Have any Board posters lost relatives in the various wars

RE: A very brave man

yes, born before his time
they tell me even before i was born in1928
he used to mess about with crystall sets,
and mend watches
he used the hair springs on watches to make cats whiskers fro crystall sets
but before he took that out he learned how to repair watches
and he used to do it for nowt
then when elecric wire less cane along
hhe would test new wireless for theradio shop in birdwell before he sold them
all true
they all new Billy Gray in Bordwell

 

Heard some great stories when I was in Philadelphia in August.

Girlfriends father was stationed in Portsmouth as part of support services, he told me 2 stories in particular that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

A few weeks before D-Day he had a 24 hour leave and went up to London to meet with up his brother, they were going to stay in a YMCA but his brother said that the invasion would be soon, it might be the last time they see each other so suggested they splash out a bit on a hotel. There was an air raid that night and they found out the next morning that the YMCA had been hit and loads of servicemen staying there had been killed!

Then he said that he was walking back to base one evening and saw loads of planes heading out over the channel - the start of the D-Day invasion. That must have been some sight.

Enjoyed listening to his stories.

 

Hi Eastie
i can believe that
in Korea one day dring my truck gave a GI a lift
he was a navy Boy,(he said)
on furlough
been up front line for week to spend it with his Brother
True

 

He was nearly as interesting as you Bob!


Sometimes we forget how lucky we are not to have had to go through what you and many others have done.

 

in newer history allthough, most of my family were farmers

 

Mine too

My grandad reckons all the miners were armed with sticks, which they all used to shake at the German planes as they flew over. I reckon that's what rattled them.

 

Grandfather survived Gassing but

my Grandfather survived a Gas attack on the Somme in 1916,but was invalided out in early 1917, but his lungs were knackered,and living in a mining village (Fitzwilliam)where the only industry was the Pit,left the family on very hard times in the 20's and 30's,the Govt gave him a training course in woodworking and he made a small amount of money picture framing.He was severely traumatised by the War,despite being a very hard man,and regularly had terrible nightmares.In the 1950's,he developed a painful swelling on the temple,which he told my dad to lance,out came a piece of shrapnel,the size and shape of a boot seg,he had had so many wounds the doctors must have missed the one just behind the hairline.
When I was a kid, my friends dad was Jack Hodgson the Co-op manager in Ardsley,he had been a prisoner of the Japanese,and had a very hard time indeed,and although he hated everything Japanese,he did tell me they weren't all bad,one Jap soldier taught him Japanese to save him from the beatings,regularly given for not understanding the orders,they would look at each others family photos,and he gave Jack cigs and sweets on the sly.At the liberation by the Aussies,the japs were lined up and the prisoners were given time to settle old scores,Jack found one out who gave the order for two Aussies in the camp to be beheaded,and smacked him in the face with a long handled shovel,he actually wanted to kill him,but only had enough strength left to raise the shovel once,Jack spent many months in hospital,but recovered,on the outside at least,I think he was a regular at Oakwell for some years,but moved to Blackpool in the 1970's,if he's still alive I wish a great old guy all the best.

 

It has been very interesting and humbling

reading these stories about all your relatatives who fought and those who died to give us the freedom we have today.

I don't know all about why the Wars started etc., but I know that if Hitlers Nazis had won the Second World War people like myself who were born "imperfect" wouldn't be here today.


Thank you to All those who laid down their lives so we could live.
We will remember.

<img src ="http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/poppy.gif">


Night God Bless.

Laura
x

 

Laura

We're all imperfect, it's part of being human.

 

My grandfather's brother was a fighter pilot in the Finnish army in WW2. He was shot down and captured by the Russians during the Winter War.
No one never heard from him again, but I guess it's not hard to guess what happened to him...

My grandfather was a great man, he always had time for me when I was a kid, but he never ever talked about the war. I actually remember asking him how many people he killed during the war (well I was a kid!! ) and that's the only time he ever got a bit mad at me... I guess I deserved it, hehe.
That's a shame though, because it would have been very interesting to hear his war stories, but he's been dead for nearly 10 years now. I know that he was quite badly injured near the end of the war by a grenade shard that hit him quite close to the heart. Apparently they weren't able to remove it completely because it would have been too dangerous (I don't know how that works but that's what I've been told!) but he managed to live his life normally... until more than 50 years after the end of the war it caused some kind of an infection that eventually was too much for him, and he died in the hospital.

Oh well, here's a song for everyone who bothered reading my story to the end, it's called "Brothers in Arms" (by Dire Straits)... I hope you like it.
Put it on, and spare a thought for your loved ones who aren't here with us anymore, and hope that there will never be war again.

http://users.utu.fi/tlvais/music/BrothersInArms.mp3 [right-click the link and select "save target as"]

 

My Grandad, Second World War, aged 31

Buried in Hamburg.

 

Great Great Grandad lost During WW1

Obviously I never knew him. They never found his body, just another piece of working class cannon fodder easily expenable during the terrible carnage of WW1.

 

My Grandad on my mother' side lost a brother in WW2

Shot as he parachuted into Arnhem. I think his name is on a war memeroial at Blacker Hll.

 

nice one, Tomi........... nt

 

My Grandad's brother...

... was killed near Albert.

I took my mother took look at his grave on the way to Euro Disney a few years back.
It was incredibly eerie, just fields and fields with occasional graveyards dotted around.
As we pulled up, the autumn weather was beautiful, sun shining, not cloud in the sky and no wind.
Then as we stood by his grave, a flurry of leaves floated to the ground - makes you think - I hope he knew we had been (respect)
I think, having been to the area and seen the number of graves, I'm even more convinced of the futility of war.

 

.

.

 

My Grandma lost her 2 brothers in WWII nt

 

Grandfather, Grandmother, uncle, aunt

On my dad’s side

Taken as part of the Russian deportation of 2 million people from Eastern Poland.

Knock on the door, folk would be given half an hour to pack what they could then were loaded onto trains for a 3 week journey to Siberia. Many died in the cattle wagons – most of the others froze to death when they were dumped in Siberia (-40C and worse) and left to fend for themselves. The Russians called it ‘resettlement’.

They didn’t take my dad. He was 14 and useful. They put him in a forced labour camp in Rumania.

 

My dad was in North Africa in WW2

He was captured and held in a POW camp in Italy. Camp was bombed in an air raid, and in the ensuing confusion instead of pulling bodies out of the rubble which he was meant to be doing he walked toward some train carriages and went walk about for a few months.</p>

Got captured and sent to a POW camp in Eastern Germany, where he spent most of the rest of the war. He said at night towards the endthey could see the guns from the Russians coming and the German gaurds were all shitting themselves. Lots of the gaurds legged it and those that were left we more worries about what the Russians would do when they go there, so him and a few others managed to disappear from that camp as well - it was a Luftwaffa training airfield and not a proper POW camp.</p>

Hid in the woods for a while and was looked after by some Czech partisans for a while who hid him in a basement. He was in Prague when it was liberated and people were being hung from lamposts. Walked back to western allied lines, by the time he got home he was 8 stone, needed all of his teeth removing due to decay and said the soles of his feet came off when he removed his boots.</p>

He was in the transport core, so was responsible for fixing vehicles and getting troops to the front or away from the front when they were retreating from a position - which was more regualr than he would have wanted. The thing he was proudest of in the wholeof what he told me, was that henever lost a vehicle that could have been used by the Germans, and he rarely lost a vehicle to mechanical failure- on the rare occasion he couldn't tow it or fix it, he destoyed it. It sounded like he had some scary times trying to save vehicles.</p>

He never talked about any of this until a few years ago before he died. He never collected his medals (all just service medals), and always insisted he never did anything particualrly special, just did what he needed to survive.</p>

We don't know we're born! </p>

 

Mine 2