Grandfather's WWII bootcamp post card sold on Ebay

[MickM]

One of my brothers sent me these pics today. He googled our Grandfather's(avatar) name for some reason and a link to ebay popped up. A seller of old postcards got this and my brother bought it.
My Grandfather (Pop-Pop) to us kids enlisted in the Navy at 28, already married and with a son. He sold his gas station and joined up without even telling his wife (also in avatar) but that is a whole 'nother story.
Anyway, he sent this card to my Great Grandfather,his FIL who was working in the shipyards in VA. I have a few boxes of old pictures of them and other family from maybe the '30s onward but for this to come up out of nowhere just seemed crazy for lack of a better word.

 

[trapdoor2]

Pretty cool coincidence! Glad y'all snagged it.

I have a letter my Dad sent his mom in 1940 from his station on the USS Yorktown in Pearl Harbor, Christmas of 1940. He would have been just 18, turning 19 in March of '41. Typical teenager writing home to ma.

I posted my grandfather's letter home from WWI here last year (?). Great finding stuff like that.

 

[MickM]

Looks like it says I miss Pat and Larry a lot but it says I miss Dot (Dorothy-wife) and Larry (my Dad) a lot......
Dot, my Grandmother is in my avatar with him.

 

[schmee]

Wow, very cool!

 

[Sparky472]

Amazing and special find.

 

[Ryan0594]

One of my brothers sent me these pics today. He googled our Grandfather's(avatar) name for some reason and a link to ebay popped up. A seller of old postcards got this and my brother bought it.
My Grandfather (Pop-Pop) to us kids enlisted in the Navy at 28, already married and with a son. He sold his gas station and joined up without even telling his wife (also in avatar) but that is a whole 'nother story.
Anyway, he sent this card to my Great Grandfather,his FIL who was working in the shipyards in VA. I have a few boxes of old pictures of them and other family from maybe the '30s onward but for this to come up out of nowhere just seemed crazy for lack of a better word.
View attachment 997463 View attachment 997464

What an amazing tale! What was his fate? (if you don't mind me asking)

 

[buster poser]

The postmark date, wow. Significant period in the war. Fantastic find

 

[toomuchfun]

I guess this can be noted as things money can buy. Family memories are a rare treat, and that is a great one. Congratulations.

I like the address, that's all that was needed in those days.

I have an old oddball war relic from my grand-mother. After WWI I guess they had surplus grenades and some ambitious marketing man came up with the idea to make a bank out of one. They teamed up with War Saving Stamps and offered them to as a package. They ground a slit in the side that will only let dimes pass through. I imagine the stamps may have been sold that way. The stenciling is original.

You'll probably see it on ebay someday, here it is:

 

[Fretting out]

Cool!

I just did a job at the old bainbridge base, right down the street from me, of course it’s mostly cleared out now

They are about to put a warehouse there that’s about the size of a couple football fields and we fixed up a building to be used as a sales center for warehousing (or something)

Back when my father was growing up it was like a city in itself with street’s and movie theater

I didn’t realize how many navy folks had passed through there, met a guy from Ohio or was it Massachusetts? that had been there in the early 60’s, he stopped by while in town to see what had happened to the old base

That’s crazy finding it randomly like that

 

[RobRiggs]

That’s very cool. Glad the card made its way back to the family.

 

[Bob Womack]

How very cool! I live on the south side of Tidewater and a relative works at Norfolk Naval Shipyard. My luthier/tech who does all my work lives in Newport News, not far from Newport News Shipyard. My father was in the Navy at approximately the same time as your grandfather but was stationed at Chicago Navy Pier as a classified documents librarian, handling the classified radar manuals for the Navy radar school there.

When General George Patton visited Great Lakes Naval induction school during my father's training, my father was first in his class, carried the battalion's guidon, and received Patton's salute when the battalion passed in review. Fun fact!

Bob

 

[MickM]

What an amazing tale! What was his fate? (if you don't mind me asking)

Don't mind at all, thanks for asking. He wound up on this destroyer in the South Pacific that was hit by a Kamikaze plane. He completely recovered from being burned badly. https://www.hullnumber.com/DD-704.
He died in 1986 and over the years after his death I heard countless stories about him helping people and just doing the right thing. I know they are true because when we were kids in the summer, my brothers and I would rotate spending a week at a time with our Grandparents and they were the best times of my childhood. Anything we did together was fun whether fishing, fixing the car or well pump etc and he taught me to drive when I was about 12, way before any of my friends.
Years after he died my Grandmother told me that after healing and coming home from the war that he would wake up from really bad dreams re-living the attack but never shared it with me.

 

[Informal]

Too cool!

I'm pretty sure I posted about this years ago here, but I couldn't find it with a search.


Years ago (in the late 80's) my first real job, was working with a Dutch fellow, refinishing antiques.

A few years in, I was restoring an early 19th century roll top desk, and while disassembling it, I found over 2 dozen letters, from an American surgeon, who was writing his Father (who was also a surgeon) back in the States during WWI.

The contents of most, were beyond fascinating.... While most men's letters in that conflict, were heavily censored, I can only assume Medical officers mail.... did not receive the same censorship... In most of the letters, he went into graphic detail, the horrors he had to deal with, and discussed in great detail how demoralized and shattered he was.

I let the owner of the desk know of my findings, but they had bought it recently, and had no interest in them, So I kept most of them, and my boss kept a few as well.

I still have them, in a safe place... But I can't exactly pinpoint them at the moment, it's been years lol.

The picture I attached, is an envelope, which I never had the contents to, and is the only thing I didn't put away to preserve.

The handwriting is amazing, and as neat as it is.... It took forever to (somewhat) accurately read them.

 

[TheMicster]

Wow a really cool story, I'm glad you guys got it back to the family.

 

[burntfrijoles]

That’s amazing! Even more amazing is your grandfather sacrificing to serve at such a perilous time!

 

[Cjteleforum]

post deleted. No biggy, just thought better of it. Stuff about my own Grandad. Glad you found the card!

 

[MTPoteet]

"My Grandfather (Pop-Pop) to us kids enlisted in the Navy at 28, already married and with a son. He sold his gas station and joined up without even telling his wife."

That is quite the sacrifice.
Things were definitely different back then.
These states were certainly more united than they are in current times.
28 seems a little old to be enlisting (I enlisted at 17, in a different time) but men in this country had a sense of duty to their country back then.

That is amazing to sell your business, and not even tell your wife, and at that age.

I salute your Grandfather. And congratulations on finding the card and keeping it in the family.

 

[Short on cash]

You never know what you will find on eBay.
You made a great find there.

I found a high school year book that belonged to a close friend of my stepfather on eBay from the early 50's. Lots of notes about my step father as he was a jock, captain of the football team, quite popular in school. I found out alot about him from
that book.

Again, you never know what you will find !

 

[MickM]

post deleted. No biggy, just thought better of it. Stuff about my own Grandad. Glad you found the card!

Feel free to post your stories here about your Granddad, life, anything that this thread makes you remember.
EDIT: My brother just emailed me and said the card came from a Wisconsin ebayer.

 

[MickM]

"My Grandfather (Pop-Pop) to us kids enlisted in the Navy at 28, already married and with a son. He sold his gas station and joined up without even telling his wife."

That is quite the sacrifice.
Things were definitely different back then.
These states were certainly more united than they are in current times.
28 seems a little old to be enlisting (I enlisted at 17, in a different time) but men in this country had a sense of duty to their country back then.

That is amazing to sell your business, and not even tell your wife, and at that age.

I salute your Grandfather. And congratulations on finding the card and keeping it in the family.

Yea, 28, married with a 6 yr old son wasn't what the armed forces were looking for. The other 3 branches all turned him down the same day and the Navy too but when he told them what he did with his business and everything else, they took him.
It was around 1990 or so when my Dad told me this story and said that as quiet and unassuming as my Grandmother was, when he came home from the recruiter and told her what he did, she flipped. Read him the riot act up and down; said he could hear them "discussing" it well into the night. By then the deal was done, papers signed and off to boot camp and thus the postcard.