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Iwo Jima flag raiser John Bradley with John Wayne during the filming of Wayne’s classic war film, The Sands of Iwo Jima. Bradley, along with Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon, played himself in the movie. His son would go on to write Flags of Our Fathers. Clint Eastwood directed the movie based on the book.

Bradley, a medic and civilian mortician, struggled with PTSD his entire adult life and rarely talked about the war after the film was released. This suffering veteran, directly linked to our country’s greatest war actors, symbolizes the void between Hollywood and the sad realities of war.

Unedited clips from the first US air raid over Germany

While you enjoy the holidays around a fire or out in the snow, consider what these men went through for you and yours…

Remembering Christmas 1944

When you warm your feet by the fire this holiday season, think of men who lived and fought in the snow for six weeks. As you’re opening your gifts, remember the men who asked for nothing except to survive. And as you sit down with loved ones for a bountiful Christmas meal, think of men so hungry and deprived of comforts that the scraps from your table would have seemed to them like a feast. While you spend time with friends and family, remember lonely, frozen soldiers whose only companion was death. And that was Christmas: 1944

Lady Lake veteran recalls difficulty digging foxholes during the Battle of the Bulge

On Christmas Day 1944, Don Schlimgen’s Army unit was at Reims, the cathedral city in northeast France.

Army honors WWII nurse for aiding U.S. troops during Battle of the Bulge

In the freezing winter of 1944, Augusta Chiwy traveled to Bastogne to spend Christmas with her father, and ended up tending U.S. soldiers wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. On Monday, the 101st Airborne Division formally recognized her contributions at a ceremony in Brussels, Belgium.

The Battle of the Bulge and Fighting Global Hunger

Hunger was everywhere. At Christmastime, a Belgian father published an open letter to General Eisenhower and the American soldiers. He thanked them for sharing food from their ration kits with hungry Belgian children.

Veterans, their admirers mark Battle of the Bulge anniversary

For the soldiers of the Battle of the Bulge, the climactic winter battle of World War II, the war was a two-front affair. There were two enemies: the German army and the weather, the most severe in Europe in many years. December 1944 through January 1945 was a hard time for soldiering.

This Christmas savor the peace, remember the war

Casualties on both sides were enormous, in both men and materiel. The Allies could replace them; the Germans at that point could not. At the tactical level, Cpl. Henry F. Warner near Dom Butgenbach Belgium knocked out two German tanks, then his anti-tank weapon jammed. He was firing his pistol at a third approaching tank, when the German driver suddenly backed up and withdrew. One of Warner’s shots had killed the commander, and the crew was unable to continue…Warner, who was killed in later fighting, received the Medal of Honor.

On 67th anniversary, survivors recall Battle of the Bulge: ‘We had our buddies’

Stan Saltz, just 19 at the time of the conflict, recalled the harsh winter conditions he and his fellow troops faced.

“You didn’t realize you were suffering,” said the Delray Beach resident, who still carries a photo of Santa, a German police dog he rescued that Christmas Eve. “My feet were frozen and I didn’t have enough clothes, but we had each other. We had our buddies.”

gunsandposes:

Jeremy Davies in Saving Private Ryan (1998).

"It’s hard to believe that I’m still alive, but this is just a note to let you in on the fact and to tell you that I am back in England for a few more days, having a tiny sliver of shrapnel taken out of my arm. A mortar shell landed right behind me, knocked me flat on my face, took off my helmet, and cut me in just one spot. Since the battalion aid station was only around the corner, I dropped in for repairs. They passed me on and on and out of France on an L.S.T. I hope to go back soon, for I owe the Germans several bullets and as many hand grenades as I can throw."

— David Webster

greatestgeneration:

Sometimes a private is still just a private. Even if he just captured you…

Going through all the old posts and this happens to be one of my favorites! This American private was probably hating life after capturing some German officers. The look on his face tells it all…

Storm of War by Andrew Roberts

It’s been awhile since we put out a recommended read here at GreatestGeneration.  Thankfully, we are coming back strong with a serious winner!

Storm of War by Andrew Roberts is by far the best complete history of World War II I have read since John Keegan’s The Second World War. I literally couldn’t put it down…which as good of an endorsement - alongside Keegan - that I can offer. 

Roberts, a senior British historian, has woven the political, economic, strategic, and personal horrors of the costliest war in human history into a riveting story that reads quickly. Some historians get lost in shipping lanes, what ifs, industrial facts and figures, or poignant stories from the Holocaust or battlefield. Roberts has found a way to put all of these subplots into a fast-paced history that reads like a novel.

After reading Storm of War you just might find yourself at dinner parties or keggers talking about Enigma codes, D-Day weather patterns, oil-starved Japan, and shell factory production numbers like its actually cool to talk about history in public. Trust us!

Buy: Amazon · Kindle · Barnes & Noble · Nook

David Webster drew the coolest strip map of all time depicting the Normandy campaign. He also itemized his packing list for Operation Varsity.