Grandpa's stories about his fights ...

My great-grandfather saw the lights of WW2 as a soldier in the 2nd Bombing Flottila Guard Company. He had the pleasure of visiting very intersting places like Stalingrad and the Don's Turn. Few of his war stories reached me unfortunatelly but what I can tell you is that the only thing that he ust to talk about was the coldness of the russian winters, the partisan attacks and their miraculous escape from Stalingrad.
But as my great-grandfather had it easy, what I am about to say beats the understanding of warfare.
Another relative of mine, whas a school teacher in those days and entered the war as a subleutenant of administration (intendenta ). He goes for a walk to Russia were fatality he is captured by the Russians. Being a relative of mine he escaped and was decorated with Coroana Romaniei in rank of Knight with the Virtutea militara ribbon and a german decoration which did not arrive to me. after 23 aug. 1944 he falls prisoner to the germans and remains the to the end of the war. after the instalation of the communists he is decorated with the RPR Star 5th Class, Eliberarea de sub jugul fascist medall and 2 Soviet medalls.
COOOOOOOOOOOL

HONOR ET PATRIA

Ml. B.

Hi all! Nice site here!
Sadly I don't have much to tell.
My grandfather from my father was a veteran of the Second Balkan War (!) and of the great war. In the second world war he was drafted, but did not take active part. He died sometime before I was born so the only war story I know comes thru my father: He was a cavalry men in the Second Balkan War and they had a very tough officer that made the lives of the soldiers a nightmare. In the only fight they had while on road to Sofia they charged with lances some bulgarians and after the officer spiked a men he got a mental breakdown and became insane.
My other grandfather died when I was a child and despite the fact he used to tell me his war stories I don't remember much. He was a machine gunner and he told me that the russians were hungry and drunk when attacking and the romanians fired their machinguns killing many of them until they needed to change the barrels because of overheating.

is it possible to somehow find out more details about your relative who fight in the ww2 ? ... i whant to post few words about my grandfather and i wish i can say more about him, some kind of romanian war archive ? ... if not i will post what i remember about him.

See this:

http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=2480

Those were the classic russian "human wave" attacks. According to many german veterans, like Sajer, the russians also used human wave infantry attacks for "de-mining" purposes, so that their armor, which followed behind, did not have to worry about field mines.

It's really incredible that some russian commanders had such complete disregard for their soldiers.

That's not so correct...
An anti personal mine,doesnot do any damage to a tank.
And anti tank mines ,are not exploding when a soldier who is about 70-80 kg,but on more then 300 kg.
Of course that after a few years ,an anti tanbk mine can became instable,and explode almost at any weight.

mabadesc, it is not certain if Sajer was actually a German soldier during WWII and if his Forgotten soldier is fiction or not. Personally I doubt that such a practice existed. For trying to understand the way the Red Army fought the war, recent works, published in the 90s, are a better choice ober books published during the cold war.

Hi Victor, Hi C-2.

I'm aware of the controversy around Sajer's book.

Regarding the existence of Soviet human wave attacks in WW2, I don't think either one of you can contradict me. They are well documented, as I'm sure you know.

Regarding the "peculiar" de-mining technique, it's definitely a more questionable issue. However, it was recently used by the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war, according to a publication by the US Marine Corps.
Whether the Soviets also used it in WW2 - I don't have any proof, so I'll retract my statement.

Iran-Iraq war:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/docs/3203/

I also thought I had read other accounts by WW2 veterans which describe this, but I can't think of any others besides Sajer off-hand. If I do, I'll make sure to let you know.

Thanks.

This post has been edited by mabadesc on December 27, 2005 04:15 pm

I disagree. The larger AP mines can blow off a track. Even if the crew can replace it quickly, they still need to get out of the vehicle to do it.

The antipersonal mine,is one that blows the foot of a soldier that wears an usual army boot.Generaly separate the foot from the ancle.
Not enought strainght to blow a tank track.

Here is the story of my grandfather, Captain (at the end of WW2) Virgiliu Baldescu. He died yesterday.

He was born in 1917. His father was a priest from Seaca, Olt County, and a Senator in the Romanian Parliament in the inter-war period. One of the brothers of his father was Gen. Radu Baldescu, who commanded the 18th Infantry Division in the Crimea and the Kalmuk Steppe.

My grandfather graduated the War Academy in 1939 as an engineer officer. Soon after he graduated he was sent somewhere close to the Western border. The war was coming and King Carol II made desperate efforts to build fortifications and infrastructure on that border (the so-called Carol line). According to my grandfather, the Carol line was a joke, it existed mostly on paper. My grandfater had the task to build an airfield in a village (i forgot the name but it started with B..).

Before the airfield was completed, he was suddenly sent to the Eastern border. When he reported to his new commander, he found out that Basarabia had to be evacuated quickly because of the Soviet ultimatum. His task was go with a truck and retreive transmission equipment from the Bassarabian airfields before the Soviets seized them. He went and saved most of the equipment but, somewhere on the way back, some Jewish civilians with communist flags opened fire on his truck. He was not hurt but, after he returned to his unit, he discovered a bullet hole in one of his sleeves. He went back to the commander and told him that he wants to quit the army. In my granfather's opinion it was a shame to abandon a Romanian province without a fight and to allow civilians to fire at the army without being allowed to retaliate. The commander convinced him to stay and assured him that the army will have a chance to liberate Basarabia soon.

When Romania entered WW2, my grandfather was attached to the 3rd Army Headquarters and his task was to set up forward transmission positions. He entrered the main city of Bucovina, Cernauti, with one of the first units. He recalls that the airfield in Cernauti was filled with Soviet airplanes destroyed on the ground (he told me that most of the airplanes were I-16 Rata and another aircraft type that looked similar to the Fiesler Storch).

During the 3rd Army's advance into Russia in 1941, he was sent one day to set up a transmission point in a village close to the front line, with a truck and his platoon. While driving to the village they encountered the forward positions of the Romanian infantry and the soldiers told them that the village is not occupied and may still be in enemy hands. The soldiers adviced him to abort his mission but my grandfater wanted to try. The village proved to be free of enemy soldiers and his platoon set up the forward transmission point. After a couple of hours, they noticed an enemy infantry company that was coming to occupy the village. Since they were unarmed (only one soldier had a rifle and my grandfather had his officer pistol), his soldiers wanted to flee. My grandfather convinced them to stay. They let the Soviets enter the village and then started to scream and fire their only two weapons. The Soviets thought they were ambushed by a superior enemy and they surrendered. Some of them were Romanian ethnics from Basarabia.

After a while the Soviets relalized that their company was captured or destroyed and they started to bombard the village with artillery. After a night of bombardment the Romanian infantry came and relieved them. (Earlier in this thread i posted a different version of this story. That was only an innacurate version that i remembered from my grandfater's stories, i deleted it.)

After the death of FM Schorner, the commander of the German 11th Army (he landed with his airplane in a mined field), the Romanian Army set up a special de-mining unit especially tasked to de-mine airfields and possible landing spots. My grandfather was the commander of this unit. This way he met some important commanders, like Antonescu, Petre Dumitrescu or von Manstein. He told me that the Soviet mines were very primitive, simple wooden boxes filled with explosives, but very hard to detect with metal detectors. After demining, they used the explosives to fish in the nearby rivers.

During this time he also slept in many Russian villages. According to him, the Russian civilians were friendly and happy to be occupied by Romanians instead of German troops. He slept in village houses with his pistol on the table, without any fear that the Russians will kill him in its sleep.

In 1942 he was assigned to "Regimentul de transmisiuni aero" (Aero-transmissions Regiment) and sent back to Romania, to train new officers. He continued his training duties until the end of the war.

After the war he was kicked out of the army. Together with his father and one of his brothers, he was arrested and sent to the Danube-Black Sea Canal. His father died there but my grandfather was released after a while. He worked as a railway engineer until he was pensioned. He always hated the communists and he was very happy to live the Revolution in 1989. He was also a supporter of ex-king Mihai, but only until Mihai sided with the PSD (ex-communists) party.

My grandfater's awards:
- Carol I Centennial Medal (1939)
- Order of the Crown, Knight, with "Militay Virtue" ribbon (1941)
- Crusade against communism medal (1942)
- WW2 Commemorative Cross

This post has been edited by dragos03 on December 29, 2005 01:10 am

Sorry to hear about your grandfather Dragos. Dumnezeu sa-l ierte.

The airfield in Transylvania you mentioned earlier was probably Balomir.

R.I.P

Dumnezeu să-l ierte!

Dumnezeu sa-l odihneasca in pace!