Do you have relitaves that were in WW2? I have 2 and the 1 is still alive I pump him for questions often, they were both in the Navy. I just wondered how many of you have relitaves that were in ww2 , OR YOU EVEN WERE IN WW2!. I do not think any of you were in ww2. EDIT... I mean ww2 veterans
War Hawk, It depends what you mean by relatives. Do you mean also extended family like cousins - 1st & 2nd, granduncles and so on. If I use them all I would be very close to 30 relatives who served in WW2 :behindsofa:
Yes, my father was. A WAG in RAAF 22 Sqn--Bostons. He was a F/Sgt in the RAAF 22nd Sqn. Based in PNG for his tour of duty from Nov 42 til Sep 43. His first operational flight was with W/C Charles Learmonth, and was in same flight with F/Lt Bill Newton when he ditched in Salamaua Bay in March 43.
My Father was in 51st Highland Division, and fought from El Alamein, sicily, Normandy Belgium, Holland and Germany. My father in law served with Royal artillery, was evacuated from Dunkirk as an under age Soldier. Went to Burma serving as a bombardier on Priests.
WH: I had many, and sadly, they are all gone. My father, youngest of five children, was a Pacific marine, as was his brother, the next oldest (see below). Another brother of my father's was in the navy and at Pearl during the fateful day. The oldest brother was in Italy with the army, while my uncle-in-law was at the Bulge, serving as a cook and rifleman. Of all the interesting family stories, I had a great uncle who was a demolition expert and a member of a UDT (underwater demolition team, precursor to modern day Seals) in the Pacific. After removing charges from obstacles off of Japan's coast in '45, he and his colleague came up off the beach only to find several hundred soldiers seated and awaiting surrender, with their rifles on their laps! The mayor and his entourage moved through the crowd to present my great uncle with some ceremonial tea - they were armed only with knives and a single 45. Now the weird part, he couldn't swim, but had to be pulled out of the drink by his partner. He was a valued demo expert who went on to a successful mining career after the war. My biggest regret. The Pacific Marines in the family had a hard time afterward, succumbing to stress and trauma which we never understood nor even attempted to confront, always chalking it up to quirks of behavior or other deficits of character as it related to addictions and such. My uncle experienced some of the most violent hand-to-hand confrontations on Okinawa and only once spoke to my cousin of the horrors he endured in bashing in someone's skull with his entrenching tool. One of his buddies related to me of his leadership and courage, somethng I never knew about or considered. I remain ashamed that we always considered him a black sheep sort who remained isolated on the periphery. So, I grew up with citizen soldiers, but never bothered to pursue any of this until later in life. I tended to absorb, osmotically, their silent excellence and confidence as they sorted their lives out and moved forward, trying to forget that lost period of their lives. Only now can I appreciate what they faced and overcame. For what it's worth. F
No, but intend to. Wings of Destiny is the next book which I buy. I have already contacted Learmonth's niece & nephew in rural Victoria, and have sent her a narrative of my father's war experience.
Wow, Prisoncare, well done. The book is excellent. So much insight into Charles' life and very well written both from a social and techincal viewpoint. There's a review on the book in the latest Wartime magazine and I wrote one for Steve Darlow's Fighting High e-zine and this forum. I would be very interested to learn of your father's experiences/life.
Contact me ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact me and I will email you the 25 page attachment; via.............. < prison_careATiprimus.com.au >
This depends what you mean by "in the war". My father was too young and both my grandfathers too old to fight. But that doesn't mean they weren't "in the war". When my father was seven years old, his family lost their house and all their possessions in the Coventry Blitz in May 1941. Does that count? They spent the rest of the war living in the village of Cubbington, just outside the city where his mother's family came from, in a cottage with no electricity or running water. Grandfather was an electrical engineer with GEC in Coventry, but he died from cancer in 1946 aged 50 when my Dad was 12. Dad managed to study by the light of an oil lamp and eventually got to Oxford University, not bad for the son of a factory worker. My mother-in-law tells us tales of living through the blitz in London, of taking shelter from V1s on the way to school. My mother lived through the blitz in Croydon, south London, but being more stiff-upper-lipped than my mother-in-law she doesn't say much about it. Mother-in-law's sister, Aunt Renee, 90 in two weeks, has told us many times of how, when working as a nursery nurse with evacuated children, a Tiger Moth landed in the field next to her, and the pilot asked her to guard it from the local small boys while he borrowed her bicycle to go for help. Having said all that, my father-in-law trained as an RAF navigator; being born in 1925 he was too young see any action by the time he had qualified, but he was flying in Dakotas (RAF name for the DC3/C47) in India/ Burma at the end of the war. I nearly forgot to mention him; he split from my mother-in-law when my wife was a teenager and she didn't meet him again till after we were married. But then he and I were able to have a few conversations about his flying days, over the next four years before he died from cancer aged 73. My father also died prematurely from cancer, aged 70 in 2004.
As far as I am concern, I would say anyone who was in an occupied country and or anyone who had been subjected to bombings would be classed as being in the war. I would also think we would have to count althoughs who worked in industries who were involved in the war effort also played their part in the war, and lets not forget all the women who took on the men's work on the farms. :behindsofa:
Father: Charles Van Wyck Laughton 1919 Mother: Maureen 1921 and a whole host of others less closely related, many who had moved to the United States in the early 1900's. They have now released the WWII Service Records in Canada so that is a great help!
Relatives in WW2 I and my two brothers were all in WW2: the eldest (now deceased) in the Army (Burma, Chindit), the second RAF (Pilot), and I was in the Navy. We two survivors are aged 87 and 82. What do you want to know?
We would be fascinated to know anything you care to tell us of you and your brother's service - units, ships, aircraft served in; any anecdotes. Richard - thanks for that. So your father had a wet war in the corvettes!
