Pic of my grandfather with his bring back Luger.
 

I posted this elsewhere, and figured it'd make sense to post it here, too. I registered here years ago when I was thinking about buying a Luger (and I still haven't,) but I still want one.

My uncle still has this gun. I don't know what the story was on exactly how he (my grandfather) acquired it. I know he was in Belgium, involved in the Battle of the Bulge, but elsewhere I don't know. He died in 2003, and my grandmother died last year, and I saw this picture in a chest and I took a cellphone picture of it.

http://i50.tinypic.com/xgmptt.jpg

In the same chest, there was a Nazi ashtray he brought back. My dad said my grandmother never cared for it, because of the figure of the boy peeing.

http://i.imgur.com/TFXgX.gif

a very nice remembrance of your GF...the gun, not the peeing !!!
 

..

That ashtray is weird... It looks like "Manneken Pis", which is a popular figure in Belgium and probably popular as decoration on different houshold items as well. But how they could get away with producing something like that in a country occupied by the nazis is beyond me. Maybe the little boy peeing on the swastika was meant as a sneaky protest against the Germans?

I thought it was probably just a one off thing. However, many of these exist and are for sale in various places, and it is indeed a Manneken Pis take-off.

Someone here hypothesizes it might have been a post-liberation item from 1944-1945:

http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/art-de...shtray-163670/

Someone who was selling a similar one here says "Made to celebrate the liberation of Belgium from German occupation in 1944."

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedi...nazi-253512250

Being as my grandfather was in Belgium, I guess that makes sense now.

That does make a lot of sense. I don't know how long your grandfather stayed in Belgium after the war, but it is sure more likely to be a post war piece.

Brian,

No unit patches are shown on your grandfather's jacket. Do you know which unit he served with at the Battle of the Bulge?

No idea. I'm not even sure how I'd find out. I'll try asking my uncle and see if he has any paperwork on it.

I asked this on another forum, actually...is there any way I could request detailed information on his military records? I found some government website a while back and just never went through with it. I'm not sure what kinds of information it'd give, i.e. if it's only a DD-214, etc.

Alright, so, pending getting some more detail:

My uncle tells me he was in Patton's group who relieved the first groups there. According to Wikipedia, that would be the Third Army? On a finer detail of what unit he was in, I have no idea yet. I'll try to get more detail later, medals, ribbons, etcetera, whatever I can find out about. I'm also told he was somehow injured while in England, which delayed his deployment. My uncle says he was supposed to be active much sooner.

I was able to get a copy of my fathers military record. He was in the Navy after WWI on board the USS Marblehead while on duty in China. That was the Yanctzee (spelling?) Campaign. I wrote to the I believe the Dept. of Defense along with his name and approx time of service. It cost me $60.00 for a complete copy of his military record, which was very detailed. if you are really interested, it's going to take some research on your part. If you have his GI serial number, that will make things a little easier. I was able to get his record since I was a relative.

Hope this helps.

Peter

Interesting, thanks. Yes, I was able to find out his serial number very easily from the national archives site.

Here's the government site I was talking about earlier, in regards to ordering records. I'm not sure if this is the one you used or not.

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/mil...rvice-records/

Edit: This site is completely free to order records from, so it must not be the same one you used. Also, from the looks of it, you typically only get a DD-214.

Edit edit, found this about costs:

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/mil...-records/#cost

How long did it take you to receive your information? The website says it could be up to six months, depending.

http://aad.archives.gov/aad/

click on World War II and you can search for his name, if you know his serial number, even better

I would like to use this for vol IV of Vet Bring Backs, as a filler page, I give full credit to you / your grandfather, a clearer picture if possible and hi-rez

my email ed_tinker@hotmail.com

vol IV will be out in a year to 18 months, as vol III is being sent to printer in a month or two

Ed

Hey, that'd be really cool. I can get you a high res scan of the picture, and I'll try to get you more information about him. I've already sent off a request for the information, and I have some more in the pipe soon. I'll get with you on it.

Edit:

I had previously found some information on there, but it was quite limited, date of entry, job, etc.

Not Hi-Res, but definitely "improved"
 

Just a little color, balance, brightness and contrast adjustments resulted in these photos...:bigbye:

Nice work! And that's a photo of a photo taken with my crappy cellphone camera. I'll post a high res picture as soon as possible with a real scanner or camera.

Here's some more information I found out from his Enlisted Record and Report of Separation that was found by family members.

Grade: T-5

(Which I found info about here: )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technician_Fifth_Grade

Arm or Service: QMC (Quartermaster?)

Component: AUS (U.S. Army)

Organization: HQ CO 52nd QM BASE DEPOT

Date of Separation: Dec 13th 1945

Place of Separation: Fort George G Meade Maryland

Date of Induction: 27th Oct 1941

Date of Enlistment: 27th Oct 1941

Military Specialty: Automotive Mechanic 014

Military Qualification: Sharpshooter 03 Rifle (I assume this is referring to M1903 Springfields?)

Battles and Campaigns: GO33WD45 NORTHERN FRANCE RHINELAND

Decorations and Citations: WW2 Victory Ribbon, Good Conduct Medal, American Defense Service Medal, American Theater Service Ribbon, European African Middle Eastern Theater Service Ribbon

Service Outside Continental U.S. and Return:

Departure - Destination - Date of Arrival

3 May 44 - Scotland - 14 May 44
28 Nov 45 - United States - 8 Dec 45

Continental Service: 2 years, 6 months, 11 days
Foreign Service: 1 year, 7 months, 6 days

Reason for Separation:

Convenience of the Government RR 1 1 (DEMOBILZATION AR 615 365 14 DEC 44

Remarks: Lapel Button Issued / No Days Lost Under AW 107 / ASR SCORE 73

The rest is just vaccinations, pay, etc.

Received a letter from the archives today, unfortunately his OMPF (official military personnel file) was destroyed in the big archive fire of 1973. That bites. I'm sure that would have had a lot of interesting information. The only thing they say they have is the "Final Pay Voucher," so at least that's something, but it's not much more than what I already have. I think the most interesting tidbit it'll have is the last unit he was with.

great post , thanks

Newluger, It is interesting about your dad being on the USS Marblehead in China. My dad was on the same ship during the Yantzee campaign. He served in the US Navy from 1917 until 1945.

Bill Hughes

Brian,

Very nice story!

As you got some additional information about your granddad, if I were you, I would go further and honor his service by doing a shadow box showing his medals (repositions are plenty and for nice prices) and any other memorabilia from his military service that you may be able to recover (dog tags, etc.). In addition I would include this nice picture of him holding his war booty.

Using the information you posted, we can reconstruct as below.

There are some great examples of shadow boxes on e-bay:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/Militaria-/1...w=shadow+boxes (no afiliation)

Your sons would be greatful.

All the best,
Douglas

Thanks for the medal thing. Actually, though, my uncle does have all of those, and they are in a box, along with a flag.

If I can help, LMK. I just went down this same path with both of my grandfathers. Like yours, both of mine had no records on file. I was, however, able to get copies of their DD214. The Feds will offer you a copy of the final pay document or similar for $20. It will be a single page with information you already have. It may not be readable.

That said, your best bet to get a second-generation copy of their DD214 (and possibly other documents) is to first call the local Vet. Services office. They will likely have something on file; possibly a DD214 or a similar document. The real treasure is at the courthouse in the county the vet live in when discharged. They should have an original DD214 and the Honorable Discharge certificate. From what I could gather, vets where given these docs and required to put them on file at their local courthouse so they are first-gen copies, not copies of copies from the Feds. Usually the files the courthouse has are inverted (white on black rather than black on white). I guess that's how they were copies back then.

My grandfathers lived in the same state, but different counties. One courthouse mailed copies to me with nothing but my word that I was who I said I was. The other required the net of kin to appear in person.

With these documents, I was able to request replacement medals. So far, I have received them for one grandfather.

All this was free, save for the $20 the Feds charged each time for a single Xerox'ed page that was not readable.

That said, if you get stuck with an unreadable DD214 or are missing the Discharge certificate, I made templates in Photoshop and can replicate the type font they used as well as replicating the discharge officer's signature. Same goes for anyone else that wants a pristine DD214/DC for framing or display or just to have. No charge, of course.

That's AMAZING documentation you have on your Grandfather! My Grandma's brother Jimmy never made it back with his, that's part of the reason I'm looking for one now.

Thank you for sharing this piece of your family's history.

Thanks for the information. I see you're in West Virginia. I'm fairly certain my grandfather's county would have been Kanawha.

I live in Kanawha County. The local VA was very helpful and with a phone call, they emailed some documents directly to me.

Interesting, I might look into that, although I'm not sure it (a DD-214) would give me any more information than I already have. My dad's family is from the Clendenin area.

DD214s of that vintage will have the vet's signature and thumbprint as well as deployment dates and locations, awards, and medals issued. Also has pay info, education, and misc. pre-military info. Kind of neat if you're in to that sort of history.