115397
Docs-- I am quite aware of the production plant and company. As of the mid-1990's the plant was still doing production work for the US Department of Defense. They also make kevlar fibers for the early US Woodland pattern BDUs. The wide Lapel ones. Not the Rip stop lightweights. The uniforms were almost rip proof. The stitching in the seams would give out long before the fabric. The downside to the uniform with kevlar fibers it made the uniform a slightly heavier than normal. I believe the US military stop using the fabric in updated versions of the Woodland pattern BDUs.
Try and get this home, some Marines are just too funny. Forget it, can not post photo on this forum
Well his Son has it now. Even though he is not really all that into that collection side of things he does not even have the audacity to reply to my messages. A modern man , not like his father was, a true gentleman.Quote:
Originally Posted by ssgross
An interesting bring back story comes near the end of Little Ship, Big War: The Sage of DE343, by Ed Stafford. After Okinawa and the surrender, DE-343 USS William Warner Abercrombie was assigned patrol duty in the home islands in support of the occupation before tying up for a short while at Wakanoura Wan, Honshu. Two days before they were to sail home, the executive officer got wind that there were warehouses full of arms that could be "requisitioned" if the right arms were twisted. With permission he took a party ashore from his and a sister DE and spent the two days in miserable weather finding and procuring enough weapons to supply every man aboard both ships with something. They arrived just in time for sailing, divided the spoils between the two ships, and then shaped course for the U.S. on Operation Magic Carpet.
On the first day of the journey a duty party sorted through the mound of arms on the foc'sle and laid them out in three piles: officer's swords, Arisaka Rifles, and bayonets. The swords went to the ship's officers, then all hands' names went into a lottery. Every seaman and officer aboard got to go through a line and choose a rifle . The bayonets were in short supply so as many bayonets as they had went to the first men through the line.
That was some savvy officering. During the next few days, everyone not on duty could be found shining up his booty!
Bob
I've recently found this, shrapnel from the actual bomb that almost killed my late father in 1940. This landed a matter of meters away from my father but went deep into the soft ground before exploding. The only warning that my father had was an aircraft in a steep dive directly overhead, followed by the whistle of an approaching bomb, followed by the sound of an enormous explosion. The bungalow that my father was living in caught the full force of the blast from the explosion of the 2nd bomb because the bomb landed in the road causing a surface detonation and there was terrific blast damage. My father didn't hear this 2nd explosion probably because he had suffered burst eardrums and serious, permanent hearing damage from the blast of the first explosion.
Sadly the last bomb in the "stick" was a direct hit on a house, on the other side of the village, literally turning it into a pile of rubble and killing the 4 people inside.
As a first aider it horrifies me to think of shrapnel, such as this, flying through the air at supersonic speeds with the potential to cut a human being to pieces.
At my father's funeral we remembered some of the harrowing things that had happened to him in the war, as a child, and we also remembered those that had died from all nations, including 4 German airmen in a previous incident.
The shrapnel was picked up the following morning to the air raid from around the top of the large crater in the garden and it was kept as a souvenir by my father. It had been mislaid but I recently found it in an old suitcase in the attic.
Later edit: I recently found the photo showing the damage caused by the bomb in the garden and the one that landed in the road. I've pointed out the bungalow by the pen tip because it is so badly damaged you can only see the roof of the building that has come crashing down on one corner. Currently this is the only image that I have showing the damage to the bungalow where my family were living in November 1940. One can understand why the building had to be almost completely rebuilt post war. The only good thing about it was that my family were only renting the property and didn't own it and so the next day were able to move out and hand it back to the owner.
I brought a lot of war trophies home although they aren't really in the traditional sense. I'm a carpenter, or jack of all construction trades. We operated a cannibalization yard during Desert Storm. Some Engineering unit got the bright idea that if something happened to their tool trailer, they would get a new one, a rather common thought over there. So they dragged in this carpenters tool trailer that they opened up and completely sprayed the interior with liquid asphalt. A quarter inch of tar covered everything. Final destination for this stuff was a new pier in the Red Sea so a few of us decided to salvage what we could. No shortage of gas to soak it in. I cleaned up a 10" circular saw, a massive drill along with most of it's bits and a 100' extension cord that is probably 8 gauge. They all had military three prong plugs that had to be replaced but they also worked when I was done. Mailed them home. Later I acquired a mix of East German military items, two kerosene lamps, a couple of locks, first aid kit from Germany's contribution to the war effort. Actual trophies include a mismatched top and bottom Iraqi uniform. Everyone else was going for nice looking stuff, I dug through and picked out stuff actually with Iraq labels on them. I also came home with a complete Arab outfit with head scarf, a Saudi flag, several Saudi coins, some Iraqi currency a Koran and perhaps the most impressive thing of all, a complete four pack of Desert Storm toilet paper complete with helmet wearing camel. I got seven of the Topps baseball cards with the gold Desert Storm stamp on them that are probably the most valuable thing I brought back that were not purchased while there. I also mailed home cases of MRE's and some of the big flat cans of blueberry filling which someone was selling recently and brought back the memories of. We ate that long ago but the MRE's are still in the basement. Brought the wife home a 21 karat gold jewelry set, and a Persian style rug. We never put the rug out, it's still rolled up somewhere safe. Very nice, family name sewn into the pattern on the one end as tradition requires. Majority is wool but the white is silk I think. I don't think my wife ever wore the jewelry either other than during a Girl Scout presentation I did once. It's rather gaudy. My oldest daughter claimed it pretty early however. I don't think she'll wear it either but it is very nice to look at. It is a much darker gold than most jewelry, it's also heavy I don't know how much it weighs or what the stones are but I bought it at gold weight back then for a few hundred dollars so probably close to an ounce.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../CfSShV2-1.jpg
Nice. My father was too young for WWII, but knew someone who had served as an Engine Room Artificer and when demob day came, their tools were checked off, any missing were billed to their accounts and then the kits were pushed over the side.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Womack
My Dad was in the US Army Air Force in the Pacific theatre as a B-24 navigator. He was on Okinawa, Guam, Saipan, then in Japan immediately after the war ended. He brought back two rifles, a Type 38 and a Type 99. The ‘38 was given to a family member who gave it to his son. Unfortunately, his political leanings were left of center and I’m sure it ended up in a gun buyback program as I tried to locate it to get it back with no luck.
The ‘99 is safe and really nice, the mum is x’d through but not ground off, still has its bayonet as well. The original handles disappeared from the bayonet, but the hilt is wrapped with a fancy tassel from someone’s ceremonial flag! Speaking of flags, he brought back some of those too.
My late Dad's RAF silk map of Europe dated 1944 as new as the day he had it.;)
During an air raid over Clacton-On-Sea Essex England, late 1943 or early 1944 one of the attacking bombers was picked up by a searchlight beam and the anti-aircraft gunners started firing, hitting the aircraft, and causing it to crash on Clacton Recreation Ground. The fate of the crew is not known and I do not know if the crew survived. A sentry was quickly placed on what was left of the machine and the following day, on hearing of the bomber having been shot down during the night, my late father cycled over to the recreation ground as fast as possible.
My father's solution for the presence of the sentry was to go and ask him "Can I have a few bits of the German bomber, please?" and the sentry replied "Let's see what we can find." The sentry wouldn't allow anything to be taken from inside the aircraft in case there was any new equipment that needed to be inspected etc but would allow some of the debris to be picked up from outside of the bomber.
My late father's small haul is in the display case which I have only recently rediscovered and this is the first time that it has been shown on the "net". I removed the exploded shell cases that were in the case because they appear to be .303 ammunition which unless the Luftwaffe were using captured British MG's can't of come from the bomber. According to my late father on V.E. Day there was a "Victory Bonfire" and my father said "We had to move away, a bit, from the bonfire because soldiers kept throwing live ammunition on it." It is possible that the exploded .303 rounds came from this incident and then got mixed up with the German bomber fragments post war.
Look how beautifully the parachute chord has been made.
To anyone who thinks that these items shouldn't be shown please remember that the German bomber had been bombing or trying to bomb my family members as well as the people of Clacton; we didn't invite it over here.
Case of M67 frags
I had one for a few years but as kids started to grow up a bit I decided it was best to make it gone. Friend of mine and I took it squirrel hunting up in the local hills and chose an isolated spot to throw it...Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle
We share the same story bud.Quote:
Originally Posted by BEAR
Rope, cord and cable making is an interesting subject. If those cords are not silk, and I assume they're not, this must have been quite soon after the introduction of synthetic fibres. IIRC the patents and rights for a number of British-engineered fibres (including Nylon?) were among the items demanded and handed over in exchange for Lend Lease. That was after the reserves of gold, silver, stocks etc. had been exhausted! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying10uk
Do we really have people around who think such things should not be shown for some reason?
Because someone may have died in the aeroplane when it was shot down. I don't know if they were or were not because my father didn't ask the sentry guarding the aircraft when asked if he could have some bits. I do know that the aircraft had been over here to drop bombs when it was shot down.Quote:
Originally Posted by Surpmil
As far as I know the parachute remains were all from the German bomber and I don't believe that the ropes are nylon. They could be silk ropes or whatever material the Germans used for parachute chord/rope before the introduction of nylon cord.