Robert Dalrymple *24/11/1923 + 13/11/07
Served with 42 RM Commando from Summer 1942 till Summer 1945. Trained in the UK, on a troop ship, and somwhere in North Africa, possibly Egypt. Landed on Sicily on the 3rd day, and saw some of Italy. Returned to England for the prepartion of D-Day, where some bright sod didn't inform the troops you needed to continue taking malaria tablets for few weeks after. He then contracted Malaria which kept him out of action until March 1945.
Part of me wishes he had gone on to D-Day. The man was a machine, and would have made Germans cry. Seriously, SS-manner in pillbox's would have cried at the sight of this man. But in the end, he avoided D-Day, and went on to...
...go back home, continue his joinery/undertaker business. He gave up the undertaker part a few years after WWII though. Any guess why?
He continued his good luck, raised a family and made his life. His, and my, only regret is that his loyal wife of 52 years, Mary, went before him.
Bert, Vestri se gero vestigium vos ut a verus vir.
Ein 'Teufel Dame' ist gestorben
Moderator: Commissar D, the Evil
Haen,
I am stunned that you would use a thread dedicated to my late grandfather, just to make a lame joke, or score a cheap point off me.
And I am disgusted at your lack of respect for a fellow fighting man. Does this stem from my crack about him making SS-manner cry? My grandfather belonged to a group of men who actually were elite - small, specialised and successful.
Die Sonne scheint noch - it a nice way of saying that the world will keep turning, no matter what. Does your apparent disdain of this quote have anything to do with its author?
I am stunned that you would use a thread dedicated to my late grandfather, just to make a lame joke, or score a cheap point off me.
And I am disgusted at your lack of respect for a fellow fighting man. Does this stem from my crack about him making SS-manner cry? My grandfather belonged to a group of men who actually were elite - small, specialised and successful.
Die Sonne scheint noch - it a nice way of saying that the world will keep turning, no matter what. Does your apparent disdain of this quote have anything to do with its author?
Jock
- Piet Duits
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Jock,
With all due respect to your late grandfather -something I couldn't read from the text- I think using the phrase about crying SS men in pillboxes and crying isn't really ... well ... understandable. Why would the SS men in their pillboxes (which SS men in what pillboxes by the way?)
Besides this, aren't you overreacting?
Piet
With all due respect to your late grandfather -something I couldn't read from the text- I think using the phrase about crying SS men in pillboxes and crying isn't really ... well ... understandable. Why would the SS men in their pillboxes (which SS men in what pillboxes by the way?)
Besides this, aren't you overreacting?
Piet
Nur für den Dienstgebrauch
With all due pespect, Piet, do you think I would have posted a lengthy post about someone I didn't care for?
So what if I posted some random comment about my rock of a grandfather being capable of making SS-manner cry? He was. He was a RM, and they pissed on the W-SS.
This is how Feldgrau has become. More about the alliances, and political opinions.
I'm this close to quitting here. Seems like the idiots have won.
So what if I posted some random comment about my rock of a grandfather being capable of making SS-manner cry? He was. He was a RM, and they pissed on the W-SS.
This is how Feldgrau has become. More about the alliances, and political opinions.
I'm this close to quitting here. Seems like the idiots have won.
Jock
-
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Jock,
I feel your pain and can understand your anger. Perhaps this way of showing honest grief is a Scottish thing not understood by some of our other European members.
Incidentally, my uncle also fought in the 3 campaigns that your grandfather did - Egypt, Sicily and Italy. He was one of the "D-Day Dodgers" although the fighting in Italy was probably just as tough. He wasn't in the RM though but the 8th Army.
Don't let a few thoughtless comments get you down.
My condolences on your loss.
Kind regards.
I feel your pain and can understand your anger. Perhaps this way of showing honest grief is a Scottish thing not understood by some of our other European members.
Incidentally, my uncle also fought in the 3 campaigns that your grandfather did - Egypt, Sicily and Italy. He was one of the "D-Day Dodgers" although the fighting in Italy was probably just as tough. He wasn't in the RM though but the 8th Army.
Don't let a few thoughtless comments get you down.
My condolences on your loss.
Kind regards.
You haven't won yet.Jock wrote:With all due pespect, Piet, do you think I would have posted a lengthy post about someone I didn't care for?
So what if I posted some random comment about my rock of a grandfather being capable of making SS-manner cry? He was. He was a RM, and they pissed on the W-SS.
This is how Feldgrau has become. More about the alliances, and political opinions.
I'm this close to quitting here. Seems like the idiots have won.
- Tom Houlihan
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- Contact:
Jock, having spent a good bit of time on the phone with HaEn, I have a feeling that his post was meant more to show that oft times offering our condolences does little to ease the pain.
I have great difficulty believing the man honestly wanted to insult anyone, let alone another veteran. That just isn't like him.
I have great difficulty believing the man honestly wanted to insult anyone, let alone another veteran. That just isn't like him.
A boy some sixty years ago, I saw in a local theater some of the first film-footage of the Ardennes offensive and counteroffensive. Something that has always stuck with me are the smiling, incredibly confident faces of Waffen-SS and Heer combatants who rode atop their Tiger tanks and armored vehicles into what proved an insurmountably negative situation, with heads and hearts held high for all the world to see. By Christmas 1944 Germany was all but finished on every front, and yet her soldiers still thundered into desperate, doomed combat bearing an enthusiasm few--if any--armies have ever displayed given so dark a situation. Sixty-three years after the so-called "Battle of the Bulge," and following a lifetime of interviewing or speaking with WWII combat veterans from numerous countries, I'm still amazed to hear aging Allied combatants refer to these German soldiers as perhaps the finest ever placed in the field during wartime. Likewise, in my decades' long love of study of the war, I've not once read a tale indicating where or how an opponent might have otherwise "pissed" on the Waffen-SS in battle. Regardless of how history will judge such men, it's a given that they were among the hardest-fighting, the most-dedicated organization of men ever to don military uniform, and I think it extraordinarily short-sighted to lay waste to W-SS survivors, particularly given that two of them freely or voluntarily frequent this webpage in order that the rest of us can listen and learn from them.
I fully understand Jock's love for his grandfather: My own father and seventeen of my aunts, uncles, and cousins served in the war, one of these a Luftwaffe ace of some significance. I've therefore never met a WWII veteran for whom I didn't harbor the highest respect--whether they be American, Briton, Japanese, Soviet, German, etc.
My dad fought the Japanese at Okinawa, the United States' costliest military encounter in it's 232-year history, and for years dad hated the Japanese with an unbridled passion. But were he alive today at 82, I feel quite certain that he wouldn't disparage them as he did sixty, fifty, forty, or even thirty years ago. Instead, he would likely shake hands with his former enemies and, if perhaps a little grudgingly, acknowledge them for their courage and skill in combat, and for their indisputable dedication to their homeland in WWII.
My highest regards for both Jock's grandpa and for Rudi, Haen, and Gerhard. I'm glad that they survived the war in that they may one day pass to a better world in much-deserved peace.
I fully understand Jock's love for his grandfather: My own father and seventeen of my aunts, uncles, and cousins served in the war, one of these a Luftwaffe ace of some significance. I've therefore never met a WWII veteran for whom I didn't harbor the highest respect--whether they be American, Briton, Japanese, Soviet, German, etc.
My dad fought the Japanese at Okinawa, the United States' costliest military encounter in it's 232-year history, and for years dad hated the Japanese with an unbridled passion. But were he alive today at 82, I feel quite certain that he wouldn't disparage them as he did sixty, fifty, forty, or even thirty years ago. Instead, he would likely shake hands with his former enemies and, if perhaps a little grudgingly, acknowledge them for their courage and skill in combat, and for their indisputable dedication to their homeland in WWII.
My highest regards for both Jock's grandpa and for Rudi, Haen, and Gerhard. I'm glad that they survived the war in that they may one day pass to a better world in much-deserved peace.
Another warrior passes and the world is a poorer place for it. Well...Europe is a poorer place. What a shame our parents' generation were sucked into that fratricidal maelstrom we call WW2. Had Jock's grandfather and his comrades been allowed to continue protecting the Pax Britannica while young men like Haen and his German comrades imposed a Pax Germanica upon the Bolshevik hordes in the East, American isolationists would have prevailed and the world might be a better place today, instead of being on its way to Hell in a handcart.
PK
PK
land under the water.
OK Jock;
If I stepped on your toes with that remark, I do apologize, I don't want to pee in anybody's porridge (another "joke")
Having been invited to join a group of U.S. veterans of the 82nd and 101st airborne, I can assure you that I have deep respect for these men.
No need to say that it this case they respect me.
"Die Sonne scheint noch" just triggerd a saying we used to say "long long ago" when someone made the lame remark ""Vergeet niet dat achter de wolken scheint de zon" (Don't forget that behind the clouds the sun is schining). The answer to that would be: "Yes and under the water is land too"; not much use for a drowning guy".
See ? nothing to do with disrespect, just a possibly misplaced witty remark.
Peace !
HN
If I stepped on your toes with that remark, I do apologize, I don't want to pee in anybody's porridge (another "joke")
Having been invited to join a group of U.S. veterans of the 82nd and 101st airborne, I can assure you that I have deep respect for these men.
No need to say that it this case they respect me.
"Die Sonne scheint noch" just triggerd a saying we used to say "long long ago" when someone made the lame remark ""Vergeet niet dat achter de wolken scheint de zon" (Don't forget that behind the clouds the sun is schining). The answer to that would be: "Yes and under the water is land too"; not much use for a drowning guy".
See ? nothing to do with disrespect, just a possibly misplaced witty remark.
Peace !
HN
joined forum early spring of 2002 as Haen- posts: legio :-)
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think !
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think !
Haen,
I realise I may have been hasty in my remarks, although I was rather sad, and drunk at the time. I appreciate your contribution, but would have expected some form of condolence.
'Die Sonne scheint noch' is a personal comment as to how I live my life. The sun will always rise, there will always be a new day.
Except of course, for my grandfather - whose contribution to the war was as great as yours, Haen. He, after all, laid his life on the same line that you did.
Thanks to all for their messages, they are appreciated. And sorry to all for getting a little OTT.
Cheers,
I realise I may have been hasty in my remarks, although I was rather sad, and drunk at the time. I appreciate your contribution, but would have expected some form of condolence.
'Die Sonne scheint noch' is a personal comment as to how I live my life. The sun will always rise, there will always be a new day.
Except of course, for my grandfather - whose contribution to the war was as great as yours, Haen. He, after all, laid his life on the same line that you did.
Thanks to all for their messages, they are appreciated. And sorry to all for getting a little OTT.
Cheers,
Jock
- Commissar D, the Evil
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