WW2 YOUR DAD/GRANDFATHER

bardicastle

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I know there are a few military history nuts on this site, what i would like to know out of interest what your dad/grandfather did in the forces in WW2 i.e rifleman etc etc.
my father was a para and on his right arm is a badge of pegasus, that's all i know about his reg. i've tried searching his reg. but can't find any history on it.
He was posted to palestine 1945/48 and anyone thinking it was a cosy number, they are very wrong they had suicide bombers and snipers to deal with "not much has changed their".
 
My Grandfather was in the Somme in WW1 - and lived to tell the tale.

Greg
 
My grandfather was in the Cavalry in WWI. He was wounded and lived the rest of his life with a piece of shrapnel in his leg and an open wound in his heel which was a drain for the infected wound. He died in his 70's in the late 60's.

My father was a gunner in the Royal Navy after lying about his age to join up and was a boy sailor at HMS Ganges. He was on destroyers in WWII, notably HMS Kent. He served in the Atlantic, the Far East for which he was awarded the Burma Star and on Russian Convoys for which he was recently awarded the Arctic Star. There are more medals on his ribbon but I can't remember the others.
 
my dad was 12 towards the end of ww11 nearly starved to death his twin did.
 
My father was too young for the start of the war and joined the navy as soon as he could. The war in Europe was over and they went to the Pacific and Singapore. Stayed on for the Malayan police action and Korea.

My father in law was a sergeant in 5 Commando and spent the war in Burma.
 
My maternal grandfather, Ronnie, was in a reserved occupation in WW2, but joined the Home Guard. My paternal grandfather, Reginald, served in 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade in North Africa.

Ronnie & Reggie :D
 
My dad was too young for WW2, but joined the Air Dispatch just after. He ended up on the Berlin airlift.
My grandfather on my mothers side was a dog handler in the German army during the war, or so he said, he could have been in the SS for all that I know.
 
Great Grandfatha & Grandfatha (mothers) Black Jocks, WW1 & 11 both survived the wars, surprisingly!

Grandfatha (Dads) HMS Hood, killed in action

Fatha RAF, Served Aden, Steamer Point posted for 26 months which drove him slightly mad!!!!
 
I'll let him tell you himself - this was written as part of the BBC WW2 People's War http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/

My Dad wrote the following:
In 1944 I was a 16 year old school boy at Bec School, Tooting Bec in South London, at the time of the `Doodle Bug` and V2 Blitz,and remember being in Balham, South London, with my mother shopping, when we saw the first V1 fly over and come down.
At the time we thought the Ack Ack guns had done a great job and shot it down, but that night on the news, Herbert Morrison,The Home Secretary,announced the arrival of the new terror weapons.

At the time I was a Sergeant in the School Cadet Corps and like most people, at that stage of the war,was a trained first aider.
Soon the bombs and casualities began to increase. The Head received an urgent request for volunteers to act as ambulance orderlies, and asked my school chum and I to volunteer, which of course we did.

Initially we were called out to attend `Incidents`, the name given to bomb sites but soon the main problem became the pressure on the hospitals and the need to clear the wards during the day to make room for the next casualities.
We then used to be called out of class to join the modified Greenline Buses,converted to take about 20 stretchers, which collected us from the school gates.

We were the only orderlies on the bus and would go to the nominated hospitals, often The South West London Hospital for Women, at Clapham South, one of the nearest ones and clear the wards of casualities,some of which had barely come round from operations.
We would then set off into the nearby countryside to Reception Centres, one of which I can remember was the Southern Railway Childrens Home near Woking, where we would hand over our charges and head back to london for the next load, often not getting home until the next day.
What struck us youngsters was the indomitable spirit of the people we moved, many offering us their surviving chickens etc., from their destroyed homes gardens and many other things as well, which we never accepted. They seldom complained on the long journeys but often showed signs of distress when, on arrival at some Reception Centres, the Air raid Sirens started sounding again.
We continued to act as orderlies right to the end of the Blitz, even narrowly missing one of the first V2`s that landed on Tooting Bec Common as I was cycling towards it!
 
My Great Grandad was a seargeant in WWI and fought and survived, Ypres, Sommes and Verdun. He is mentioned in a couple of histories. Harold Lanceley.

My Grandad was in the BEF in WW2 and swam out to a destroyer at Dunkirk getting a mention in the Altrincham (evening post i think). After that he trained british tank crews and Bovington on the Sherman and worked on the Hobart Funnies for D Day.
 
One was in the Desert Rats WW2 and the other was in the Navy in WW1 but was badly injured at Jutland at 16 and was unable to rejion in 1939.
Loads of stories from the Desert Rats lovely man used to take me on camping trips in his Morris Traveller.
 
My Grandfather Arthur was secretary of the Armagh brigade of the IRA in the 1920's & 30's and was interned for two years on the prison ship Argenta in Belfast Lough.
 
My paternal grandfather was a Regular, serving with 2nd Bn Royal Fusiliers and stationed in India by 1914.

Along with other overseas units, they returned to the UK for despatch to the Western Front but the battalion was one of those then sent out to the Dardenelles. He landed at Gallipoli on the first day of the landings and remained there until the withdrawal.

His Division was then chucked into the Western Front, where his battalion assaulted Hawthorn Redoubt on the first day of the Somme.

This image is the well known footage of the only mine detonation filmed in WWI and the current site of that explosion, Hawthorn Redoubt, near Beaumont Hamel.

676273222_G6BFx-M.jpg


In April 1917, he was transferred to the Royal Engineers as a signaller and posted to the Middle East, where he saw out the war.

He was de-mobbed in 1920 and recalled to the colours in 1922 before being de-mobbed again in 1924.

In WWII, he joined the London Auxiliary Fire Service. After the Blitz, in 1942, he volunteered to go to India with the AFS because a similar Blitz was anticipated by the Japanese. He remained there until the end of hostilities and returned to Blighty in early 1946.

My father joined the Home Guard in 1941, was then called-up into the army. A serious illness forced his discharge but by 1943 he had recovered enough to volunteer and re-joined. He served with the Reconnaissance Corps until 1945 and then transferred to RMP as a Regular. He served in Palestine, Kenya and Cyprus. He was about to leave the army when Suez happened, he decided to stay-in, completing his service in 1967.
 
My dad was on Dunkirk beach, got bombed and left for dead. Got picked up when they tried to take his gun. spent weeks being driven round france avoiding the German forces before getting back to england and having a kidney removed. Six month in hospital then sent off again.

I'm glad I have not had to do that and hope my son never does either.
 
my grandfather fought at the somme , his brother died there, what a waste ...
 
Father was in the Combined Commando Force in Burma, with a jungle penetration unit. Got very severely burned, but returned to the front.

Grandfather managed a shipyard, Strath's in Aberdeen. They gave him an MBE for it.

One of Ma's cousins, Graydon, flew bombers and went down over Dresden. Never recovered his body.

Ma drove ambulances in Dover and Ramsgate and, it seems, was chatted up by almost all the pilots at RAF Manston. :D

My parents were a lot older than me (I'm 42), but WWII as a consequence feels like recent history through their stories.
 
My father joined the Royal Artillery just before the war and served with the BEF in France, they had to defend Dunkirk and then destroy the guns so the Germans couldn't use them.

He made it to the beach but didn't like the look of it so went up the coast and was somewhere in the channel in a rowing boat when he (& others) were eventually picked up by a dutch fishing boat and handed over to a RAF or RN patrol boat.

My mother was informed he was missing in action and then he just turned up at the door.

He was also involved in the Normandy landings and saw service in France and Germany.

When he was alive he never really talked about his war, but he did not have a problem with the German people, although he did ask me if "I still worked for the Nazis" (I work for a german company based in Munich)

He died in Feb 2007 aged 90, he was one of many who just did their bit but he will always be my hero (not because of his war) and I miss him every day.
 
My Dad was too young at the outbreak of WW2 and was in a reserved occupation later on though he was in the Home Guard (and no he didn't wear a scarf like Pike!). He joined up in 1946 as soon as he could and was in Cyprus quickly rising to the rank of Sgt in the REME.

My uncle was in the Desert Rats and fought throughout the North African campaign and then through Italy and lived to tell the tale, he's 89 now and in failing health but he's still one proud guy and a true gentleman despite the horrors he lived through.

My grandfather was a captain with the White Star Line in the Merchant Navy in WW2 and was sank by U-boats/mines six times! On one occaision a U-boat was on the receiving end of his Royal Navy escort and he picked up the german survivors. The U-boat captain was understandably grateful and gave him his binoculars which we still have. He was awarded the OBE at Buckingham Palace in 1942 after leading a large convoy successfully through to Malta.

It goes without saying I'm immensely proud of them all.
 
My Dad joined the navy in Feb 1946 as a boy aged 15 and was sent to H.M.S. St.Vincent boys training barracks at Gosport. After about 6 weeks training he was selected to be trained as a radio telegraphist and was sent to H.M.S Ganges at Shotley near Ipswich for 18 months to learn morse code, radio theory and cryptography. On passing the final exams in 1947 at the age of 16 and a half he was sent to Malta on a troopship to join the aircraft carrier H.M.S Ocean which was part of the Mediterranean Fleet. At the age of 17 he was given accelerated promotion to Ordinary telegraphist then a year later to telegraphist. He then went to the Signal School in Malta and qualified as a leading telegraphist. Shortly afterwards H.M.S.Ocean returned to the U.K. and volunteers were asked for a special assignment, he was accepted and given 2 weeks leave. On return to the ship in Glasgow they sailed to the Far East for the start of the Korean war. After about 3 months he returned to the U.K and volunteered for Submarines (All Submariners were volunteers) He was then posted to an M.T.B as the radio officer and after about two months was sent to H.M.S. Dolphin submarine base for training. On completion he was posted to H.M.S. Sea Scout an "S" class sub. After about 6 months he was promoted to Petty Officer Telegraphist and transferred to H.M.S Andrew, an "A" class sub and the first submarine to cross the Atlantic under water without surfacing. He later served on H.M.S. Tradewind and H.M.S Tapir both "T" class. He served for a total of 5 years in subs most of the time being in the Atlantic and Arctic waters monitoring the Russians during the "Cold War". Proud of him and my grandad who was a Royal Navy veteran from both wars :thumb2
 
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