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WWII Eccentric Heroes

Story

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priestyboy said:
Now this guy was a character and as far as his WWII time, was an eccentric hero.

Tangentially, the original Hell's Angels were veterans who couldn't adjust back to civilian life.
http://www.missoulian.com/specials/hellsangels/ha02.html
...many believe the original Angels were members of the U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division, an elite group of paratroopers trained to rain death on the enemy from above, drifting in behind the lines of battle.

They called themselves the Hells Angels because they flew on silk wings into hell itself, bringing a brutal hope for peace with 20 pounds of TNT strapped to each leg. The nickname was a badge of honor, a mark of invincibility, a wartime emblem indicating the toughest of the tough. It was a totem to ward off the worst.

Not surprisingly, a handful of those original Hells Angels - along with many other returning soldiers who had awakened to the nightmare of war - found it difficult to settle into the half-sleep of the American Dream. After living on the edge so long, they found only a depressing fatalism and monotony in jobs, family, mortgages, college, suburbia and cookie-cutter houses with white-picket fences.

And so they rode. Motorcycles were cheap in the mid-1940s, sold as military surplus, and they offered a certain wild peacetime freedom not unlike the wartime skies of Europe. Soon, individuals gathered into groups, sharing weekends when they rode hard and partied harder.

But when Monday came, not everyone went home. Some stayed, turning the weekend motorcycle club into a surrogate family of full-time brothers.

Two of the first such fraternities were the Pissed Off Bastards and the Booze Fighters, groups that established early the notoriety of the outlaw biker image. In 1947, at an American Motorcycle Association convention in the drowsy town of Hollister, Calif., the Pissed Off Bastards rode in drunk, wild and destructive, landing as if behind enemy lines with a belly full of TNT. The local sheriff later described the scene as "just one hell of a mess."
 

Smithy

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EDIT - I have just realised that it said eccentric in the title so I've taken mine out. Humblest apologies for my sloppy reading of the the topic!
 

Harp

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Pvt Eddie Slovik, US Army: Executed by order of Gen Eisenhower
for desertion and cowardice.

His death caused sufficient uproar so as to halt several pending
field executions; thereby saving other men whose sentences were
later commuted to imprisonment.
 

WH1

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My favorite Marine Legend

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Diamond

Master Gunnery Sergeant Lou Diamond, United States Marine Corps
World War I veteran of the 6th Marines at Belleau Wood, The Great Mortar Man-legend has it he sank a japanese destroyer at Guadalcanal by dropping a mortar round down its smoke stack.

Wore a goatee and moustache while serving. Terrified officers and enlisted alike. A Marines Marine.

Semper Fidelis!
 
And how could we forget my sig's reference, a man who not only frequented battlefields completely unarmed while being a Primary Target, but also entered Japan under the same conditions to finalize arrangements for the surrender; who believed so much in us owing a debt of honor in the Philippines that he went head-to-head with the C-in-C, his own cousin, over it.

I refer, of course, to the colorful, controversial genius of MacArthur.
 

farnham54

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Fletch said:
Why do I think there's a lot less room for eccentricity in today's highly regimented war machine? I can't imagine the War On Terror tolerating such mavericks and kooks. Too much a battle of politics and loyalty. A war of minds with a toll in bodies.

Maybe so, but Swarchkopff (Sp?) Of GW1 fame was quite the character.

Reporter: "Do you have a plan of action, General?"

Stormin' Norman: "Yes. We are going to surround the enemy and we are going to kill them"

It is rumored that the Fox News guys gulped, the CNN guys wet their pants, and the BBC took notes ;)

As far as eccentric WWII heroes, pick ANYONE from the Airborne. You had to be a little eccentric to be willing to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, no?

Cheers
Craig
 

cheaterome

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The Wingnut said:
Mike Gladytch and the other Polish nationals flying Thunderbolts were far more eccentric than their U.S. counterparts...you see a bit of that in 'Battle of Britain'.


Oh that's a good one .
If you have read Robert Johnson's Thunderbolt Book, you get a REALLY good idea of how crazy they were and how they wanted to destroy the enemy without regard to their own life even.

Jerome
 

warbird

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I have read much about both. I'm not sure I would ever say one was more eccentric than the other. They were both prima-donnas, along with McArthur of course.

Monty was extremely strange and yet he was very effective. Eisenhower had his hands full trying to control those two for certain.

Like every military leader, he had his miscalculations, but overall he was a brilliant field commander and master strategist.
 

dhermann1

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More heroes

Well, speaking of paratroopers, the same can be said of submariners. You gotta be bleeping NUTS to go down in one of those things!!!
On a lighter note, my parents met in Washington DC during the war when they were both sergeants in the Marines, working on the Leatherneck Magazine. They had a good buddy by the name of Fred Lasswell, who after the war went back to his civilian job of being the artist for Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. He did a strip for the Leatherneck called "Hashmark", about the proverbial goofball loser Gyrene. Fred was definitely a character, and a hero to a lot of people, too.
 

WH1

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dhermann1 said:
On a lighter note, my parents met in Washington DC during the war when they were both sergeants in the Marines, working on the Leatherneck Magazine. They had a good buddy by the name of Fred Lasswell, who after the war went back to his civilian job of being the artist for Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. He did a strip for the Leatherneck called "Hashmark", about the proverbial goofball loser Gyrene. Fred was definitely a character, and a hero to a lot of people, too.

What did your folks do for Leatherneck? Do you happen to have any articles, photos or other memorabilia from their service in the Marine Corps? If so we would enjoy seeing it.
My great uncle and great aunt also met in DC during the war. He was a 2nd Lt in the army on his way to the ETO, as an FO for pattons 3rd army, she was an ensign in the Navy. Unfortunately I didn't hear the story until 2 years ago at his funeral. I hope you have saved their stories to pass down to your children.
 

dhermann1

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Leatherneck stuff

Well, I have my mom's green cap, slightly moth eaten, and my dad's "piss cutter", plus a lot of brass. Also her leather uniform hand bag, in not tip top condition. But I also have bound volumes of both the State side and Pacific edition of the magazine from 1944 and 1945. I grew up poring over these books. I'm pretty sure a lot of my "vintage" inclinations were developed there. Leatherneck magazine was considered the best magazine produced in the USA during those couple of years, and that included Time, Life, etc., etc. Great art and layout (that's what my dad did) and great writing. Many big name illustrators were there, including John Clymer and Tom Lovell. Cartoonist Fred Lasswell, who went back to his civilian job drawing Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, sportscaster Ernie Harwell, and writer Leon Uris also were contributors. New Yorker cartoonist Bill O'Brian was my dad's best man. My mom started out in the circulation department but couldn't stand it. She locked herself in a closet until they promised to give her another job. She wound up doing the Letters to the Editor column, aka "Sound Off", which she was great at.
As soon as I figure out how to get images uploaded, I'll send you all some pix.
I think it might be hard to scan the pages, but I'll try to get some of it out there.
BTW, my (former) avatar, which I just stuck up the other day, is a detail from a shot of a random guy looking at the Leatherneck office window on 14th St, in Washington. You can just barely see the name Leatherneck over his shoulder in the window.
 

SpitfireXIV

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how about Johnnie Johnson? he had, what 35 + kills, and legend has it, he used to strap kegs on the underside of his wings for the guys back at the airfield! :eusa_clap
 

Naphtali

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Colonel Max "Two Gun" Shapiro commanded a black transportation and maintenance unit in ETO, circa 1944-45.

His claim to be on this thread?

As the war was ending, he ordered members of his command to break into a bank in southern Germany. With the proceeds from the bank job, his men lived like royalty for several months. Each soldier would draw two hundred dollars (equivalent) prior to going on nightly liberty. With their extravagant entertainment budgets, the GIs suffered no indignities from the Germans. The only rule was to not get so sloppy that MPs entered the equation.

The system broke down when a soldier was taken into custody by MPs. That soldier ratted out the command. Shapiro was "invited" to resign.
 

Story

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Naphtali said:
Colonel Max "Two Gun" Shapiro commanded a black transportation and maintenance unit in ETO, circa 1944-45.

His claim to be on this thread?

As the war was ending, he ordered members of his command to break into a bank in southern Germany. With the proceeds from the bank job, his men lived like royalty for several months. Each soldier would draw two hundred dollars (equivalent) prior to going on nightly liberty. With their extravagant entertainment budgets, the GIs suffered no indignities from the Germans. The only rule was to not get so sloppy that MPs entered the equation.
.

Sounds like the inspiration for KELLY'S HEROS.
 

Cobden

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My personal favourite eccentric is Adrian Carton de Wiart, VC. In the first World War he lost an arm and an eye and suffered many more injuries besides and led his men into battle carrying a polo stick (as he was worried he'd shoot one of his own men in anger).

In WWII, by which time he was a Lt-General he was captured by the Italians, and made five escape attempts - one time evading capture for over a week by disguising himself as an Italian peasant, which was pretty good going considering he was a one eyed, one armed, man in his 60's with multiple injuries and no knowledge of Italian. He was released as part of the negotiations for Italies surrender in 1943, but apon being told he would need civilian clothes, bawled at them that he didn't want "A bloody Gigolo suit". He went on the serve in the far east as Churchill's personal representative. On one occaision he was sent on a good-will mission to China in 1945, taking supplies of Malt Whiskey to the people. Of course, with him on the aeroplane- it had to crash, and he broke his back- but survived, and not a drop of Whiskey was lost!
 

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