Grandpa's stories about his fights ...

My sincere condoleances, Dragos03.


Regarding the previous discussion on mines, C-2 stated that:

C-2, this is not generally the case.

The most extensively used german anti-tank mines - Tellermine 35, Tellermine 41, Tellermine 42, and the Wooden-box mine all have detonation pressure points varying between 150 - 300 pounds (70 - 130 kg).

If you consider an average soldier loaded with equipment and stepping on the mine while running - i.e. applying his weight along with downward vertical momentum on one foot - the detonation weight can easily be reached.

Thank you all for your kind words.

Dragos,

I would also liko to express to you my deepest sympathy at your Grandfather´s passing away. May he have now - after a long and heavy war during his lifetime - his inner peace which everybody is longing for.

What you wrote about his life was very touching.

Maybe someday you can write more about him and his activities. I think, you can be proud of him.

One of my relatives who died about a year ago was also born 1917 and also started a similar military career, maybe their ways crossed each other.

Greetings

Thank you Jivana, maybe i'll post some more about him. Sorry to hear about the death of your relative, maybe you can share his story with us.

Some more information and pictures of my grandfather.


A photo taken just before the war


The 1939 promotion of engineer officers

Military activity
- 1939-1942 - 2nd Lieutenant, Regimentul de geniu aeronautic (Air Engineer Regiment)
- 1942-1945 - Lieutenant, Regimentul Transmisiuni Aeronautice (Air Transmissions Regiment)
- 1945-1947 - Captain, detached to the Technical University in Bucharest
- 1947 - in reserve

He actually built more than one airfield. The one that i thought it started with "B" was in fact the Periam airfield in Timis county. My grandfather was sent there just after graduating. He was amazed when he arrived, since he was the only officer there, in charge of many men and vehicles. The situation must have been really desperate if they sent a young officer with no practical experience to build an airfield. He also built airfields in Lunca Steiului (Bihor county), Faget (near Lugoj), Husi and Barlad.

Thank you, dragos03,

and thank you also for sharing those wonderful photos you posted here. They show the human aspect of military life.

As soon as I find out more about my relative I´m going to share my experiences, too.

Greetings

my grandfather was a news technician("in hungarian Híradó technikus, i dont know the good English word for it"), from 1939-1946, he was only 17 when he became a soldier, his elder sister offered him to the Honvédség, cause their father, and mother died in 1936, and 1937, and she couldn't look after for him.

My other great-grand father(Jankovics György), and mother(Prokle Mária), and my graandmother(Jankovics Eleonóra) lived in Vojvodina,
My great-grandfather was a shoemaker who prepared boots for the partisans, but the end of the war my great-grandmother, my grandmother was raped(they got TBC from them, and my grandmother was only 16 years old), and they wanted to be shot my great grandfather into the river from a bridge, the Russian soldiers saved him from the Serb partisans cause they said "how the good workforce would be wasted", so he was taken onto some years into Siberia into a labour camp.
Maybee reason was this why they wanted to kill my great-grandfather: my great-grandmother liked hitler, and my grandmother had a Hitler-Jugend certificate with swastika, from the primary school ... but there was also a mas.
So after they migrated to Hungary, they lost their house, land, paints(György was a painter too)

My other Greaat-grandfather Csernus János fighted in the ww1 in Battle of Doberdo(Isonzo front). A bullet hit him that passed through his shoulder and his chin, when he healed he figthed again.


But all of them survived the war fortunately

Emil Ștefănescu, one of my grandmother's brothers who fought in ww2.(1942)

He was a POW for 6 years (in Rusia) and when he camed back from there he was very sick, he died at short time after that.
picture from my collection

This post has been edited by maiortitulescu on October 11, 2008 04:44 pm

another brother of my grandmother - Aurel Ștefănescu

Hey, one of my grandfathers was a sargent with the romanian mountain hunters. I remember telling me about one day after the fell of Odessa when they were pulled back from the front line and sent for a short break in Odessa. While in Odessa they were very disturbed to see romanian "jandarmi" stealing from public and private properties. They have been so much disturbed to see this that the mountain hunters beat up a few of those "jandarmi". Anyway... I don't have more info about that... but I remember how indignated my grandfather was about this. Later on (Nov. 41), my grandfather (the truck he was in) was ambushed by partisans and was severly injured. He escaped with hes life only because a german unit came to their help. He died at the age of 90, in 2005.

No mountain troops served in the 4th during the siege of Odessa. Most likely your grandfather was with another unit at the time.

I did not say he was in Odessa during the siege. I said after the fall of Odessa they were sent back from the front lines.

My grandmothers brother (he died about 10 yrs. ago) fought on the Eastern front. I was quite young when I left Romania and I remember some of the stories he tols of the war.
He was a gunner in an anti tank unit. He was Odessa and on the Don Bend. Hew swam accross the Don solo to escape encirclement. He was not wounded but he left for the front in 1941 and our family did not see him until 1944. My grandmother said his coat was full of bulletholes when he came back.
Some of the things I remember he said. He said Russian human wave attacks were ridiculous and you always feared them because there was a better chance you would run out of ammo before they ran out soldiers. Those charges didnt really succeed but if you couldnt resupply the front positions with enough ammo and quicky, the charges would then succeed.

My father-in-law is from Chiesd village, Salaj county, Romania, age 14 when romanian troops took back Transylvania in 1944. In his village were fightings between hungarian-german troops and romanian army and the village was under both sides artilery fire.
When my father-in-law was in the army in 1951 as border-guard, his CO asked them from were the soldiers are and when was answered that my father-in-law is from Chiesd, Salaj he remembered that he fought in that village.
The CO (major in 1951) remembered that he was in patrol mission toward a hill where was the heavilly defended manor of the local landlord ("grof"). He was advancing together with a soldier, thru forest, having in the line of sight the manor. At a certain moment they where halted by the shout "Alj meg!" or "Halt!" in hungarian language. The soldier droped his rifle, there were two hungarian soldiers poiting their rifles to the romanian patrol. The CO had two pistols in his longcoat pockets, he fake as he wanted to raise arms, but in that very moment he actually took the pistols and shoot deadly the two unaware enemies. Very short time after the shooting enemy mortar fire started and only luck made the romanian patrol not to be hurt. They ran back to romanian positions and gave the coordinates of local manor where was the mortar section and other armed forces and romanian artillery shelling started. The manor took fire and probably very few enemy troops escaped from the building and surounding. My father-in-law testify that he saw with his own eyes the enemy casualties at the manor those days.

I recently discovered this topic and I would like to say a few words about
my uncle, war, destiny and so on. I don’t know if it’s the proper topic.
My father's brother, Slt. Oprea Crețeanu, was born in 1915, he graduated the faculty of law. He was part of the 15th Artillery Regiment and he fought on the front for Basarabia.
During the battle for Odessa he was injured losing his sight. He was hit by a sniper in the head at the eye level, the bullet crossed through the head behind the eyes...
There were very difficult times after that, for the whole family. However, after a while, with a strong will and an extraordinary memory he continued to practice as a lawyer. A person assisted him for reading and note. He died in 1989.

He has been awarded with:
Virtutea militara de razboi cls a II -a
Medalia pentru Barbatie si Credinta cls a III-a
Medalia “ Cruciada impotriva comunismului” cu bareta “Odessa argintata”

This post has been edited by Alexandru C. on December 16, 2018 07:11 pm