Monday, January 10, 2011

Tribute To My Grandfather

Heinz Muller
My grandfather was my maternal grandmother's second husband, and therefore
of no blood relation to me however, I knew no other grandfather growing up. Both
my biological grandfathers lived until I reached adulthood but, I saw them not often
because of the distance of where they lived.
******************************** Papa Henni, as I knew him had one of the most interesting of lives, born in Germany
and growing up there after WWI in a small farm village in East Prussia, it was easier to get to his uncle's fields by cutting through Poland! it even resulted in him getting shot at by Polish boarder guards a few times. Because of where and when he grew up he developed a great facility for language, he grew up speaking German, Polish, Russian, Slovak, and later learned English and Japanese. He in early teens was an ardent anti-Nazi, he told me of putting sand down the gas tanks of army trucks! He then would put it like this; "I was asked to politely leave at the business end of a
Kar98!" Not surprising given another of his stories where he tells of his village where half the houses are flying the flag of the Weimar Republic the other half the Nazi flag, his house had the old Imperial battle flag because his uncle Willy was convinced that the Kaiser would return! So perhaps it was no shock that My grandfather would go against the authorities...
******************************** In 1936 he came to the states with his father and later followed by his uncle Willy, He became an American citizen in 1940 and after Pearl Harbor joined the US Army and went to Training in Mississippi, where he also taught German to Officers heading to Europe. He as A German was sent to the Pacific theater. His first stop was for several months in Schofield BKS Hi, where he stayed in the same building that I was assigned to many years later, I Quad. His tails of training there came home to me many times as I marched over the same ground that he did many years before me .
******************************** He went on to the Pacific theater where in one story he was watching a PBY being worked on and a naval officer asked him "Sergeant do you like what you see, my Grandfather replied as he said (like an idiot) Yes Sir" He was then asked could he fire a 50 cal Machine -gun he replied "Yes sir , on the ground" the officer said it shouldn't mater...The next thing he knew he was in the right bubble manning the 50 cal flying out over the islands in a PBY. He didn't go too much into detail about that other than saying he gunned allot of tomato gardens, later learned that was slang for any Japanese installation. The next stories he told me involved running into various islanders that were fluent in German! In the first story he is walking along this recently occupied island and hears someone singing "Watch On The Rhine" a very patriotic German song being done in flawless German, he walks up and finds this little old man cutting vegetables who as it turned out used to work in the German governors mansion. In the next story he and another German American GI are at this elaborate ceremony where the chief is in the full black top hat and tails but spats and no shoes. My grandfather speaking in German to his friend said you think they could have got him some shoes...Then thinking nothing about it is approached by the same Chief who proceeds in perfect German to apologias for his lack of proper attire etc...My grandfather said he felt about 2 inches tall at that point, lol.
******************************** The next things he really went into were how he learned Japanese from a Buddhist monk while on occupation duty in Japan. I guess the reason I thought of all these things was I turn 53 tomorrow 11 Jan, and was going back over the many things I learned from this very interesting man, and how it was really him that caused me to make a career in the army. Sadly Papa Henni passed away just before Germany was reunified and didn't live to see that, I'm sure he would had allot of interesting things to say. The other reason that brought all this to mind was my friend Tim was showing some of his Japanese aircraft models and my mind sort of went back to these thoughts. There are so many other stories that I half remember now and so many other life lessons he taught me, that of all the people I've met in my life he I miss the most.....

3 comments:

Tim Gow said...

Great post Don - he sounds a really interesting guy. Can we have a photo of him?

Don M said...

Sadly I don't have one.

Bill said...

Great story Don