Wedding

All stories come to an end. My grandfather’s self-written story is done, but I’ll still try to update as I can. I have some ideas. In the meantime, here are wedding announcements from 1942 to pause on a happy note! And don’t forget to check out Dorothy’s recipes at http://hoskinsfamilyrecipes.wordpress.com, too!

Lucky she took me back

I caught a bus outside the gate and settled back to enjoy myself. This was late in the afternoon. About midnight, the bus driver told us this was the end of his run and to catch another bus, but he didn’t know where it was and left. I got out, watched people get off when [...]

The War Years: Finally Home

Army Service Forces - Transportation Corps - Army of the United States New York Port of Embarkation Claude E. Hoskins 39 243 452 Tech 5 826 Engineer Aviation Battalion - Army of the United States returned to the United Stateson the ship “Queen Mary” (Cunard White Star) which sailed from Southampton, England on 11th October, 1945 Sig. (Dallas [...]

The War Years: The Way Home

Now we are finished and waiting for a way home. Every morning we would pack up and go out on an airfield to sit and wait for a plane, and at night, go back to camp. This went on for a week which seemed like a year. Finally, we got a plane. It was a [...]

The War Years: The Surrender

We now moved back to Frankfurt. The Germans had surrendered.We are now waiting for a chance to go home. We are repairing airfields. Our job was on a rock crusher and deliver the rock to the field.We have the crusher a long way out of the quarry and bring the rock out on mine cars. [...]

The War Years: Buchenwald

Note: This blog entry contains images my grandfather took while at Buchenwald. While I believe it is important to show people the atrocities that happened during the war, the images may be inappropriate for younger readers. Cologne city was very big. We were about a mile from it in a barn. About midnight, our bombers [...]

The War Years: “…felt a little devilish…”

This goes back to the third day in France. We were moving forward to get to the start and the leader got lost and we suddenly found ourselves at the front line. We came into a small town and the infantry was just in the process of going through the houses searching out the Germans [...]

The War Years: Wordless Wednesday (almost)

The War Years: Stepping Stones

The next morning we were sent out to start an airfield. We had just started to work when the first shells started coming in on the field. We all dove for cover. Me and a friend and a medic headed for the same place. After the shelling was over, we got up and looked at [...]

The War Years: D-Day, continued

Before leaving England, we had a going away party before going to France. There was plenty of beer. We were playing football. In running and being tackled, I sprained my ankle. It swelled like a poisoned pup. It was impossible to walk on it. The officers gave me a choice of staying in England or [...]