Items brought back by family members

[A H]

Hey Guys

Lets see items that were brought back by your family members and any interesting storys behind them.

I will post mine later

Hopefully this will be a good thread

regards Adam

[Alan Smith]

Here are my father and I posing with a WWI German "sawback" bayonet. The bayonet was brought back to the USA (Lafayette County, Mississippi) by one of my father's uncles. My father acquired the bayonet when he was in his late teens.

If you look closely at my father's hand, you can see a dent in the bayonet's metal scabbard. The indentation appears to have been made by a small sliver of schrapnel, traveling at very high speed.

This was one of the very first items in my military collection, when I discovered it in the basement of our family's home, inside a wooden box filled with old tools, when I was about 13 years old.

The bayonet is Prussian, with a Crown "W" over "15" marking on the spine, indicating manufacture in 1915. The maker is "V.C. Schilling" of Suhl. The leather carrier, while original German and unit marked "J.R. 129", is not original to the bayonet (I found the leather carrier years ago at a Memphis, TN gunshow).

[Alan Smith]

Sorry about that. The photo is too large to upload to WAF, so I'll have to figure out how to resize it and try again later.

[bigschuss]

Here is a link to my website page that showcases all of the vets in my family and some of the things from each that I have in my collection....

http://www.thunderboltskirun.com/familyvets.html

I'll show one here. It is the Ithaca 1911A1 my Gramp brought home from the CBI theater. He was a truck driver on the Burma and ledo Roads. He and his buddies opened an unclaimed box in one of the trains they were unloading and found all brand new .45's. They each took one. He carried throughout the war and eventually returned home with it. He considered it his "severance package" in exchange for 3 years of his life.

[Heer Flak]

That's one nice pistol! Can't wait to see how the thread developes.

Eric

[Alan Smith]

Ok. Here is the photo of the bayonet referenced in my post, supra.

[Alan Smith]

Here is a shot of the dent in the scabbard.

[kirk]

Very nice looking 45!!

[MauserKar98k]

Nice bayonet and great story behind it.

[Paul G]

Nice items

PG-