The thread by "Moparedtn" has kindled up a memory of mine re "The Greatest Generation"

[Imperial One]

Moparedtn has a great thread today:

https://www.forbbodiesonly.com/mopa...s-ago-thought-id-share.202076/#post-911667806

That reminded me of a story that I am tangentially involved with, and surrounds soldiers involved in the Great Escape. Now with no offense to our American friends, but the Great Escape did not involve Americans (unlike the Steve McQueen movie). Here is the story.

I have found that guys like stuff: in addition to cars I am a vintage watch enthusiast. If anyone here is a history buff or a watch lover this is a great story.

A few years back, two terrific watches were auctioned off in England that had been owned by British aircrew officers who had been shot down and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III.

I bid on this watch, and was "in" at around £40,000 but ultimately I did not win:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...rawling-tunnel-Great-Escape-emerges-sale.html

It for sold £57,000 and I regret not buying it. However at that time it would not have been financially possible for me to do so.

A couple years late they got another, even more sensational watch, as it had been owned by one of the 50 POWs who made it out of the escape tunnel but were recaptured and murdered by the Gestapo. It sold for nearly £200,000. This is a great read.

https://www.maidenhead-advertiser.c...ry-of-Great-Escape-Rolex-sold.html?refresh_ce

I have a small connection to the Great Escape. My accountant's dad was one of the 10,000+ prisoners at Stalag Luft III. He did not get through the tunnel (lucky for my accountant) but was involved like many in the jobs associated with tunneling. And a fellow who lived just a few doors down from my mom and dad at their retirement home was at Stalag Luft III as well. In the photo below you can see Don is eternally young, with a massive smile, somewhere in North Africa prior to being shot down.

Here is his obit.

http://www.yourlifemoments.ca/sitepages/obituary.asp?oid=1000884


So another salute to the Greatest Generation. May their memory never be forgotten.

 

[Sahara]

I collect stories and experiences from people I’ve met. I come from a military family, although I never served.
I’ve met many of the greatest generation, from many different sides.
Here’s a few of the interesting ones, at least to me.
When I was 13 or 14, in the early seventies, I got a real job with the gov’t. When other kids were babysitting for fifty cents an hour I was on the small janitorial crew cleaning my school making adult hourly wages. One of my coworkers was the kindest, sweetest lady that you ever met. She had an accent, and she and her husband were from Holland. One day in the coffee room I noticed that she had what looked like a locker combination or phone number crudely scrawled on the back of her hand. I asked her about it. It was a tattoo, and it was her concentration camp serial number. Her husband also had one. My life was changed by this ladies positive attitude, her gentle, loving grace. One day a few years later she died of a brain aneurism in the snowbank just down the block. Her husband eventually remarried and lived a long life. These were role model people.
Just a few years later, I was on a small construction crew. We got a contract forming and pouring a concrete floor for a barn. The owner was a happy, jolly old German. Nice guy. Turns out he was a German WWII veteran. One day over coffee he proceeded to give us the pro nazi talk about how dealing with Jews was like doing laundry; sometimes you need to clean your genes. It was chilling. This was someone’s loving dad and grandpa, talking casually about killing people whose only crime was being Jewish. He was serious, and it shook me.
My uncle fought in France and Italy. He was a combat guy, not a administration guy. He was the happiest, funniest guy you ever met. But he hated the Army, and how they were treated. My dad said that he had seen bad, bad, things. But the only story that he ever told me was this: they were in France. There was a whorehouse just across the River. They remove their uniforms and swim across. On the other side they are attacked by Germans, and have to swim back across without uniforms.
My grandmother was in Russia during WWI and saw rape and murder on a grand scale.
Her brother, my favourite uncle, spent WWII in a Canadian internment camp because he was a foreign national. He never forgave Canada.
My aunt, married to the combat vet uncle mentioned above, was an administrator who sent foreign nationals to internment camps.
Current generations just don’t get it. In their pampered, sheltered, spoiled little lives they are tearing down memorials and monuments to things they know nothing about. They haven’t earned that right, as far as I’m concerned.

 

[Ron H]

As I've gotten to an age I never imagined (65) having lost my folks, and all the elder relatives and their friends, and a fair number of mine, I've gained a different view of life. This includes the memories of the stories they had about WWII and living thru the depression and friendships gone by passing on. Among the perspectives are how time is short seeing how the life cycle goes, and my prior interest with acquiring 'things' (was a watch collector for a time). I've acquired a lot of stuff and now spend more time getting free of it than I do acquiring new stuff that I still need for projects. This includes the lost desire for anything I don't 'need', an irresistible attraction I once had. It's also made me reflect more on all of the destruction thru the generations and today mankind has relished...war, genocide, power, etc. thinking our time walking the planet is a wisp in time and we're on a tiny rock in the universe. The person with the most toys...leave them behind when they kick da bucket.

 

[Imperial One]

As I've gotten to an age I never imagined (65) having lost my folks, and all the elder relatives and their friends, and a fair number of mine, I've gained a different view of life. This includes the memories of the stories they had about WWII and living thru the depression and friendships gone by passing on. Among the perspectives are how time is short seeing how the life cycle goes, and my prior interest with acquiring 'things' (was a watch collector for a time). I've acquired a lot of stuff and now spend more time getting free of it than I do acquiring new stuff that I still need for projects. This includes the lost desire for anything I don't 'need', an irresistible attraction I once had. It's also made me reflect more on all of the destruction thru the generations and today mankind has relished...war, genocide, power, etc. thinking our time walking the planet is a wisp in time and we're on a tiny rock in the universe. The person with the most toys...leave them behind when they kick da bucket.

Well said. I feel the same way about getting rid of stuff, but I do have relapses every now and then.