P-47 Last Seen Trailing Smoke KIA Luxembourg

[JDK]

Now the current owner has the rest of the story to keep with the set. It's good to find out what really happened.

 

JD

[ViewfinderGyrene]

Wonderful four pocket. Sadly his is one of those stories that may never be completed. May his memory, and whatever the final events of his life were, be ever memorialized by this group! Thanks for posting.

[manayunkman]

BTT

[jpz120]

Oh, wow. This is my grandfather’s cousin. I grew up hearing the story of Paul being KIA soon before the war ended and my grandfather felt a lot of guilt over that - he signed up with the Air Corps to go with Paul overseas but he was still in training/an officer took a liking to him so he was never sent overseas. Thank you for all your research and info!

[manayunkman]

17 hours ago, jpz120 said:

Oh, wow. This is my grandfather’s cousin. I grew up hearing the story of Paul being KIA soon before the war ended and my grandfather felt a lot of guilt over that - he signed up with the Air Corps to go with Paul overseas but he was still in training/an officer took a liking to him so he was never sent overseas. Thank you for all your research and info!

What an interesting back story to this group and a testimony to suffering endured by all.

 

Thank you for joining the forum to share this information.

[Big Iron]

On 5/13/2024 at 11:50 AM, manayunkman said:

What an interesting back story to this group and a testimony to suffering endured by all.

 

Thank you for joining the forum to share this information.

Do you still own this jacket? The guy who commented earlier (neighbor of brother) sadly never came back to elaborate. Did you find out more information? I love these AAF uniforms. I have one to a Hugh Hogan who was killed by flak over the Netherlands (plane hit by flak and exploded over the North Sea). 

 

Thanks for sharing this, it is really neat to see.

[manayunkman]

28 minutes ago, Big Iron said:

Do you still own this jacket? The guy who commented earlier (neighbor of brother) sadly never came back to elaborate. Did you find out more information? I love these AAF uniforms. I have one to a Hugh Hogan who was killed by flak over the Netherlands (plane hit by flak and exploded over the North Sea). 

 

Thanks for sharing this, it is really neat to see.

It’s been over a decade since I took care of this group.

 

For some reason I never took pictures of his dog tags, the ring used to hang from them.

 

My father lived in The Hague as a boy and watched the Germans attack the allied bombers from his roof. 

[jpz120]

That gives me hope that one day we'll find it! I'd love our family to be reconnected with it one day.

 

That's an incredible, and I'm sure traumatizing, experience your father went through!

[manayunkman]

1 hour ago, jpz120 said:

That gives me hope that one day we'll find it! I'd love our family to be reconnected with it one day.

 

That's an incredible, and I'm sure traumatizing, experience your father went through!

My father claims it was the most exciting time of his life.

 

He wrote a book about it called, The Nazis Can Really Ruin Your Golf Game.

 

Should have been called The Nazis Can Really Ruin Your Life.

 

 

[jpz120]

I'll have to check that out! The golf game makes it more humorous - one of my final projects for undergrad was studying humor and the Holocaust (but the humor is similar of those who survived, especially growing up in such a chaotic environment).

[manayunkman]

22 minutes ago, jpz120 said:

I'll have to check that out! The golf game makes it more humorous - one of my final projects for undergrad was studying humor and the Holocaust (but the humor is similar of those who survived, especially growing up in such a chaotic environment).

Even though my father forgave the Germans and did business with them for many years after the war the sarcastic title has a tinge of anger.

 

My father passed in 2017 and was just a boy during the war.

 

Some of the things that happened to him weren’t the type of thing that should happen to a boy.