Comments on: How my father invaded Europe on D-Day https://gregladen.com/blog/2019/06/05/how-my-father-invaded-europe-on-d-day/ Wed, 05 Jun 2019 22:33:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: ppburns https://gregladen.com/blog/2019/06/05/how-my-father-invaded-europe-on-d-day/#comment-770458 Wed, 05 Jun 2019 22:33:39 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=31957#comment-770458 Very nice story about your dad. When D-Day happened my dad was already in Europe serving with the 349th Infantry Regiment in Italy. He was keeping lots of Germans busy down there and out of France. When the war ended in Europe they put him on a ship and sent him out to the Pacific to be part of the Invasion of Japan. Fortunately for him (and me) it ended up just being a nice cruise to the Philippines.

Like a lot of WW2 vets he didn’t like to talk about the war much. One story he did share was about Crossing The Line. This is the ceremony (actually a hazing ritual) sailors go through when you cross the equator for the first time. He always carried a laminated card around in his wallet that proclaimed that on August 24 1945 he was “Gathered to Our Fold and Duly Initiated as A TRUSTY SHELLBACK and Introduced to the Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep, DOMAIN OF NEPTUNUS REX Having Crossed the Equator on Board the USS GENERAL O.H. ERNST.”

]]> By: dean https://gregladen.com/blog/2019/06/05/how-my-father-invaded-europe-on-d-day/#comment-770437 Wed, 05 Jun 2019 21:35:57 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=31957#comment-770437 Very interesting story. And, when I saw this:

but he was not allowed into the glider corps.

I thought “great news for him” — as you pointed out at the end. The Air Zoo here in town had a replica of those gliders (many were built in Michigan). Not something you’d put a lot of trust in if you needed to get into it.

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