How did WW2 affect you or your family?

My dad joined the Dutch army a couple of days after Rotterdam was liberated. He was 19 but had a forged identity card which gave his age as 15 to avoid deportation by the Nazis - he had to return home to get his birth certificate to prove his age. A couple of weeks later he was in England training. He had been through the Dutch famine and he said the English public were brilliant and gave the Dutch recruits food due to them all being so thin. That was how he met my mother. A few months later he was on a ship to the Far East and the possible invasion of Japan when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed and the war ended.
 
Davepick said:
I was in Devvy Rd Hospital on the Christmas of 1940.(chicken pox believe it or not).
My dad had been conscripted into the RASC. He came home on Embarcation Leave as he was going to N. Africa.
He was not allowed into the ward and had to speak to me through the window.
Anyway, in early 1945 my brother (20 months older) walked up Regent Rd to go to St Johns School.
My Bro was going on to get the bus in Park Rd for Tyldesley School.
As we neared the back entrance for St Johns (opposite the Regent Cinema) this soldier came across Church St. He had kitbag, tin helmet, rifle and etc.
As he walked towards us he stopped and said, 'Are you Alan & David Pickering?'.
We said 'Yes'. He then said 'I'm your Dad'.
We didn't know him. We had to start all over again getting used to our Dad after more than 4 years away.
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Great Post DP...and many more inspiring ones after.My Dad served his country but not anywhere near as dangerous as some of these but like many others he did without a moment thought in doing so.
 
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My Grandad was captured trying to get back to the beaches at Dunkirk, kept as POW in Poland until they were liberated by the Russians. He told me after they were freed two huge planes were brought in to take them home, apparently one of planes immediately crashed after takeoff and everyone died , he was on the second plane. Imagine waiting 5 years to be liberated only for the plane to crash. He didn’t really talk about any of it with any pride of gravitas, mostly talked about it
comedically.
 
My father was in the Cheshire Regiment and I vaguely remember two men in uniform arriving at the nursery near Waterloo Road. Just like Dave's story one of the men was my dad. He had been a professional boxer before the war appearing amongst other venues the Tower. The war curtailed his boxing but fortunately he did have a trade to fall back on.
My mother's brother was a Radio Officer in the Merchant Navy and was killed aged 19 when his ship, Empire March, was sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic. If in London I always try to visit the memorial on Tower Hill, last time I brought over a poppy from New Zealand.
One of my dad's brothers was a submariner and I have a book called 'The Ship With Two Captains." It is about the secret missions the submarine undertook during the war. A film called "The Man Who Never Was," operation Mincemeat, was one of the missions.
Like DavePick I also was in Devonshire Road hospital with Chickenpox just a bit later.
 
https://laituk.org/Botha-Defiant.htm is a site that covers the mid air collision.
I should also have said the name of the submarine in which my uncle served was P219 HMS Seraph. When she arrived at Briton Ferry for scrapping on 20 December 1962, parts from her conning tower and a torpedo loading hatch were preserved as a memorial at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, where General Clark served as president from 1954–1965. This monument is the only shore installation in the United States where the Royal Navy ensign is authorised to be permanently flown by the British Admiralty. It flies alongside the US flag to commemorate Anglo-American cooperation during World War II
 
Some great posts such as Dave Pick’s experiences but I’m finding some posts a little bit difficult to get my head around. Some great stories which I’ve enjoyed reading but my issue is that most of the posts are not from the people involved so they’re all vicarious tales.

My grandad was involved and was mentioned in despatches twice but he never told us what for and he gave me all his medals, oak leaves and citations when I was around 10 as I was interested and he simply didn’t want them. As a kid I was excited to get them but confused why he didn’t when they were his and, in my mind, he’d fought for and earned them. It was only in his later years when I was in my late 20s when he opened up to me but he only talked about the horror and hell of it all, including what can only be described as war crimes committed on both sides, never about any glory and still no mention of what he’d done to be MID.

My worry is that the generation who fought in the war and knew the horrors are now all but gone but the following generations, like me, who have never had to suffer anything similar all seem to look upon it through rose-tinted glasses and take vicarious enjoyment from the actions of their parents and grandparents.

A bit of a rambling post but, as I said, I find the thread interesting but also a bit difficult to get my head around.
 
Shandypants said:
View attachment 1253

My grandad on the right with his crew. Canadian pilot and two polish lads
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Shandy. My Dad was in a tank regiment and got injured around the time you lost your Grandad. He's not in your picture though. That would have been too much of a coincidence. He was the radio operator. He never talked about the war much but did tell a story about taking food to a Dutch family cycling through enemy lines without knowing it. He was still serving during the Nuremberg trials sending communications back to the UK. He met Alistair Cooke (ex BGS boy of Letter from America fame) there. We did have some pretty horrible pictures from the concentration camps but not sure what happened to them.
 
My grandad was taken off the beach at Dunkirk, he used to go back there quite often as part of the Dunkirk Veterans until he got too old.

He didn’t speak much about the war nor did I ask him as I was too young really. I wish I had.
 
My father-in-law served with the 26th Panzer division ! Captured in Bologna in 1945. He was Polish, and from Silesia, a historically German part of Poland.

My dad's step-dad was a Polish airman in 300 squadron. He took part in the 1000 bomber raids and also the bombing of Berchtesgaden.
 
timaruseasider said:
My father was in the Cheshire Regiment and I vaguely remember two men in uniform arriving at the nursery near Waterloo Road. Just like Dave's story one of the men was my dad. He had been a professional boxer before the war appearing amongst other venues the Tower. The war curtailed his boxing but fortunately he did have a trade to fall back on.
My mother's brother was a Radio Officer in the Merchant Navy and was killed aged 19 when his ship, Empire March, was sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic. If in London I always try to visit the memorial on Tower Hill, last time I brought over a poppy from New Zealand.
One of my dad's brothers was a submariner and I have a book called 'The Ship With Two Captains." It is about the secret missions the submarine undertook during the war. A film called "The Man Who Never Was," operation Mincemeat, was one of the missions.
Like DavePick I also was in Devonshire Road hospital with Chickenpox just a bit later.
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'The Man who Never Was' was on BBC2 Thursday -- a great true story.
 
My father was one of six brothers who served in the various services in WW2, the seventh served in a tank regiment in the Korean war. He was invalided out but re-enlisted to fight in Malaya against the communist insurgents. Unfortunately he died of a heart attck there. My "English" son was in the Royal Signals and served in Croatia during the Bosnian war. He still lives in England and is a fervent Pool supporter.
 
My grandad stood on a land mine at the end of 44’ and was sent home to recover, got my Nana pregnant and my mum was born Dec 45. So I guess I wouldn’t be here but for timing.
 
Father in law was sent to defend the Falkland Islands from penguins where several went mad, off to North Africa and finally to Sicily and all the way up Italy crossing the Po under sniper fire.Ended up guarding Italian prisoners who took him to their homes for meals.
 
Thanks guys for all the stories. Some particularly heart wrenching ones among them.
I suppose that, in a way, I was lucky. My Dad came home.
Dad was a very outgoing personality and loved to tell us about his times in the War Zones.
In one way he seemed remarkably unworried about his time then.
He always laughed when he said that he had swum in The Po. The Po being the river which enters the Adriatic at Brindisi, where he was recuperating for some time during the battles.
fabs, interesting that you should post that whilst I was typing this.
 
A massive input with my maternal grandfather who joined the RAF as a career option to get away from the South Wales pits,but who served during the war as an aircraft mechanic.He couldnt fly because he was colour blind but carried on after the war all over the world until he was stationed in Blackpool,which is where I guess I came in at a later date.

The RAF have always been close to whatever we did as a family, and he had countless books,memorabilia and lots of other stuff he left when he died.His best mate was a prisoner in the Japanese POW camps who suffered greatly and died relatively early,and that affected him and his attitudes towards the Japs and the Germans too.

One thing I did notice that many of his RAF friends stayed in contact throughout his life, and they had a massive respect and love for each other that never faded. Without being facetious I see something similar with genuine football fans,so I guess adversity and being stuck in it with your mates makes characters of you;very much more so with the armed forces in our times of national crisis.
 
My Dad was 15 when the war finished and had been doing his apprenticeship for 18 months.

My grandad was too young for the First and too old for the Second but did Fire Warden duties in Liverpool during the Blitz, going in every day from Manchester on the train. Went round with a bucket of sand putting out incendiaries.

My great Uncle was ground crew on an RAF base. The runway was bombed but one failed to explode. Two of them picked the thing up, put it on a trolley and wheeled it away. The officer standing 200 yards away got a medal for bravery while they got a mention in dispatches. Plus ca change...
 
Wiz, I don't know how old your Grand Dad was at the start of WW2, but my Dad was 36 y.o. and had 3 children.
I've always wondered about that as he seemed to be 'called up' very early.
Was there a 'cut-off' age?
 
Old_Laytonian said:
My Dad signed up for the Navy in 1939 aged 17 and served until 1945. Artic convoys, North Africa , minesweeping, he didn’t like to talk about it. They didn’t did they? By all accounts my older sisters buried his medals in the garden never to be found again. He wasn’t bothered but my Mum always was . They got married when he was home on leave. I’ve got a lovely picture of them
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OL. Very similar to my dad’s story. He was also in the RN from 1940 onwards serving on the Atlantic and also Russian convoys to Murmansk including PQ17, and later on in Malta and the Med. He threw his medals in the dustbin at some point and mum retrieved them. I have them now along with his service record.

He also didn’t talk about it much but a few stories slipped out. My favourite Uncle and Aunt once came to visit with another couple who my parents didn’t know. The three men got talking about their war experiences, and the chap my dad didn’t know talked about how he was nearly killed during a raid into Norway. He was separated from his unit just as German reinforcements arrived and everyone was evacuating. He had to run down the jetty as the last ship was pulling away, armoured cars firing at the ship and the ship returning fire. He leapt from the end of the jetty onto a scramble net and survived.

My dad listened to his story, quietly puffing on his pipe (he was never a great one for chat), and then just said “yes, I remember that. I was on the ship and we didn’t think you were going to make it”.

Less amusingly, years later he was walking a dog across the fields close to Garstang Road when he found a body in a ditch. He admitted it triggered flashbacks to the convoys when they’d had to fish bodies and survivors from the sea after U boat attacks.

Having had a grandad and great uncles fight in the first war, we don’t know how lucky we are to have avoided the experience.
 
Davepick said:
Wiz, I don't know how old your Grand Dad was at the start of WW2, but my Dad was 36 y.o. and had 3 children.
I've always wondered about that as he seemed to be 'called up' very early.
Was there a 'cut-off' age?
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In his 40s. Just checked. Conscription was 18-41
 
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