Medals and other family heirlooms

[Kyle422]

I thought I would post some of my uncles Items. Here are some of the medals and things he brought back from the war. The pictures are old as I have not taken any recent pictures of his stuff and there is a lot more to his grouping then just this.

The grouping belongs to my uncle Edgar C Hoffman who served with the 12th armored division 714th Tank Battalion C. Company (Hellcats)






The story behind the purple heart is that my uncle was in the attack at at Herrlisheim France a little after the new year in 1945. Little did the 12th AD know they were going against a superior well dug in force! The 12th armored division payed a heavy price for this battle and the Germans nicknamed them the suicide division. Now down to the good part.

During this battle my uncle was one of the first tanks to go into the town well upon getting close to entering the town while getting shot at by AT PaK guns and machine guns pretty much everything the Germans could throw them. His tank was hit in the turret. Well this hit killed all of my uncles crew "he was the tank driver" He managed to crawl out of his tank though heavily wounded in his back and head. "he said he was bleeding like a stuck hog" Well once he got out of the tank he managed to make his way to a farm house near by. Once he entered the farm house he hid under the kitchen table that had a table cloth that touched the floor. Well after a little while he heard the door open and here the Germans came into the house looking for him. They managed to not find him some how. Shortly after this he fell unconscious from blood loss and the next thing he knew waking up in and out of consciousness he was on the back of a Sherman tank as it was backing out of the town and he said you could hear bullets snapping off the tank.



















This is all the captured stuff he brought back yes both the pistol and K98 are completely matching he brought back three K98s matching like that one













Above is one of his uniforms "post war because he was transferred to the 771st Tank Btn then"

All of his tanker manuals




Uncle Edgar is on the bottom left side with the T5 stripes

My uncle is one of 20 uncles who fought in ww2

[Mississippi]

Very cool collection you have!

[Soulfly]

I was able to find out a bit more about the DFC recipient.

Flight Lieutenant Richard Raymond Howgill, Died 3/8/1943 aged 21 piloting Lancaster III ED704 HW-C, lost with all hands. Buried Kiel War Cemetery, 3.E.8.

Test

We have such a cemetery here in Berlin too, its actually a sad scene as the lads lying there are mostly not older than 22.

[Bravescot]

Damn fine collection you got there Kyle! You wouldn't mind if I added it to the OP along with my one? Going to see if we can fill the OP with a bunch of cool stuff for people to read and see.

We have such a cemetery here in Berlin too, its actually a sad scene as the lads lying there are mostly not older than 22.

Sure you can add it. would be neat to have a collection of peoples stuff they have from their ancestors.

[Kyle422]

Damn fine collection you got there Kyle! You wouldn't mind if I added it to the OP along with my one? Going to see if we can fill the OP with a bunch of cool stuff for people to read and see.

Sure you can add it. would be neat to have a collection of peoples stuff they have from their ancestors.

Yeah I hit the edit button on mine and show how it edited your post as well Bravescot

[Bravescot]

Ah you plonker!

[Kyle422]

Ah you plonker!

I know I know mistakes were made!

[adeninesmt]

Great collections Gents, thank you for sharing! Going to have to add my own personal ones along with my collection at some point. Although my personal stuff is rather recent from my time in the Corps, but I have a nice collection of WW1 and WW2 awards, weapons, etc.

[Kyle422]

Great collections Gents, thank you for sharing! Going to have to add my own personal ones along with my collection at some point. Although my personal stuff is rather recent from my time in the Corps, but I have a nice collection of WW1 and WW2 awards, weapons, etc.

I am a huge ww1/ww2 collector and have weapons and uniforms from both wars. I have my great uncles 1911 and Springfield he used in ww1. I also have a Remington rand 1911a1 use by a Sgt in ww2 its named and has all the names of the battles he was in on the holster

[adeninesmt]

Wow that's quite amazing! Awesome collection you have there Sir.