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#4236826 - 03/05/16 02:03 PM So what sparked your interest in WW2?  
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DBond Offline
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For me it was the computer game Steel Panthers. At this point (1995), I knew little to nothing about WW2. I knew it had happened, but little else.

Then my older brother asked me to play against him in hot-seat Steel Panthers. This game was a crash course in WW2 hardware. I learned what a Hellcat was, what an 88 was. I learned about Churchills and Crusaders and Valentine tanks.

I figured out that an 88 Flak gun was deadly against those tanks. I remember a battle my brother and I fought after I had figured this out. I had my forces backed by a line of 88s and rubbed my hands gleefully considering my deadly trap that would crush his unwitting tanks. Then he sent over some bombers who destroyed my Flak guns and I was sad. And that's when I learned there is always a way to counter the enemy's moves. And my lifelong interest in tactics was born.

This fostered my interest in absorbing all of the knowledge I could so off I went to the local library. I remember the very first book I picked out was a collection of Ernie Pyle's dispatches from the front and I was hooked for life.

Now, 20 years later, I have hundreds of books and dozens of games and movies and I still cannot get enough, and there will always be more to learn.

So what sparked your interest? A game? A movie or a book? A relative who served?


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#4236832 - 03/05/16 02:28 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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Listening to the adults talk about it when I was a young boy. I was born in 1953 so the people who lived it were still fresh from their experience.


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#4236833 - 03/05/16 02:29 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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Family reunions. Listening to the stories from cousins at Anzio, D-day and the Bulge.

#4236844 - 03/05/16 03:20 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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A very special lady named Edith Meredith.
She at the age of Fourteen repaired Hurri's
and Spits during the day and raised and fed
her brothers and sisters when she got home.

She was there from beginning to end all the
bombings V1's and 2's etc. A one person
history lesson IMHO.

When I met her I was a snot nosed 9 year old
she was our home maker for 5 years. I learned
more life lessons from her than all others combined,
a very special lady indeed.


runningdog


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#4236847 - 03/05/16 03:27 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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Having a father that served in Army Air Corps, on Okinawa in '45. He was supposed to be a fighter pilot, but the Army washed out his whole class and said 'Y'all are mechanics now."

Dad, like most of the men I grew up around that served in WW2, did not talk about it.
So I developed a reading passion for all things WW2, and consumed every book or movie I could get on the subject growing up. I was surrounded by men that fought. Uncles, Dad's friends, my first bosses, etc.

My first boss (owner of the local theater) was a good friend of the family. He served as a Ma Duece gunner, and told me (few) stories of him in combat. Battle of the Bulge.

1939-1946 was a fascinating time. We went from single engine aircraft with fabric bodies and wires to hold the wings on to jet powered sleek aircraft! The scientific advances were incredible. The whole world changed.


~Bill

In my defense, I was left unsupervised...
#4236852 - 03/05/16 03:38 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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When I was growing up, back in the 60s, it was still a popular topic of discussion and in movies and TV shows, so that caught my interest, and when I got old enough to talk about it, my Dad shared some of his experiences from WWII as an aircraft mechanic in Italy, working on bombers.

From there I read more about it and like Bill pointed out, found all the rapid changes interesting, and later the way it shaped the world.


Ken Cartwright

No single drop of rain feels it is responsible for the flood.

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#4236853 - 03/05/16 03:38 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: Wireman]  
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Originally Posted By: Wireman
Family reunions. Listening to the stories from cousins at Anzio, D-day and the Bulge.


Same, except it was great uncles, aunts, etc.

And probably from an entirely different perspective.

Click to reveal..

My Grandfather used to say "I was at Normandy, too. But I didn't get my feet wet or strain my neck looking up."


The opinions of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

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#4236862 - 03/05/16 04:13 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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My Mother was a teenager living in Stolberg, a town outside of Aachen Germany during the War. She spoke little of her experiences until she was in her 80s. My Father was a career US Soldier, a Medic , who met my Mother while treating her for malnutrition. Therefore I've always had an interest in WW2 and considered myself, in a way, a 'byproduct'

#4236864 - 03/05/16 04:18 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  

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Junior High, read about the atrocities committed during WWII. This curiosity extended to my college years. Gaming widened my interest to the military aspect (strategy, military hardware, military culture, basic WWII history etc.)

Answering the question surprised me a bit. I realized that at an early age, I was already finding reasons to despise humanity.

#4236869 - 03/05/16 04:31 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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Interesting answers so far. I imagine, with the diverse membership here, that many of you live on or near the battlefields. I have to believe that would surely spark an interest in me. My grandfather was a battalion surgeon in Normandy, but sadly he passed when I was very young and I never got a chance to talk to him about his experiences which is a shame, or perhaps he wouldn't have wished to talk about it, especially to a child.


No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!
#4236871 - 03/05/16 04:42 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: oldgrognard]  
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Originally Posted By: oldgrognard
Listening to the adults talk about it when I was a young boy. I was born in 1953 so the people who lived it were still fresh from their experience.


Same here - except that I was born in 1956. One grandfather drove a Churchill tank through Holland after D-Day, an uncle was captured in North Africa. My other grandfather was at Jutland in WWI. One of my great grandfathers spent a full army career in India before WWI and was due to come out of the army in 1914, guess what happened, yes 1914-18 in France. He made it though - lucky fellow. His army nickname was 'Cushty' smile Both my parents were children during WWII, my dad was an evacuee, my mum stayed in Sheffield to help run the family shop, quite a few stories about being blitzed.

My WWII grandfather did tell me quite a few stories, looking back I wish I'd been more interested, he would have had a lot more to tell.

RedToo.


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Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C.S. Lewis, 1898 - 1963.
#4236880 - 03/05/16 04:55 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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Visiting with family during the 60`s, all 5 of my uncles are WW2 vets. They would
often talk about battlefield experiences much to my mothers dismay. To graphic for
her. They were all wounded in one way or another. Oldest uncle wore a specialized
leg brace the rest of his life after nearly getting killed in a beach landing in the
Philippines. Shell landed on the guy next to him and fragments of the shell and bone
fragments from the guy it hit took him out. His right leg below the hip was nearly
tore off. Almost bled to death.

I miss them dearly now, they have all passed away. Only have one uncle left and he
survived a crash landing in a PBY that killed all of the rest of his crew. Need to
go see him before its to late.


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#4236896 - 03/05/16 05:39 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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I lived under a roof where we had my grandpa who was a WW2 veteran {French and later U.S. Army}, my grandma who experienced the war as a civilian, and an uncle who collected WW2 memorabilia.

#4236903 - 03/05/16 05:54 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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Like most listening to family members talk about their experiences during the war. Mostly though, my Dad was into RC airplanes and I fell in love with the aircraft of the war.

#4236918 - 03/05/16 06:41 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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Mostly movies and TV.. Combat... 12 O'Clock high.. and model airplanes.. I read The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich in the 6th grade and it was a wrap.. I read that book a few times as I got older and understood it better.. I always loved history.


Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
#4236934 - 03/05/16 07:32 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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When it's a natural fact for you to see your father put off his glass eye for the special hygiene of his orbit :-) and to see the ribbons on his suit lapel, you're sure more interested to the conflict in which he took part .

Last edited by kaa; 03/05/16 07:34 PM.

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#4236936 - 03/05/16 07:47 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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My grandfather served aboard the USS Belleau Wood during the war and his stories about the battles in the pacific, the kamikaze attack, the different types of aircraft on board is what got me interested.
USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24)

Last edited by brownba; 03/06/16 09:06 PM.
#4236957 - 03/05/16 08:49 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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Grandparents.. Mainly the one that was in Burma and later Korea. But my interest was at a vary young age. He was a history freak and I can not think of a time I did not know about it. But all your male and even your Mum either served or where vets its hard to not to get the curiosity when they say things in passing to one another. You know something was a big deal and want to know why. And then the snow ball right?

#4236962 - 03/05/16 09:07 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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Like many here, I began to read through the encyclopedia available in school. When I found the WXYZ volume, it had a very detailed section about both world wars. I was immediately hooked. Also, television had programs called, Combat, and The Gallant Men. They were very well done, and the soldiers acted like they were in combat. The 60's, when I grew up, always had WW2 films being made. Like The Longest Day, The Battle of the Bulge, and The Battle of Britain. The series World at War was the crowning glory. Perhaps the finest documentary of the war.

It began my interest in history, especially military history.

#4236966 - 03/05/16 09:22 PM Re: So what sparked your interest in WW2? [Re: DBond]  
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I think when you reach an age where you realize it was only a few decades ago and that isn't a long time, really, whereas before it seemed like ancient history. And wondering why my grandfathers never spoke about it.
You reach an age where you can imagine things better and the emotion that must come from those events.

That's when the movies got watched, tried to see through the Hollywood some, but also enjoying them as heroic flicks.
Later, WWII was hugely popular in games, so it became interactive. Some more than others, but you start to appreciate how hard it is to outwit and defeat an enemy--and this was just in a friggin game with no real cost for a loss.


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