agreed. awesome story. i love listening to these gents.
my grandfather is same way. grewup on a cowtown riding horses and herding cows in in the late 30's, then got sent to world war 2. said he wanted to be on the submarines, but couldn't fit inside, was too tall(6'5)..so he was assigned to drive the amphibious little cargo ships with the front drop ramps back and forth from the 'ship' to the beach.(these werent the samll ones eveyone sees in movies) was in the pacific...he would tell of how you could fit a tank and men in there and just ride the big waves into the beach, drop them off, then full reverse till past the waves and then turn around for another load....problem was if you turned around too soon, waves would flip your boat over, and if you got 'beached' that was an easy, but long, fix..just turn the props on, kick out all the sand you could, then wait for the water and boats weight to slide it back down a little ways then dig out the sand again till you hit the water...he never saw much combat i think, or he just never tells me about it, but I WILL NEVER FORGET this..when i was about 10 yrs old, real intersted in world war 2 and all the mechanical advances and stuff...mainly cuz ive never experienced it..but we were just sitting there for lunch at his table with my mom and grandma checking out my grandpa's silver coins hes collected throughout ww2...he was telling me about how his shipwas on break as the japanese were going to surrender since we just deoped the atom bomb a couple days before...he said something to the effect of ...we went there...(im thinking japan's harbor for the signing)... to Hiroshima after they droped the bomb...there was nothing left .... im in total shock ...he had never said that nor had oanyone metntioned it before,,,i dont think his friends even knew..and he walked of into the other room to watch tv...i found out later from my mom that that was one of about three times he has ever mentioned that fact and that he has never ever described what he saw when he was there...ive seen pictures and all but to know that what he saw scard him so bad that he couldn't talk about it is almost sacary...
on a different note..ive never meet someone who could work metal or wood like he could...in the late 40's, on a bet!..he built what im told was one of the very first small personnel solid wood boats here near our section of the gulf coast...and i mean he turned his garage into a steamer and kept soaking the sheets of wood to slip the glue then bending the wood to the shape of the boat's hull...then he sold it...
had a middle aged machinst come by one time whod been working since he was 10...got to talking and my grandpa started telling him about all the machine work he did...built a air conditionar cab for his tractor from scatch... a second trailer that gets pulled behind the first hay trailer , but is easier to drive because the wheels follow the exact same track as the wheels on the first trailer.(80 feet long with both also)..and had just built his own new flatbed with a back up camera for hooking up to trailer for his farm truck...
i believe the machinst's comments was"is there anything you haven't built????"..lol
i love my grandpa
jordan
heres some pics of his flatbed he made..last one is the camera...