My family at war

[The Judge]

I didn't see the programme, Foxbat, but I had heard of the flower children. My sister went to an Arnhem memorial last year in a private school near where she lives (we were meant to go too, but at the last minute couldn't make it) and while there she fell into conversation with a Dutch mother and daughter who had come over purely to honour the few veterans who were able to attend. They talked about the commemorations which still went on at Arnhem and how much they owed the Paras and the mother was herself only middle aged, so far too young to have suffered through the war. It really made us tear up, because when it came to it, the Dutch weren't freed by the Paras and instead went through even more horrors as the Germans overwhelmed them, but still the Dutch were -- are -- grateful because our men had tried.

 

[Montero]

A thing about your momento, Foxbat - that looks to me that it could be a card that your grandfather embroidered himself over a printed pattern. Handcrafts, especially those done with embroidery thread by men were a lot more common back then. I have an A4 sized sampler that my step-grandfather made for his mother just before joining the Navy way back in the 1890s.

 

[Montero]

My father wasn't allowed to join the armed forces in WW2 - he was in a reserved occupation - namely teaching biology to sixth formers many of whom went on to be medical students. The school where he taught was in London, and the school was evacuated en masse to a seaside town in the south west. They shared the grammar school in the town, using it in shifts - so one school started classes really early in the morning and finished at lunch, the other school started at lunch and finished well into the evening. All the boys were billeted on families around the town and father went round checking on them. One of the things he insisted on was building Andersen shelters in the gardens of all the billets, and took a party of the larger, stronger sixth formers with him to help with the heavy digging. At that point the townsfolk thought they were unlikely to be bombed - why else would evacuees be sent there. So father was very unpopular with the keener gardeners. A keen gardener himself he would have been as careful as possible in the siting, but even so, it was a disruption. Once the Channel Islands were captured, the Nazis put an airbase there and sent stukas over - they came in low over the sea, had a single bomb to drop and would also machine gun places - like the sea front and any civilians walking there. Later on there were bombing raids with larger bombers. The people with the disrupted gardens finished up thanking father.
On top of his teaching and loco parentis duties, he and all the other masters had firewatch duty shifts in the attic of the school buildings - buckets of sand to deal with any incendiary devices - this was at night as well. He joined the Home Guard and had regular night shifts on sentry duty on the beach, keeping a watch out for agents landing from submarines. There was the occasions when he had several nights in a row with no sleep and continuing to teach biology during the day.
He told me that the home guard did have their headquarters in a two storey building where the ammo was stored. They took their Lee Enfield rifles home with them, but had to hand in all their ammo. He thought that completely daft as if Nazi paratroopers landed, they'd have to run to the headquarters, find the key, get the ammo and it would all be over before they could do anything. So he palmed two clips of Lee Enfield ammunition. His plan in the event of paratroopers coming was to fire off two clips while they were in the air to see how many he could get and then get the hell out of there - as he said a few civilians with the basic training of the Home Guard wouldn't stand a chance once an elite regiment landed on the ground.
Because he was good at cricket and could throw well, he finished up as the platoon's grenade thrower and was also issued with a can that screwed on to the end of the Lee Enfield to make a basic grenade thrower. You loaded the Lee Enfield with blanks, took a grenade, pulled the pin but kept the lever down, slid it into the can (and were very careful not to tip it and drop it on the floor where the lever would trigger and set it off) and then fired the blank which launched the grenade.
At one point they were at a training range being trained by the army on grenade throwing with live grenades. One of the platoon - who today would probably be classified in one of the educational problems categories - picked up his grenade, pulled out the pin, the handle flew up lighting the five second fuse and instead of instantly throwing it, he turned to the army sergeant and said, "What do I.." and the sergeant snatched it off him and threw and yelled "down" and they were all still ducking for cover in the slit trench when the grenade went off just the other side of the sand bags.

 

[BigBadBob141]

My uncle ( a lovely, gentle man who would never talk about his war experiences ) served on board the destroyer HMS Venomous as an Abel Seaman, after he passed some years ago I was given a framed photo of his ship plus a certificate issued by the king of Norway thanking him for his part in the liberation of Norway.
Obviously these were printed in their thousands and given to all the soldiers, sailors and airmen involved, but I think that plus the yearly Christmas tree in London's Trafalgar Square is a very nice gesture by the Norwegians.

 

[Foxbat]

A thing about your momento, Foxbat - that looks to me that it could be a card that your grandfather embroidered himself over a printed pattern. Handcrafts, especially those done with embroidery thread by men were a lot more common back then. I have an A4 sized sampler that my step-grandfather made for his mother just before joining the Navy way back in the 1890s.

It may well be but I honestly can’t be sure. It says on the reverse Carte Postale so it may have been provided by the French for British soldiers.
The handwritten message is:

To my darling wife
From your loving husband
Somewhere in France
7/2/40

Making something like this would be one way to pass the time in the ‘phoney war’

 

[Foxbat]

One thought: now that VE day has passed, I hope the country won’t forget to honour those that fought and died on the other side of the world and show the same reverance and respect for VJ day (15th August).

 

[HareBrain]

Nice thread. Hope it's OK to post a few related photos.

This is my dad, somewhere in Europe some time after D-Day. He was in the Royal Engineers attached to the Guards Armoured Division. He sometimes drove a tank transporter, but I believe this shows him towing part of a bridge.



And this is one of the bridges he helped build.



My mum served in the RAF, as a driver and carpenter (making parts for mosquito aircraft). I don't have any photos of her during her service, unfortunately, but here's a scan of her release document.

 

[BigBadBob141]

REF: Foxbat.
Yes it annoys the hell out of me when a big, big fuss is made of VE day but VJ day never gets a mention like they did in I think 2015, people forget that while everyone was celebrating the end of the war in Europe there was still a lot of fighting and dying going on in Burma and the Pacific and would be for another three months until the A bombs were dropped!!!

 

[The Judge]

I think the problem is the ending of the two spheres of conflict. Dresden aside, we can congratulate ourselves on how we brought about the end in Europe, but victory in Asia came on the back of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whatever the military and strategic arguments for the bomb -- which we won't be discussing, please -- it's still a horror that makes it harder to celebrate what it achieved. (And it's easier and pleasanter to celebrate rather than to commemorate and actually have to think about what war means.)

 

[Boneman]

My Uncle on my Mum's side was a pilot, but a crash in training gave him head injuries, and he transferred to the army, became part of the BEF in France. He was captured after his unit became encircled and spent 5 years in captivity. Was never the same, apparently, but my Mum (who worked as a secretary to film units that made morale raising pieces) was never sure if that was the head injury or the captivity. Probably both.

My old man became a conscientious objector as soon as war threatened. Not for religious reasons, or because he cherished his fellow men, but because he was a coward. He was offered Jail, or to work on the land, and he chose the latter. Being a coward, in 1953, he left his wife and six children, telling them he had to work a long way away, and arranged for his own divorce by committing adultery...

Can you imagine after-dinner conversations after the war, when my Uncle visited?

 

[BigBadBob141]

REF: The Judge.
Sorry, I know the bombs are a sore point for some people, and I have no intention of discussing them here, I mentioned them in passing just as an historical fact, no more, no less, I did do some remarks about them on a thread a few years ago in the history section if anyone is interested.
But no matter what you think of them, good or bad, I think VJ day should be celebrated simply because of the ending of all the very bloody fighting that went on, on both sides!
P.S. There is a very good eight part documentary called I think "The Pacific War In Color ", I recommend everyone to watch this, it shows what a horror show the whole bloody mess was!

 

[The Judge]

My comment about discussing the bombs wasn't aimed at you, BBB. Sorry for not making that clear. It was a general advisory directed at everyone contributing to the thread and I should have made it as a separate note so that was explicit. I was simply a little worried that a thread about families (and friends) and memories, might easily get side-tracked into possibly contentious discussions of larger issues which isn't what we'd want to happen.

.

 

[Montero]

@ The Judge - Bomber Command was rather left out of the war honours due to the feeling about Dresden and that was only corrected relatively recently, so I think your theory holds up.
Also when the war in Europe ended, everyone at home was seeing the change - no threat of bombing, shipping able to arrive freely, the gradual return of European army members - so the war in the Far East was easy to forget even at the time.

I would add that I am finding it interesting the number of people mentioning their relatives rarely talked about their experiences. I think my father talked about his because he felt the need to explain why he hadn't been in the armed forces and what he'd done instead. He did try to join up several times - there would be recruiting drives for people with certain technical skills - but he'd always be told no.

 

[Foxbat]

My mum served in the RAF, as a driver and carpenter (making parts for mosquito aircraft). I don't have any photos of her during her service, unfortunately, but here's a scan of her release document.

Given all the technological and industrial advancements of the time, I’ve always found it quite amazing that one of the finest and fastest planes of the war was built mostly from wood. Kind of the like the Morgan of the skies

 

[Foxbat]

This is the Canadian War Memorial from the Great War. I remember visiting this as a youngster. The writing on the card dates it as september 27th 1939. I think it’s quite surprising that structures like these survived WW2 - particularly when you consider the similarities between the german thrust into france in 1940 and the Schleiffen plan of 1914. It meant that some of the fighting was in similar areas in both wars.

Of course, it may have been damaged and repaired as far as I know...

 

[Foxbat]

An army mascot dated as from Malta 1935. We went on holiday there in 1971 and this was still a popular postcard at the time.

 

[Foxbat]

Merry Christmas from Karachi 1947

 

[The Judge]

OK, got the photo album -- not sure how these will turn out as we've just photo'd them in the sleeves. Though Dad didn't talk about the war a lot, fortunately I managed to get some details before dementia wholly took him.

He joined the Royal Marines in February 1939, 7 days after his 17th birthday, as there was simply no work for him -- so he wasn't an "HO" Hostilities Only -- and he remained in the marines until "Released to Reserve" in 1953. I don't know much about what action he might have seen, but I do know he couldn't bear the smell of marzipan because it reminded him of being locked down in the ships' magazines during action, where he would have had no chance of escape. I've got dozens of photos of him and his mates from 1941 to 1947, but needless to say, with few exceptions, the photos mostly show the lighter sides of being on board ship.

His first ship was HMS Dragon, and this photo shows two images from Christmas 1941:

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In case it's too small to read in the full image, the text for the bottom photo reads:

Christmas Day Tot Time collecting the mess rum ration; man with painted moustache measuring it out; "Jack Dusty" marking it in ledger; he and the officer of the watch have ties which have been cut off​

​

I've no idea what the cut-off ties were for, unless it's a kind of Lord of Misrule thing! Also from the Dragon, there are several scenes from a concert party:

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Obviously, the female roles are being taken by men -- shades of It Ain't Half Hot Mum. The marines were known for their music school, and on the Dragon they apparently had a bandmaster, corporal and 12 bandsmen. "It was a marvellous show -- even 5 or 6 of the officers took part."


He later joined HMS Cumberland, and remained with her until the end of the war. I think the ship must have patrolled the coast of Africa, as she frequently docked in South Africa. Before they were allowed on shore they were lectured about race relations there and basically told they weren't allowed to fratinise with blacks or coloureds, which also meant they couldn't go ashore with their black or coloured shipmates. As it happens, Dad confirmed that on one occasion he and some (white) friends heard music and what sounded like people having a great time so they went to investigate and ended being enthusiastically welcomed into some wedding celebrations -- everyone else there being black. Goodness knows what would have happened if they'd been found out.

He and his mates also made friends with a (white) family who owned a farm, and whenever possible they stayed with them. There was also a Geordie who'd emigrated there and he and his family kept open house in Durban: "I was with them one afternoon and there was a knock at the door and there were 4 blokes from the aircraft carrier which had just come in."

One of the girls in the family sent him this unusual Christmas card in 1945:

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[The Judge]

The Cumberland went over to Ceylon at one point and while there a marine died after PE: "He was in the bed next to me. He just came back to change and he flopped out on the bed." He was buried in the naval cemetery in Ceylon and Dad had some 7 photos of the ceremony, starting with the procession with the marine chaplain leading, then men carrying the body and the marines behind marching, then at the graveside.

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"There was a boy bugler -- he was blowing his heart out and crying at the same time."

The Cumberland also went to Rangoon, and there's a photo of the marines marching through the city in tropical rain "They were absolutely sodden when they got back. I wasn't with them. I was the postman that day." (That was said with a certain amount of glee as I recall!)

I'm not 100% sure what's shown in this postcard:

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That's the Cumberland in the centre, and Dad said it relates to the Japanese surrender of Singapore, but I see on Wikipedia there's a photo which is clearly of the same scene as the one top right on the postcard, but that's said to be Japanese military representatives on board HMS Cumberland for a conference to discuss terms by which Allied forces would take control of Java, Indonesia.

And post-war, but still dealing with the effects of the war, he joined HMS Ajax, which patrolled the Med and had the unhappy duty of forcing ships of Jewish refugees which were bound for Palestine to turn aside, in this case to go to Cyprus.

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[The Big Peat]

I never got particularly good stories from my grandparents and great-uncles, not that I ever really thought to ask them - it felt somehow rude and intrusive. My paternal grandfather was stationed in Northern Ireland with the Royal Artillery the entire war, possibly a consequence of having a father-in-law who was a schoolboy friend of Attlee and who earned a knighthood for his role organising the coal industry (he also left several histories and biographies from the war, annotated with scathing remarks about Churchill). Or possibly not. I don't really know. I only truly know my grandmother used to take the train down Mexico way to buy bananas, which she'd smuggle back by hiding in my oldest uncle's pram, and if inspectors came too close she'd pinch my uncle to make him cry. And I'm not sure I even know that, because while a wonderful woman she was more interested in good stories than the truth, although the actions are entirely in character. My grandfather's own father was a retired Navy captain who was called back for reasons we don't know about but given he was an extremely good mathematician, we have our guesses.

My maternal grandparents met when he was in the Marines and she was a Wren. Their special places were all churches and villages up in the Sussex downs when they could easily escape to from Portsmouth. My grandfather became a sergeant and the boxing champion of his regiment, but didn't take part in D-Day due to them getting married, and then also fortunately missed out on Korea due to a broken ankle, which gave him survivors' guilt. Maybe that's why he didn't talk much about it.

The only family member I'm aware of who died was my maternal grandmother's brother, who was a fighter pilot, and he died after VE day due to engine failure. There's something horrifying to me about the idea that his life was lost to a mechanical fault after it was all done, to pass through it all only for a misstep of fate. But such is life.