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What did our parents do in the war?

Lamont D

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What did your parents (or grandparents) do in the war ?

I will start with

My dad was a Chindit. My mum was a clippie and also worked in an ammunition factory in the capital, and my grandad ran a pub in Hull
 
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My dad was a Desert Rat in the 8th Army in Africa and Palestine. He was at El Alamein and Tobruk, and I have photos he took of the British airfield there with bombs landing. I also have his medals and 8th Army ribbon. Sadly I don't have his rat badge. From the stories he told you would think he beat Rommel single handed!

My mum was an air raid warden in Blackpool. Her first husband was killed in action. He was a young Sergeant Pilot in the RAF.

Granddad was exempt from WW1 as he was a mining engineer in Derbyshire.
 
My father was a signalman in the Australian army and served in PNG against the Japanese. He couldn't stand them but when I was offered by a teacher in school to correspond with a pen friend in 1967 from Japan, he loved it. Eventually spent a lot of time with him in Japan ....

So goes time and angers.
 
My dad's best friend was killed at El Alamein. He was also a Desert rat in the 8th Army.
My dad was attached to the Indian 4th army when posted in Burma.
 
To my knowledge both my grandmothers worked in munitions factory's in Sheffield I believe my paternal grandfather was in a reserved occupation possibly steelworks.
My other grandfather was in the royal artillery and landed just after D day.
He saved a german tank crew from a burning tank and the tank commander gave him his iron cross. I still have it in its original box with its ribbons.
My gran said he went at some point to Dachau after it was liberated but for sure he never spoke of it.
 
My father had his own plane to take care off .
It was a wellington plane .

He is 87years old now - and still loves to look at his lancaster and wellington
airplanes in their conservatory .
Has many books of planes and their engines and cockpit control panels
loves to sit and read these with a cup of tea and recall his own memories .

Am unsure of what my mother did ? Will ask her ...
Ah - she was still at school being the youngest in her family .
 
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My father was in a reserved occupation in that he drove buses, lorries and ambulances. He had loads of stories of things he had been involved in and was asleep in a house when it was demolished by a bomb. Dad being Dad he didn't notice. When the sound of people shouting woke him he went to the back door which was still standing and opened it. He was covered in white dust and I understand that this caused the onlookers laundry bills to go up.

My Mother worked in munitions in the Woolwich Royal Arsenal. Could never get much out of her about that. It seems to have involved a pistol and reflective buttons that only shone downwards.
 
Dad joined the RAF at the end of WW2 and was training for Bomber Command but it was oversubscribed and instead he was drafted into Ralph Reader's Gang Show to entertain the troops (where he met the likes of Tony Hancock, **** Emery and Michael Bentine). His dad was in the Scots Guards but I know absolutely nothing about what he did - there were so many who just didn't want to talk about it, even to their wives. I'll have to ask my uncle while he's still alive to see if he knows anything.

Mum's dad was in the RFC in WW1, again I don't know much about it, some research needed there. He was an air-raid warden in WW2 looking after the reservoirs on the moors above Oldham and Rochdale. Oddly enough my father in law also worked in Oldham in WW2, he was exempted because of his engineering background and did structural assessments of bomb-damaged buildings to determine if they could be saved or had to be demolished.

My great uncle was an Old Contemptible from WW1 - he was at Gallipoli, and at the end of the war marched through Anatolia and the Caucasus mopping up any late Turkish resistance, the strategy also being to meet up with the White Russians at Baku and attempt to overthrow the Bolshevik revolution (it was too late for that of course). He ended up on embassy guard duties in Beijing before returrning to the UK via India.

My ex next door neighbour was also in the 8th in North Africa and was involved in the landings on Crete. Once the locals found out about that on package holidays to Crete I don't think he ever had to pay for a drink or meal again!

Amazing people all of them, we owe them so much.
 
What an amazing thread ..... just goes to show you
 
My dad was also a desert Rat .. With medals and ribbions .. Small world !
 
My mum and dad were only little being born in 1937/38, my paternal grandfather had a very bad chest with asthma and was exempt , he died from it not long after the war, my maternal grandfather was a fisherman and it was a reserved occupation he was also lifeboat crew and he was in the "dads army"

My hubby's dad was in the army but didn't talk about it at all, his step father was on the bridge at Arnhem and is in the original footage that is used on the film "A bridge too far"
 
My father was only 17 when the war ended (born 1928) so he wasn't on active service. He was in the services though. He joined the Royal Marine band when he was 14 and was promptly shipped to the Isle of Man where he spent most of the rest of the war learning to march and play music (he played the cornet and viola).
He stayed in the Marines going all round the world. He wasn't discharged from them until 1959 so I saw very little of him in my early years and in his mind that was the most important part of his life. He hasn't really given it up yet ,when his health allows he still tries to play in an annual ex marine concert at Deal .

My mother was a year younger and was still at school when the war ended. Her mother was very ill and died during the war. I think my mother must have been a carer for her younger sister and father, a tenant farmer.
 


nosher8355 said:
My dad's best friend was killed at El Alamein. He was also a Desert rat in the 8th Army
Click to expand...


Enclave said:
My dad was also a desert Rat .. With medals and ribbions .. Small world !
Click to expand...

My maternal Grandad was a sniper in the Royal Sussex and was at El Alamein and later in Iraq and Palestine. I have his dog tags and all his pictures of Alexandria, Baghdad and his army pals.
 
IncyWincy said:
My maternal Grandad was a sniper in the Royal Sussex and was at El Alamein and later in Iraq and Palestine. I have his dog tags and all his pictures of Alexandria, Baghdad and his army pals.
Click to expand...

I have all my dad's pics of Alexandria, Jerusalem, Cairo, Tobruk, and other places, including the latrines at one camp, an inside view of the room where they all slept, and a cave where they had to spend a night after their convoy was shelled. I'll try and post some later when I have more time.
 
Loving this so much

One thing is common. My father would never speak of the war and that's a common theme I'm reading here from other theaters in other countries. I never understood that. Why?

Especially after 30 / 40 / 50 years?
 
I think it is fair to say @Mike D that their experiences were traumatic and unlike the present day there was no debriefing or treatments for PTSD which is what a lot of them suffered from. Their response to their experiences was to bury it and never talk about it again. Some of them felt guilty that they had survived when their mates had died, a common occurrence with PTSD. Many had nightmares, permanent headaches, fear of loud noises. They were different people after the war.
 
 
Lots of us seem to have parents who spent time in Egypt. This is my dad in Alexandria. He died a couple of months ago and I only found this photo for the first time when going through some of his boxes, although I've long had a very similar photo but without him in it - the ship behind is the Ile de France on troopship duties.

 
Mike D said:
Loving this so much

One thing is common. My father would never speak of the war and that's a common theme I'm reading here from other theaters in other countries. I never understood that. Why?

Especially after 30 / 40 / 50 years?
Click to expand...

Only recently did my dad say a negative thing whilst serving in the army in WW11.

He said " We did some terrible things in the war, things you never thought you could do" and he looked so, so sad. The scar he got from his war wound was because he had to save his life,the other solider lost his, my brother has the sword.

RRB
I will look for some photos to post and write about on this wonderful thread, I am lucky because my dad is still alive.
 
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