Daddy was in the combat engineers in WWII. He must have been a pretty good scrounger as he brought home a Luger, a P-38 and a .32 auto which he described as an Austro-Hungarian pistol. He also acquired a mint Leica 35 mm rangefinder.
His battalion was sent to Berlin soon after the war ended and most of the men would feed various German children who were in pretty sad shape. The two Daddy adopted were a brother and sister named Fritz and Ingrid. Those kids were how Daddy got the Luger.
It was the most desired souvenir of the war. One day Daddy just asked Fritz if he could get him a Luger. He said Fritz took off running and after around an hour brought him a sack which contained a Luger, holster and spare mag.
Daddy never asked him where he got it but was sure it had been buried as it had a lot of dirt in the sack.
Daddy later sold it to his first cousin who was the Florida Golden Gloves champion.
How cool that our troops took the time and care to help the kids.
Fritz probably remembered this story his whole life....his being able to “help” one of the American soldiers.