question What did your father/grandfathers do during the war/s

[Jack]

HMVF has spread across its various boards the history of our grandfathers during the wars. I thought it would be nice to have one place to list them all. A place where their history has been mentioned for the first time in public.

 

Name them with pride.

[Jack]

I will start

 

WW2

Maternal side:

 

Served in REME and went over to Normandy on D+2 and resented the country for taking him away from his wife and children. I have his medals after he threw them in the bin.....

 

Paternal side:

 

Sergent in the Royal Marines and was captured at Crete - escaped twice and was recaptured twice and beaten to within an inch of his life.

 

WW1

I currently do not have a lot of history on this apart from my Grandmother cousin being killed on the Somme.

 

My great grandfather was the village blacksmith at Shedfield, Hants and supplied the army with horse shoes for the army.

[chevpol]

Edwin John Davies

 

Wish I knew what my grandad did, he wouldnt talk about WW1, when he did talk, he said he was a cook, maybe true, dont know, keep meaning to find out if his army records exist, got a couple of photos of him in uniform, fomal studio pose, in a line up at a camp somewhere. My dad has a piece of trench art my grandad always maintained was made by a german pow and given to him. I know he was underage when he joined though.

 

Will have to check, but I am sure that my dad said that grandad was a firewatcher during WW11, and I think he used the roof of the local pub for it!

 

He died just before my 18th birthday, later found out that he wanted to take me into his local on my 18th for my first pint, I am now 42, and I still miss him.

 

All the best,

 

Mark

[Jack]

Does this include our fathers as well, Jack?

 

Fine point Gritineye and have now changed the title.

[radiomike7]

As a captain in charge of the 10th Polish lancer brigade, my father led an attack on horseback against the advancing German Panzers. Fortunately the Germans had a sense of humour and took them all in as POWs rather than shooting them.

 

My father in law was Group Captain James Tait, CO of 617 Squadron after Leonard Cheshire and leader of several famous bombing raids such as the Kembs barrage and the sinking of the Tirpitz.

[Tony B]

None of my immediate family served in either war. There is a good reason being the Welsh Anscestery they were coal miners, mainly in the Rhonda Fach. My father Thomas George Banner went down the pit when he was twelve, but was buried in a fall at about fourteen. Following that he joined the mine carpantery shop and became a master carpenter. During World War Two my parents lived in London. My father was part of the civil defence heavy rescue squad, (All mine carpenters were automatically part of the mine rescue teams and he had trained as such) but he would never talk about it.

[Willyslancs]

My father did National Service 1961-63, with the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards .

My grandad was stationed on the Manchester ship canal during the war, they had to confiscate military items off soldiers returning on leave! this started my dad off collecting as he would bring items home.!

[rosie]

What a good thread Jack.

 

My Grandad RIP (Dads dad) was in Egypt and as far as I can remember he delivered supplies to the troops.

Grandad on my mums side was in Burma, no idea what he did really, but he told me of funny things that they got up to/happened to them. Bless him he has dementia now.

 

However, my uncle was a medic in the Falklands Conflict. I remember waving him of from Southampton wondering if we would ever see him again. When the Sir Galahad was hit Uncle Tim was one of the first medics on board and helped take Simon Weston off and gave some of the important initial first aid. Sadly due to the sights he witnessed during the time he was in the Falklands my Uncle suffered with mental illness which has included him very nearly stabbing his best mate on return back to Aldershot. He has never held down a job since and him and his family have moved to Wales now.

[AlienFTM]

My father in law was Group Captain James Tait, CO of 617 Squadron after Leonard Cheshire and leader of several famous bombing raids such as the Kembs barrage and the sinking of the Tirpitz.

 

Did he ever tell you about the tenth anniversary service for the Dams Raid at Lincoln Cathedral?

 

I read that all the former 617 COs were sat in the front row and the collection plate came first to Gp Captain Tait who reached into his pocket and discovered to his horror that all he had was a £10 note. (This in 1953. In 1973, my first pay packet ran to some £7.00.) With good grace, he dropped the note onto the plate, causing consternation all round as the remaining COs put away what they had and tried not to appear tightfisted.

 

The Bishop of Lincoln reckoned he had never seen a collection like it in his life.

[AlienFTM]

My ancestors were all coal miners in the Durham Coalfield (though searching my roots has taken me back to when people flocked from all over the British Isles to join the high-tech wave that was the Industrial Revolution and I have found ancestors from Ireland and Norfolk, so there'll be no bog-trotting jokes, ooarrr!

 

My father went to join the Army at the start of the Second World War but was told to get back down the pit and dig for victory (reserved occupation). He did manage to serve in the Home Guard though. This was true for most of his and my mother's siblings.

 

My mother's brother, my Uncle Jack, ran a Co-op store. He volunteered and found himself in The Border Regiment, fighting with 2 Borders and dying up the Irriwaddy in 1944. Remembered at the CWGC cemetery at Rangoon

 

One uncle on my father's side served in HM Submarines (I discovered recently when I found his daughter, my cousin in Australia - I had known he was RN, but not submarines).

 

Another served in the Merchant Navy. Sailed on the SS Hull out of Tyne Dock in 1943 and never came back. His name is on the Wall of Remembrance at Tower Hill.

[radiomike7]

Did he ever tell you about the tenth anniversary service for the Dams Raid at Lincoln Cathedral?

 

 

No, I hadn't heard of that one, but thanks for mentioning it.

 

Mike

[AlienFTM]

In 93 I was working in consultancy out of a suitcase up in the Midlands. I took library books away with me. I swear my library scanned what books were being signed out and used this to order new books. Being the 50th anniversary of the Dams Raid, there were dozens of them. Suited me.

 

I have a vague recollection that one raid they undertook (Tirpitz maybe?) ended up with Tait and his crew being interned in Sweden, or have I got the wrong man?

[Rick W]

Grandfather maternal side. WW2

Was with RE attached to OxonBucks (I think).Joined the BEF in 1939 for the ill fated excursion to France. He never got as far as Dunkirk. Faced the full onslaught of the Blitzkrieg and was shipped home with physical injuries and psychological scars that stayed with him for the rest of his life. Diagnosed as shellshock. Never spoke about the war.

 

Paternal Side. WW2

Not much known as yet. Quite high ranking in the merchant navy.

 

WW1

Only know my maternal side history.

My great grandfather was the only survivor out of 4 brothers. 3 were killed on the western front between 1916-18. Great grandfather met his future wife, great grandmother, while being treated for his injuries at an aid station, as she was a nurse.

[Poptopshed]

Does anyone have any good sources for finding out information on the service history of individuals? I only knew my Maternal Grandfather when i was a small child. He never said much about his times to my mother and i would like to find out more.

[Snapper]

99.9% of mine is my paternal side.

 

My grandfather Gordon Maurice Barnes was born in 1892. He served in the RNR during WW1 and was at Gallipoli. Inter-war period he was a engineering officer in the MN and worked for the Blue Star Line. In 1940 he was recalled to the RNR and was at Dunkirk on the ocean going tug HMS Caroline Moller towing barges of Tommies back to Britain. He was killed on 16.02.1941 when the paddlesteamer minesweeper HMS Southsea hit a mine off Tynemouth. He is buried in Preston cemetery, Newcastle (or North Shields - depending on your preference).

 

His brother Leslie was born in 1895. He joined up in Kensington and went in to D company of the 2nd Bn London Regiment. He went to Malta in 1914 and then to Flanders. He was killed at Hooge on 23.08.1915 and is buried in Divisional Cemetery this side of Ypres.

 

My father was born on 13.05.1919 and joined the TA in May 1939. He served with D Company of 10th Bn Royal Berkshire Regiment - a Hackney battalion. He was on anti-invasion duties until 1941 when he went to Iraq with PAIFORCE. Then to Deolali in India (as in It Ain't Half Hot Mum) and caught malaria. While recovering he contracted tuberculosis and was eventually transferred to a hospital in a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa we now call Soweto. He used to tell me about the nurses warning patients not to walk in the flowerbeds because of the black mamba snakes. On one occasion they had happily left a dying (black) gardener there after he'd been bitten. My dad was horrified. In Deolali he and his friends had frightened off a water board official by putting a dead cobra in a stopcock hatch. Funny sod.

 

He was discharged unfit for service in March 1945 and came home from SA without his new wife and son in March 1947. I have never met my half brother. My dad died in 1993 aged 73.

 

Dad's brother Edward Leslie Barnes was born in 1913. I'm waxing lyrical about him in the naval section at the moment. He was the first Merchant Navy winner of the George Medal for his actions in 1940 after the sinking of the Severn Leigh. He died in 1957 after a life of wine women and song.

 

My mother's brother Harry was bomber air crew in WW2. He was injured in a Halifax bomber crash and took a long time to recuperate. Don't know anything else.

 

MB

[Lord Burley]

My father was only 10 at the outbreak of war in 1939.But spent all his young years working on the coal yards in edgeware.He expieranced the Blitz and had a first hand eye witness account of the infamous shooting down of the dornier bomber over victoria during the Battle Of Britain.He then went on to see the arrival of the V1,s.He,s like a walking After The Battle magazine.As i can take him around his old stomping ground of Kennington,and he can still point out to me what happened in certain areas,and what those areas were like in the war.His brother on the other hand was in the T.A at the outbreak of war,and served with the Kings Royal Rifles,seeing action at El-Alamain,Italy,and finally Germany.He brought a lot of German Memrobilia home after the war,including Lugers,and Walthers,German helmets and Bayonets.I have a Helmet captured off a Soldier at Gernoa in Italy,and there is some film of him from The World At War series,where he was taking prisoners at the side of the road in Austria.

[david052]

My maternal grandfather was in the 5th (Cinque Ports) Bn The Royal Sussex Regt between the wars, and was mobilised in 1939 as a Captain. Transferred to the 7th Bn, Acting Major, and killed at Amiens during the retreat. My maternal step-grandfather (married post-war) was in the Fire Service on fireboats on the Thames during the Blitz, though I haven't been able to find out a lot about that (dead now). My father's guardian was a Major, RE Trains I believe, served in Northern Europe, involved in the liberation of Brussels somehow. Would dearly like to know more about him. Any thoughts? Haven't really delved much beyond that, either back in time or what my uncles, great uncles etc, though my aunt married a Pole who served as a boy runner in the Warsaw Uprising. Have to get him to tell me about that.

[john fox]

WW1

My paternal grandfather was a reserved occupation on the railway (GWR) otherwise I would not be here as my father was born 1916.

WW2

My father (W Sellers) was a hostilities only who was called up in 1940 and de-mobbed in 1946.

Not being A1 medical (see below!) and relatively “old” he was sent to the Pioneer Corps along with all the rest of those type of misfits and he spent his entire service in 292 Company Pioneer Corps, “highlights” included:

- 1940: anti invasion, made a colour sergeant (wrong background for a commission).

- 1941: fire watching in Gloucester docks - very boring apparently.

- Sometime 42/43: rebuilding West Malling airfield.

- 6th June, landed about 11:00 – Queen Red, Sword Beach. The only thing he would ever say about it was to mention that when he went into a pillbox he could see they had been eating breakfast before it happened… (I know from the unit history his company took casualties that day and after)

- 1944/45 along with everyone else went from Normandy to Germany. Typical Pioneers tasks for the “unfit” and “over-age” at/behind the front on POL, labouring and err… graves. All he would ever talk about was the hours spent playing cards – I think he was regularly fleeced as he never again played cards for money, but as a family we played cards (for matches) every weekend. He was 28 in 1944 and smoked a pipe rather than ciggies so was treated as the ”wise old man” of the unit, which, given the age range in some Pioneer units, must have been odd at times.

- His company finished up somewhere in Germany at what he said had been an Aryan breeding “farm”. I have never found the exact location but he “liberated” a souvenir which I still have at home.

After the war he lived a contented (and prosperous) life but he never went a full month without at least one sleepless night. He absolutely hated all Hollywood’s claims of how we (ie the US alone) won the war.

My Dad, my hero, 1916 - 2003 RIP

I have a godfather who was on Churchill’s in Italy but I have never felt the opportunity was right to ask further – time’s running out now of course

[Rick W]

Does anyone have any good sources for finding out information on the service history of individuals? I only knew my Maternal Grandfather when i was a small child. He never said much about his times to my mother and i would like to find out more.

 

This subject comes up every now and then, Im sure it must qualify for a new section now. Do an online search for the medal cards at the national archives online, used to be a free search, then you just pay a couple of quid for a printable copy. That will give basic facts, units etc. Next port of call is the regimental museum, most counties have them.

[Lord Burley]

WW1

My paternal grandfather was a reserved occupation on the railway (GWR) otherwise I would not be here as my father was born 1916.

WW2

My father (W Sellers) was a hostilities only who was called up in 1940 and de-mobbed in 1946.

Not being A1 medical (see below!) and relatively “old” he was sent to the Pioneer Corps along with all the rest of those type of misfits and he spent his entire service in 292 Company Pioneer Corps, “highlights” included:

- 1940: anti invasion, made a colour sergeant (wrong background for a commission).

- 1941: fire watching in Gloucester docks - very boring apparently.

- Sometime 42/43: rebuilding West Malling airfield.

- 6th June, landed about 11:00 – Queen Red, Sword Beach. The only thing he would ever say about it was to mention that when he went into a pillbox he could see they had been eating breakfast before it happened… (I know from the unit history his company took casualties that day and after)

- 1944/45 along with everyone else went from Normandy to Germany. Typical Pioneers tasks for the “unfit” and “over-age” at/behind the front on POL, labouring and err… graves. All he would ever talk about was the hours spent playing cards – I think he was regularly fleeced as he never again played cards for money, but as a family we played cards (for matches) every weekend. He was 28 in 1944 and smoked a pipe rather than ciggies so was treated as the ”wise old man” of the unit, which, given the age range in some Pioneer units, must have been odd at times.

- His company finished up somewhere in Germany at what he said had been an Aryan breeding “farm”. I have never found the exact location but he “liberated” a souvenir which I still have at home.

After the war he lived a contented (and prosperous) life but he never went a full month without at least one sleepless night. He absolutely hated all Hollywood’s claims of how we (ie the US alone) won the war.

My Dad, my hero, 1916 - 2003 RIP

I have a godfather who was on Churchill’s in Italy but I have never felt the opportunity was right to ask further – time’s running out now of course

What a nice post.Especially the last line.......My Dad, my hero, 1916 - 2003 RIP[/font]

 

:thumbsup:

[Degsy]

WW2, my father was an armourer with 48 Squadron Coastal Command based in the Shetlands and Iceland flying firstly Ansons and then Hudsons on anti sub patrol. Unofficially he flew on ops anumber of times as a gunner but when he did talk it was normally only about the humorous incidents. I also had 3 uncles who served, one R.N, one R.M. Commando and one RAF Bomber Command rear gunner.

[ArtistsRifles]

These are the ones I know about:

 

Maternal Grandfather - served with the Royal Horse Artillery from 1914 to 1918. He would never talk about the great war and sadly his medal were taken after his death by another family member, The family story is he was recommended for the VC during the Somme but none of the witnesses survived the battle.... During WW2 he worked with the ARP teams in Dagenham. Died in 1973

 

Paternal Grandfather - served in the Royal Navy, allegedly was at Jutland on HMS Warspite, one of the Queen Elizabeth class ships, as a member of a 15" gun turret's crew. Died shortly after I was born in 1956

 

Uncle (Mothers Brother) - was the Fleet Air Arm equivalent of a WOp/AG on Swordfish. I was told he was based on HMS Victorious - can't verify though as a family split meant talking was never an option before he died in 1970.

 

Uncle (Fathers Brother) - served in Bomber Command, wound up as rear gunner on Lancasters (no idea what squadron(s) he flew with as he died when I was about 10 or 11). He did complete a full tour though - no mean feat.

 

Father - Served with 6th Airborne during the war from April 1943 onwards. Was transferred to 3rd Batt'n Parachute Regiment in 1945/6 and promptly sent out to Palestine during the crisis out there. Fortunately the Stern Gang and IZL missed him hence me being here. He would talk about his experiences in Palestine but never in the European theatre, Mum said once that his unit had been one of the first to arrive at a Kz and it changed him. Died of old age in 2007.

 

Dad used to joke that given the antics of this little lot it was no wonder I wound up in 21 - military insanity seemed to have been an integral part of our family!!

 

All of them now gone, none of them forgotten!!!!!

Edited September 2, 2008 by ArtistsRifles

[MARTIN CROSS]

Hi ,

A bit of a list!

 

Father: Served on an escort carrier in North Atlantic convoys.

Uncle: Career soldier.Invaded Italy.

Paternal Grandfather. Career soldier.Did something 'useful' in WW2 but not known what it was.He also served in WW1 and Boer War.

Maternal Grandfather: Home Guard/firewatching in London in WW2.In WW1 he served in the desert.

Distant cousin.Served as Lancaster pilot in RAAF.

Two other distant cousins killed as pilots in Battle of Britain.

Thats why I like MVs but not getting shot at!

 

M

[Guest catweazle (Banned Member)]

he threw them in the bin......

Thats what my dad did Jack ,maybe its not uncommon.

My mum rescued them,and he never found out.

[younggun]

ww1

my great grandfather faught on the some with the worctershire regiment and was awwarded the military meddal and barr so i think was awwarded it twice we only know it was for bravery my father has had little luck fiding out enything more. his meddals are still in the family