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What did Grandad do during the war?

During the war

Share the stories that your grandparents or even great-grandparents have passed down to you. The heroics of being a pilot in the air-force or remembering those long evenings, huddled underground during the Blitz.

Video Memories

The wireless operator
Reg Best, a wireless operator on Lancaster bombers, tells us about his experiences during the Second World War.

Charities

Age Concern Age Concern
The UK's largest organisation working with and for older people.

Forums

Silver surfers Silver surfers
Escape from the e-generation and relax with people who show that age has no bar to surfing the Net.

The Good Old Days

Christmas of yesteryear Christmas of yesteryear
What was Christmas like during and before the second world war?

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Added: 28 April 2008 22:00
alph says:
margarita bennett hits the the nail on the head; there are no winners out of war. The Russian (not Communist, Socialist or anything else) people suffered brutally under the Nazi onslaught and it's actually difficult to get your head round the total figures of slaughter in Russia. On a more humanitarian note, my father served with the RAF during WWII, as a humble aircraftman/driver. In the latter stages (1945) he entered Germany as part of the occupying forces. He came from a less well off family and could not bear to see any child going hungry and often shared what he could out of his own rations
with desperate German children. He only told the family this shortly before his own death. I think there's a message there for all of us.
Added: 24 April 2008 18:17
Lisa says:
I think that all you lovely people who are here telling your stories should get together and write your own story and get it published for every one to read, it's time that is very much nearly forgotten and i think it's our british troops back in the first and second world wars that should be remebered, but we never here in documentaries about the war effects on the children in the country, or of how it affected the northerners.
Added: 24 April 2008 13:34
claire evans says:
my uncle was in the welsh guards 1st battalion his name was sgt g.p.hill he was a regular soldier and joined up before war broke out,he was killed by mortar fire digging out on august01 1944 aged 32 yrs he is buried at banneville-la-campagne war cemetry grave ref xv1.c.30.if anyone knew him or knows anything about him would be grateful for any info at all.
Added: 3 April 2008 19:04
anonymous says:
my grandfather daniel murray served on the iron juke under jellicoe he was born 11 11 1889 the war ended on his birthday so he had a double celebration he always said it was his best birthday pressie
Added: 12 March 2008 19:04
RM says:
My grandfather, who has sadly died, told me a story of when he arrived at Gold beach during the D Day landings. He was a dispatch rider and by the time he had disembarked from his landing craft on his motorbike, the remainder of his regiment had moved on. Just to add to his problems, he gained a puncture in his front tyre, which he then spend the next hour fixing before moving on down the road towards a town called cabourg to catch up with his regiment. After about 15 minutes of riding, he stated that 2 British Tommy's leaped out from the side of the road and waved him down, asking where the ****** he was going. After explaning to them what had happened they told him he was going the wrong way and to get out of there fast as they were laying in wait setting an ambush for a columb of German half tracks that were about half a mile down the road. My grandfather said as he was turning his bike around that he could hear them coming and off he sped. He never did find out what happened to the 2 soldiers who stopped him, but if they hadn't, then he would have rode straight into the German half tracks and probably have been killed.
Added: 9 March 2008 12:57
Jack says:
As a school boy in the war living on the Lincolnshire coast I remember the droves of bombers from the Lincolnshire airfields flying over our house to bomb Germany. They returned in the early hours,some didn't quite make it home and crashed on the fields at the rear of our house. I also remember walking over the bomb rubble after a nightly air raid by the Germans, and the nasty Butterfly Bombs they dropped. School and business as usual in those days, no 'Elf and Safety' idiots about.
Added: 15 February 2008 16:26
Margarita Bennett says:
My name is Margarita Bennett. I am Russian, but married to British husband and live in UK for long time. I would like to share with you the my biggest impression when I came to England..... I sure, nobody will guess! The biggest my surprise here was to see the lots of elderly COUPLES ! Yes, that's right. If you would visit Russia , you would never ever meet actually the war-time couples, there are just elderly women and they are all single from last war time. Those women if they have lost their men in last war, they would never have had a chance to remarried because ALL men population in Russia was totally destroyed. All of them, from 14 years old till eighties. Women who have never been married, also could not have a families or children simply due to absence of any men from 12 till 75. If there were surviving men coming back home from the last war, they often were the heavily disabled ( without arms or legs). So, it was very very hard to restore a new generation of Russian people and life in general. If there were not man left after the war, the Russian women had to re-build a new life by themselves: a destroyed industry, houses to live, roads, railways, schools, hospitals and start life again from the ashes. Yes, the ashes, this is that exactly what has left after 5 years of staying German army at Russian territory. Over 20 million people has died fighting at battle fields, and an other 20 millions has died from starving, hunger, diseases, and in concentration camps around Russia and outside. Nearly every child has lost their parents and become homeless, every house was turned to ashes and EVERY family in Russia has lost somebody during the war! I just thank God that I don't live in that time and my children have a chance to live in peace! Many nations did suffered during last war, but the pain of human lost has no nationality. British family which have lost their loved ones during the war did felt the pain the same way as Russians did. This is that remind us that we are all the same, Western and Eastern; and all differences and barriers are created by politicians for their own games. We are all created by one God, and he would not judge people according to their nationalities. So, sorry for being so long, but this is what firstly amazed me on British land, the scene you would never see in Russia, the elderly COUPLES, walking together holding their hands!!!
Added: 15 February 2008 16:24
Philip Ryan says:
When I was at university in Oxford in the 90's I was lodging with an elderly lady (cheap rent). She told me that during WW2 she worked for department in Naval intelligence and was involved with the operation to invade Sicily. The allies hatched a plan to plant a body of a British officer in the sea of the Spanish coast with detailed plans for the invasion of Sardinia. They hoped that it would be found by those sympathetic to the German cause and thus trick the Germans into thinking the allies where going to invade Sardinia, instead of Sicily. The story is true as portrayed in the 1950's film 'the man who never was' with one big exception, that instead of the Officer being a down and out who supposedly died of pneumonia, the man who never was, was indeed a real British officer called Major William Martin, who was pushed out of an airplane and left to drown in the sea. The rouse worked and the Sicily landing went ahead almost unopposed. As they say all is fair in love and war!
Added: 14 February 2008 09:52
Tony Jones says:
William Jones VC My ancestor fought in the Anglo Zulu Wars of the 1870's in the Cape Frontier War, then at the famous Battle of Rorke's Drift. I am a descendant of this man and his name was 593 Private William Jones VC. His role in the battle was immortalized in the classic film 'Zulu' which launched the directing careers of Sir Stanley Baker and acting career of Sir Michael Caine. William's part was played by the Welsh actor Richard Davies. William Jones was decorated with his Victoria Cross by Her Majesty Queen Victoria at Osborne House on 13th January 1880. William had to unfortunately pawn his VC when he fell on hard times in the 1890's. The medal is now housed in the South Wales Borderers' Museum, Brecon, Wales. William contracted rheumatoid arthritis, which he caught from sleeping out in the cold and wet at Rorke's Drift after the battle. Unable to work on occasions, he took to acting and starred in the stage spectacular Hamilton's Pansterorama in the 1880s and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in the 1890s. William was one of the few survivors of the battle to live into his 70s and died on 15th April 1913. William's grave is located in Philip's Park Cemetery Manchester section D-887 and a large blue commemoration plaque adorns the wall of the disused church, alongside another plaque to commemorate WWI hero, George Stringer VC.
Added: 13 February 2008 10:03
Anon says:
My father, now in his late 80's, was in the Maritime Anti-Aircraft division. He was based in the UK, his battery mainly protecting Liverpool and later, Bristol, from air attack. He won't talk much about his experiences except to say he was promoted to sergeant because he 'volunteered' to give his comrades religious instruction because his father was a Baptist minister. He talks occasionally about nights out in Blackpool when people mistook his Welsh accent for Polish. He was only recently awarded a war pension (about 10 years ago) because he has hearing damage caused by exposure/close proximity to gunfire from almost 70 years ago. He says we should forgive, forget and move on.

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