Fun family history stories

[blueberry]

My husband's grandfather was part of the cavalry chasing Poncho Villa; his future father in-law was one of Poncho Villa's men.

Not sure why that amuses me so much, but it does.

[blueberry]

On 5/12/2020 at 3:42 PM, Vort said:

My grandfather was a reactor operator at the Hanford site in eastern Washington, where plutonium was made for the Fat Man bombs (one of which was dropped on Nagasaki).

It's a small world. The father of my childhood best friend took part in the cleanup of Nagasaki (he was a teenager at the time).

He'd gone to visit his grandfather and couldn't return home (to California) because of the war.

[dprh]

My maternal grandfather was a civil engineer.  During WWII, he did some training in the desert of Arizona/Southern California.  They had an exercise to build a temporary bridge over the Colorado River.  A few trucks were driven over it just fine.  Then they tried a tank.  The bridge failed and the tank fell into the river.  As far as he knew, they never got it back out. 

[Vort]

15 minutes ago, dprh said:

My maternal grandfather was a civil engineer.  During WWII, he did some training in the desert of Arizona/Southern California.  They had an exercise to build a temporary bridge over the Colorado River.  A few trucks were driven over it just fine.  Then they tried a tank.  The bridge failed and the tank fell into the river.  As far as he knew, they never got it back out. 

Good thing we've invented math since then, so it doesn't happen again.

I hope the tank operator survived.

[dprh]

16 minutes ago, Vort said:

Good thing we've invented math since then, so it doesn't happen again.

I hope the tank operator survived.

It was quite a while ago that he told me the story (he's passed away since). I don't recall if the operator survived or not, which makes me think that he did.  I think I'd remember if he had died.