D day 80 years on

[martin goddard]

Well, here we are, 80 years on.

Anyone want to mention here any relations that took part in WW2.
In any capacity, Now is a good day to remember them.

martin

[Panzer21]

Well, here we are, 80 years on.

Anyone want to mention here any relations that took part in WW2.
In any capacity, Now is a good day to remember them.

martin

My dad was the driver for a Wasp in the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in 52 Lowland Division. Wanted to be in submarines (!) but got conscripted instead. He wasn't Scottish, him and a lot of his mates got conscripted from Northumberland.
Trained in the Highlands as the only Mountain Division and slated for an invasion of Norway, after D-Day they were retrained as an Airlanding Division. They were supposed to fly into Deelen airfield at Arnhem after the paras had secured it.
Instead they landed on the coast of France in October 1944 and fought through Belgium and Holland into Germany, ending up around Bremen and Hambourg.
Never talked much about the war. On the last family holiday before he died, we went up to Scotland and revistited where he had trained near Fort George.
Neil

[martin goddard]

Your dad was a busy man Neil. Surviving the war is an achievement too.

martin

[Wardy64]

My uncle Peter was at 'Sword' today as an 18 year old Royal Marine crewing a LCA. Like most he never said much, but was haunted by the bodies in the sea he kept seeing, during his trips back and forth to the beach. Dad was in the Far East with the Royal Navy, and my other uncle in the Med on HM Submarines.

One granddad landed in France at about D Day +20 as a RMP, the other granddad was based at Scapa Flow.


D&B

[Leman (Andy)]

My dad volunteered for the Royal Navy aged 17 in 1943. He served mainly in the Far East until 1946 as a radar petty officer. My grandad served in the Royal Navy 1914 to 1918. In WW2 he joined the fire watch in London. His post was atop a gas storage thing! I can't remember the name of those, but they regulated the pressure by going down then filling up again. Anyway, as my grandad was then in his 50s he was considered fit enough to go up and down the support structure.

[Leman (Andy)]

Looks like this is going to elicit some interesting stories.

[John Watson]

My dad joined the local Home Guard at the start of the war. He could not do active service due to his poor eye sight. In fact he served the war effort by not trying to fight! He was then seconded to the Admiralty as a quantity surveyor and posted to Invergordon in Scotland. Other than his day job the pictures I have seen of him from that time always showed him with a pint or quart pot in hand.
My mum lived in the Strand in London for most of the war. She was just 18 at the start of the war and signed up straight away as an air raid warden. Her command post was in the cellar of the Lamb and Flag pub, Rose Street, Covent Garden. She served through the Blitz and through the V1 and V2 campaigns. She was the last person in St Clement Danes church before the roof collapsed when it was bombed with incendiaries on 10th May 1941. The church was all but destroyed but was rebuilt after the war and is now the RAF church. Her job as a warden changed as the war entered the last year and the allied forces pushed on from D-Day to capture the V1 and V2 rocket sites. She often spoke about the early part of the war but less about the later part. I found out why a few years after she died , but that is another story.
John

[Moggy]

My Uncle Len lied about his age and joined the Army, landed on D-Day, got shot and evacuated then medically discharged all before he could legally join up. Now that is dedication. 

As far as I recall all the other serving members of the family at that time were serving in either Italy or the Far East.

Derek

[martin goddard]

My teacher friend Peter Lewendon was a glider pilot at Arnhem.

My bank friend John, was at Dunkirk. A boat came along the queues asking "Anyone an engineer?". He said yes, although he was not an engineer. They soon  discovered this and threw him out of the boat in deeper water.

My English Teacher  M Nixon was  quite deaf. He had been in self propelled guns (Sexton/Priest?) during WW2. Nice chap but struggled to hear the children.

My Music teacher Mr Jackson tip toed with one of his feet,  as a German had shot his heel off in the war.

My French teacher Miss Richards used to go "mental" when any boy drew a Swastika. It all seemed out of proportion to us 16 yera olds, but she was Jewish and had been in the death camps 20 years before as a teenager.

I expect most of us older RFCM members had teachers that were in the war. I don't think teachers were a protected profession?

They all deserved and got respect.

martin

[Ben Waterhouse]

My wife's never met uncle.

Corporal James Lomas 3782881

1st Bn. South Lancashire Regiment

killed in Action, Normandy, 27 June 1944

Aged 22.

Son of Arthur and Frances Lomas, of Heaton Norris, Stockport, Cheshire.

NOT JUST TO-DAY BUT EVERY DAY IN SILENCE WE REMEMBER. REST IN PEACE.

[Sean Clark]

Neither of my grand fathers were in Europe. One was in Burma with the RAF Regt, the other in India with the AA training achool, Mainly Karachi. His brother however served with 47 Commando and saw action at D Day, though I have no information about him. He died in the mid 60's so I never met him. He was in Norway at the start of the war, but other than that, my grandad was reluctant to talk about him for some reason.

[martin goddard]

We have created an interesting topic without being diverted. Thank you.

martin  

[John Watson]

Martin, your comments made me think about non family heroes.
I knew two Arnhem veterans. One, Francis MacMillan was a sailing friend, who lost his trigger finger at Arnhem. The other, Frank Brown, was at Arnhem from first to last and was one of those who was evacuated across the river at the end of campaign.
Another of my sailing friends, Leslie Metcalfe, was commander of a landing craft on D-Day. He was 19 years old at the time.
One of my parents' friends was Frank Hector. He was in RAF intelligence and he was tasked with interviewing returned crew, especially those who had been downed behind enemy lines and had escaped.
Finally one of my history teachers was Eddie Potts. He was a prisoner of war in the Far East. He was an army captain and was as thin as a rake. He never spoke to us boys about the war.

[Bankinista]

My grandfather was an artilleryman in the South Wales Borderers (iirc) despite being from Dundee. I believe that this was so that if a regiment badly suffered the pain was spread and there was no repeat of WW1's clustering.

Anyway, back to the topic. In common with many veterans he didn't speak about the war except at times like this to mention a song which had the lines "we are the D-Day dodgers, lounging out in sunny Italy."

Derek of Cambridge.

[Smoking gun]

My dad volunteered for aircrew but was turned down because of a heart murmur, he then tried the army who told him to come back after he finished his electrician training. He joined the REME who gave him further trade training including mechanics. He served in North Africa, Italy and Normandy. He was on board a ship in the invasion fleet when Japan surrendered, the fleet turned round and he ended up in India. He mentioned the conditions at the Japanese run POW camps. He stayed in the army in India, doing a variety of technical jobs including theatre electrician and running a power station until independence in August 1947. He worked his trip home, as a deck electrician, on an ex German ship which was built to take Germans to Argentina. He got paid twice for that journey once by the army and once by the ship.

He didn't talk much about his service during WW2 except in general terms and the odd funny incidents. He was more open about his time in India especially when he worked at the power station.

I think it's fitting that he died on the 6th June a few years ago.

Best wishes,
Martin from Grimsby