WWII Photos and Documents

[SSMN]

Troubles carried much more than tools. Taken near Nuremburg, this one is titled "Tired and dirty soldier with liberated keg of beer"

[SSMN]

On April 20, 1945 Combat Command B of the 11th Armored captured an infantry school and Pz Jager school at Graffenwohr. The supply depot captured along with the schools yielded the largest chemical weapons and other equipment found during the war.

Of course John and Towhead III were there. 3,000,000 artillery rounds of mustard gas, 2,000 88mm rounds, 1,500 parachutes, 5,000 vests and overcoats, 500 first aid kits, 20 radios, 2,000 tubes, and 1,000 headsets were captured.

Here is a photo of John trying on one of the parachutes. I still have the parachute.

Titled "Trying on a captured parachute, Lt. Graf on the ground, notice one of the packages that I sent home in the shop truck along with a keg of beer"

[SSMN]

When an engine blew up, they would pull over, work through the night overhauling it, then spend the next day catching up.

Entitled "Yours truely overhauling the boom truck"

[SSMN]

Simply titled "German flags I laid on the street"

[SSMN]

Please keep in mind that due to the speed of the battle across Europe, support units constantly came under fire from bypassed SS units. and in some cases were wiped out. In any case, firefights were common.

If these offend, I will remove, of course

"My first dead Kraut. Ambushed us, got him with my machinegun".

[SSMN]

"Our tanks entering Coburg. April 10, 1945"

[SSMN]

Waiting for negative comments before posting more.

[jack404]

not from this side , i say post away , graphic its not , educational it is , but yeah dont post graphic pic's we all have families .. but this is reality and should never be forgotten , how much people gave up for the freedoms we have now , and how evil evil really is and how we all must stand ready to defend what we have against evil in its many forms ..

post away SSMN ,

[SSMN]

It's not so much graphic photos as it might be offensive to read his words. I'm not inclined to post the photos without his actual words.

The graphic photos will not come until the end when he was one of the first into Mauthausen. They are are heartbreakingly graphic and they may not make it to the screen.

But for now with few exceptions they will all be interesting and informative, I think.

[SSMN]

Another shot on the same day. Pulling into Coburg They tied on gear wherever they could.

[SSMN]

Young tankers like this went up against German tanks that were twice their size. No fear in this young mans eyes. Imortality of youth.

Titled "Country Davis, one tough tanker, Fulda, Germany".

[SSMN]

And on the other side. Enemies or not this was just a kid. Very sad.

Titled: "Got this one with 15 shots from my carbine".

[SSMN]

German halftrack and 155

[SSMN]

Titled "Liberated beer kegs. Nuremburg, Germany.

[SSMN]

Good night. Midnight in Florida

[permafrost]

SSMN.
Getting to see this war depicted from the soldier on the ground is so much better than the canned and edited stuff we've all seen. The horror and humour just as it was honestly felt and experienced in the moment comes through vividly. I want to thank you for the pictures.

[savage170]

Thanks for sharing the photos . I really enjoyed looking at them and the history that goes with them

[SSMN]

Thank you. I'm glad a few have enjoyed them. If you want more, I can post more.

[dcriner]

Yes, please post more - they are fascinating history. I would be interested in some additional background, too. Was your uncle a mechanic before he went into the service? What happened to him? Tell us the name of your book.

Did you just scan the original snapshots? Were all the photos taken by your uncle, I assume? I presume his captions were written on the back of each print.

Thanks!
Doug

[permafrost]

Definitely more!

[SSMN]

As you can see on the Bronze Star citation, his name was John Walter Oberstar but he was called "Sundown" by his wartime team. I assume due to the fact that he rescued a white stallion from becoming civilian food at some point in Europe. He called it "Tex" and trailed it behind their service trucks until VE day. He then gave it to a little girl in Austria. I will post a pic of Tex.

I don't know if he knew anything of being a mechanic before the war but I suspect just the usual teenage bit needed to keep his jalopy running.

He took more than 500 photos as they fought across Europe for which I am thankful. I am still amazed at his presence of mind to keep shooting with a camera, often when under heavy fire and certainly with artillery or bullets striking close by . He mostly sent home undeveloped film which was developed by my aunt in Minnesota and all put into an album.
Immediately, within months of his return in October of 1945, he sat down and wrote a description of each photo on the back. He did it as if the scene was minutes old giving me the feeling of being there as well.

In the first photo he is in the rear, far right. In the second, he was in the front middle. After a while, I knew the names of his team members as if I actually knew them. The Packard is identified as a brand new captured vehicle and they added it to their maintenance convoy along with Tex. For years as a boy, I wondered why he had what he called his "work car" and never understood his attachment to it until viewing these photos many years later. He probably searched for years after the war until he had found a twin to his wartime Packard.

I scanned all the photos and culled perhaps 300 or so which I placed in folders on my computer. The full complement of photos and documents is on disk and saved in a separate location. The amazing thing is that he saved everything, every weekend pass, every receipt, every letter every scrap of paper that came through his hands.

His bedtime stories told to me as a small boy and later as a young adult were many and varied and often accompanied by objects proving their veracity like the parachute, swords from a museum, a PPK taken from an SS prisoner which I still have and which spurred my interest in researching and recently writing a book. There were stories of being the first into a Schweinfurt ball bearing factory, captured airports from which German fighters had just departed. If you remember the movie "Kelly's Heroes". Well it really happened and the bank loot may still be buried in what for more than 50 years was East Germany and inaccessible. Liberating Mauthausen of course, was something that never left him and I think haunted him until he died (1975).

He had no children of his own b ut raised three stepsons. He treated all of us, his nephews like his own sons and to me was an unforgettable charachter in my life.

There were a few official photos of commanding officers and lots of bound handouts with photos from postwar reunions, but for the most part he took them all. Obviously they passed their cameras around as he is in many of the photos.

[SSMN]

Titled "Recovery vehicle waiting to pick up knocked out tank. Taking heavy fire when this picture taken".

[SSMN]

"Two at one time. Jerries shooting at us and running after I shot up their truck with my machinegun. Killed them both"

[SSMN]

And then, amazingly, during lulls in their battle advance, there would be incongruous scenes.

First photo titled: "Small German boy showed up in our carpark"
Second photo titled: "Civilians beside Towhead Bayreuth April 15, 1945"

Once they realized we were not a threat to civilians, they became curious.

So they had pockets of SS wanting to kill them and civilians wanting take a closer look.

[SSMN]

Recovering a tank near Hildburghausen. Bridge gave way.