You indeed do have a very valuable treasure. My FIL shared the few pictures that he took while in Europe.

If I may, let me suggest that after you scan and digitally preserve the pictures you see if you can find any members, or more likely, descendants of the men who served with your grandfather and maybe share those with them. There are many Facebook groups of the various units that served in WW II and some are quite active sharing information.

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Originally posted by Haveme1or2:
What Mississippi town ?
I look through my Pops pictures and get a nostalgic feeling. What it must have been like ... Wow.

Picayune, MS.

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Originally posted by TheGreatGonzo:

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Originally posted by mjlennon:
Have you considered posting them for others to enjoy?

That is my intent, at least long term. I will need to scan them all first.

I hope you do scan them, at least the most important ones (to you). I would even go so far as to recommend you post them to other social media sites, YouTube comes to mind. Like I write on my welcome page - Everything between our ears is gone forever, after we die. My channel is my legacy. Maybe you could create one for your gramps?

PM me, if you want any pointers. My YouTube channel is the same as my moniker here: BuckRogers 2000.

Dozens and dozens of photos to go through. Jewish prisoners at the Hannover satellite camp. My Grandfather's buddies posing in a German plane shot down around Hanover. Dead, frozen German soldiers stacked like wood in Marche during the Battle of the Bulge.

I have a similar story from my grandfather only from Korea. He served in WW2 but stateside. During the Korean war he was called up and was in the 204th FAB. He took his movie camera to Korea and I inherited the movies he took. Several videos stand out but two I really like is of his unit psasing over the 38th into North Korea and the unit in action during the night. I also inherited his dress uniforms and dress sword from his days in ROTC. His first duty station, after ROTC graduation, was with a Coastal Artillery Battery in California.

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Originally posted by TheGreatGonzo:
Dozens and dozens of photos to go through. Jewish prisoners at the Hannover satellite camp. My Grandfather's buddies posing in a German plane shot down around Hanover. Dead, frozen German soldiers stacked like wood in Marche during the Battle of the Bulge.

I would recommend continuing what you started - making pertinent comments about what's going on in the photos - keep up the good work!

I'd love to see them too, it's even better than most I have seen since there is a background story to each one. That is truly something to be treasured.

They look like a real treasure.

If you ever want to preserve them in book format, there are websites that will publish a few copies for you. I don't think it is cheap but friends of ours took a cross country trip last year and wrote a blog to capture the trip. For Christmas this year they had a few copies of the blog printed in book format and gave them to the folks who took the trip.

It's great he wrote notes on the back. My grandfather passed away about the same time as yours. When.my grandmother passed away last year my dad and I inherited his WWII things. Only a couple pictures of him and his buddies in army trucks or by the smoke generator he operated and many of the AP pics of his unit and tourist pics that we're sold commercially on his leaves. There was a trenchart ring from the landing in Algiers when his records don't indicate he was there, his purle heart from April 1945 which I was told he was shot in the leg by a sniper while riding on a tank for the first time, and a captured pair of German field binnoculars and the approval papers for taking them home, which I don't know the story behind. So many secrets from our greatest heroes.

My Uncle,is a 3 time Combat Infantry Badge recipient. His name is on the wall at the Infantry Hall at Fort Benning. 91 years old, CMS and will not talk about the wars. I wonder if it brings memories back he has spent his life trying to forget.

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Originally posted by TheGreatGonzo:
Related Question: In the story I shared above about the Medic killed by a SS sniper, my Granddaddy did identify, by name, the medic who was killed. I have no idea, of course, if his family was ever notified of the circumstances of his death. If he has any surviving family, I'm sure they don't want to see the photo, but do you think they would want to hear from a stranger, letting them know that their father/grandfather died while exercising the most humane of actions...attempting to save the life of his enemy? Or is it best just to let things lie that be?

I guess it's hard to tell how others might react but I would want to hear the story if that was my relative.
Finding contact information might be the problem but maybe not if you have enough info and a little luck.
If you are able to make contact with the family you might ask about the photo first and let them decide what they want to do.

My stepdad was wounded in WW2, in Germany. Took 3 MG rounds through his abdomen. He had a fair number of pictures of various things and places. He was reluctant to talk about a lot of what he had seen and experienced.

He and I were very close, seeing that I was at the time a professional soldier. But we talked together a couple times when alone.

He had several souvenir hand guns and an M1 carbine. All of which my brother ended up with.

Stepdad and I got to be very close over the years, much closer than he and my brother.

Miss him!

Really great story and pics.

Not to hijack, but a service like digmypics would be helpful in scanning; since you have your own memories and his notes, you could easily self-publish a coffee table book for friends/family.

I did something similar for my grandfather before he passed (used OpenOffice and Scribus to lay it out, Cafepress to print it, sent two copies to Library or Congress to get copyright certificates, then used Bowker to set up ISBN). Takes a few months. If you did something similar you could have it ready for Veterans Day or Christmas.