Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rick]

A number of our family's relatives took part in WW2, one in the RAF, others on the ground. In WW1 one lost his life while flying for the RFC, lost while flying over the Channel and was never found.

Did you or relatives of yours serve in WW2, and if so did you ever find out what they did, perhaps through conversation or via research?

RJ
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[Penman]

Hi
I had an uncle by marriage who enlisted 18/1/41 in the RAF, became an AC2, he was posted to the far east on 6/12/41 so must have been one of the last arrivals before the fall of the island.
He spent the rest of the war in POW camp and the next entry on his service record is 106 PRC 6/9/45.

He never really talked about his experiences to any of the family.
We don't know where he was; Changhi, on the railway or elsewhere.

We only found out the above by getting his service record when trying to trace his antecedents for my cousins, his daughters.
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[BigJohn]

My Old Man joined up in Sept 1939 for a short adventure...... Was sent up to Blackpool to train until the instructors realised a Rolls Royce/ Daimler/ Minerva time served fitter was better than they were. He met my mother who was nursing at the fever hospital, then he went just about every where as a Flight Sgt Engineer, being demoted and rapidly promoted twice. Once for breaking an Aussie Flt Lt's jaw. His crew had landed after a rough flight and landed with an Aussie Sq. They were immediately put on parade and the Flt Lt called my Old Man some interesting names due to his unshaven sleepless state. Bang! out went the lights.
He never spoke about his war service to me, this all came from my son who the Old Man gave all his war time stuff to. One of his escapades saw him and his crew lost in the desert for 2 weeks after dropping one. He got home in 1945 and married Mother. He was still finding shrapnel appearing under his skin when he died aged 89.
His two brothers were both aircrew, All three came back, one a tail gunner (not a scratch), one Flt Eng. had a leg a bit shorter than the other (only survivor from his crew when they crashed). Their sister was a WAAF.

[Keith D]

My father served at sea in the British Merchant navy from 39 - 45. He was torpedoed once in a tanker early in the war, but survived. (or I wouldn't be writing this!)

He didn't talk a lot about his war. He had back trouble break out when he was in his late eighties, shortly before he died. The medicos put this down to damage he incurred sixty years earlier when cutting the lifeboat free from it's jammed davits and dropping with it into the sea when the ship was sinking.

This is rather an unusual thread; it reminds me of a game we all used to play at school in the early fifties called "What did your Dad do in the war?"

Keith

[JC T ONE]

Nice stories you guys must be proud .

even thou I live in Denmark, one member of my family was in England & served / trained with the RAF / parashute regiment.

It was my Grandfather , he was the leader & co founder of Holger Danske

A famues Danish resistance group, some of his stories were rewritten for the screen & included in this movie http://youtu.be/qJnfNAEwQ8U
In the end of WW2 the ground was burning under his feet, so he escaped from Denmark to England.
Here he was trained to be parachuted together with the allied troups, during operation Overlord.

He also met Winston Chuchill several times, and became friends with him.
During mr Churchill,s stay in Denmark, he drove the limousine during the parade through Copenhagen.

All this info I found in books & by attending lectures about WW2, my Grandfather never spoke of it.
I later learned that this was a common thing, for the people who took part in such events.

Jens Christian
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[BigJohn]

When I asked him why he never spoke of it until his old age my Old Man said, "I shut the hanger door, walked away, and got on with living".

[petermeachem]

My Dad was in the RAF. He ended up in signals but I never knew exactly what he did.
During part of the war he was on Benbecula. That was a base for planes being ferried over from the US. One blew over the edge of the island during the night so after that they tied them down to corkscrew like things embedded in the ground.
He also went round installing a bomb aiming trainer. I don't know much about it but they were installed in hangers and used a projected image on the ground
Pre-war he was in India for a while fixing magnetos on, I think Hawker Harts. He shared a tent with Lawrence of Arabia. Can you imagine? I asked him what Lawrence was like and he said nobody spoke to him. He was hugely famous and joined the raf to keep out of the limelight so nobody liked him. Didn't even get a signature.
When I was about 10 we were at Stanbridge, some sort of comms station. They had an exercise pretending to be attacked so they had outposts all over the place with telephones. Me and my chums went out in the dark and stole the telephone cable as we thought it would be useful to make stuff. We ruined the entire exercise, but they couldn't prove it was us. Taught them a good lesson I reckon

[Jim.Walker]

My Dad was in the RFC during WW1. He never spoke of it, though his age meant that like so many he was really too young.
He never served abroad.
I was amazed when I took him to Old Warden on a flying day just before he died, at the depth of his knowledge about 1WW aeroplanes and in particular the Gnome Rhone and Anzani rotary engines etc. and even dirigibles and air ships.
I learned he was an aircraft fitter from that visit.
Had he been posted abroad it is highly likely I would not be here.

My Wife had a cousin who was a Chindit and who spent the latter part of the war flying injured servicemen out of the Burmese Jungle in a Cierva Autogiro in WW2.
None of the family knew anything of this until after his death in the 1960s when an old newspaper was found in his effects detailing his war service. Which included escaping from the Japs in Burma in an open boat with others.
Only he and one other survived the boat trip.
None of the family knew about the Autogiro or that he was able to fly one. Never mind all the rest.
Jim.
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[peter scott]

My grandfather had various occupations in life but prior to WWI he had been a golf club maker and a joiner. He served as an air frame rigger in the RFC.

My father had his ears examined when joining up for WWII but they punctured one of his ear drums in the process and didn't permit him to fly thereafter. He too became an air frame rigger.

Peter
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[Rootes75]

My Grandmother was a cook in the RAF during WW2, she served at Hope Cove down in the South West. When my Grandparents on my other side died a few years back I found a photo of my Grandfathers younger brother, its a studio shot taken in his RAF uniform. He was never talked about and none of us knew he served in the RAF, he died in 1948 through illness at a young age. Would love to find out more about him but only have his name and date of birth, no military details at all??

[kevin2306]

My paternal grandfather was stationed in India during WW2, he has been gone for many years now but I have great memories as a child, of chatting with him about his time out there, My Nain (grandmother) hated him talking about the army.
During the war period, my Nain (grandmother) worked in a local ordinance factory.
My Dads maternal uncle was shot and wounded on D Day.
My Wifes paternal grandfather won the VC in the Great War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Whitfield

Kev