War Throphies

[Bob Womack]

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

[Doco overboard]

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

[fjruple]

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.

[72 usmc]

Try and get this home, some Marines are just too funny. Forget it, can not post photo on this forum

[martins8589]

...at least you know where it is. keeping bugging him to come look at it every Sunday afternoon. wear him down.

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.

[Bob Womack]

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

[Flying10uk]

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.

[Aragorn243]

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.

[Surpmil]

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

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.

[CoatiMundi]

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.