Dad joined the Territorials when the fasist tide was rising. He was mobilised at the outbreak of war and sent to Belgium. After digging in their guns several times, 115 battery was told to make for the coast - "everyman for themselves Make for Dunkerque".
After a few days without food or much to drink, he and his mates arrived at the beaches, where the lack of food and water continued. Eventually got away to Blighty, to be given a bollocking for not having his rifle. Fortunately the population at large were less judgemental and plied a young innocent provincial lad with drink.
Like many others, he had been posted as missing in action - widely considered to be a euphemism for "dead" to people like my grandparents who had gone through the Great War.
Fortunately dad was detrained at Leicester, and was spotted by a neighbour being marched to a camp outside town. One of his many brothers was immediately dispatched, "Don't come home without our Doug". A few hours later, a by now very hungover Douglas was getting the rollicking of his life from Grandma.
Although in an artillery regiment, he was trained as a signaller. He spent a few months at Beaumanor Hall near Woodhouse Eves, Leics listening in to the Wehrmacht. Beaumanor was a Y station for Bletchley Park.
After his stint at Beaumanor, he was shipped out to Burma, chased all the way to Imphal, then chased the Japanese back to Mandalay.
Mum was in the ATS as a radar operator. She told how her squad of 6 girls had to not only do the radar stuff, but constantly maintain the genset with not an ounce of mechanical knowledge between them. One girl getting her fingers amputated when they were in the wrong place.
One day they were all shoved into the back of a lorry, the back closed up and driven off to god knows where. Arriving at late afternoon, they not only had to make their own mattresses, packing paliasses with straw, but having to paint the inside of the cold, wet and draughty Nissen hut first - with limewash.