My uncle is now 99 ( 30-9-19 ) he say a little about his time in the Army when he was cased 100 mile out of France commandeered the king of Belgium boat the transferred to RAF went to Canada then travelled through the USA flew plans out of Pensicola over Malta Cairo North Africa etc
Only last year he went into a home due to age & having a couple falls yes I do visit him regular listen to his stories but as I say he don’t talk much about it but the thing he has seen & done so much respect for him
Yes he will probably make 100 he his still able to walk ok not fast anymore & with some aid still know what is going on around
cav551:
There was another Clarkson re-broadcast last week, on BBC 4 I think, about Convoy PQ 17. Whatever you think of him he excells at telling these tales. It is on iPlayer at the moment. I think he has some personal attachment to the St Nazaire raid, which he didn’t realise until he started recording the programme.
^^^^^^^^^^^
the hero vc winner at arnhem ended up as his father in law though nobody knew he had won the vc until after he died.
peterm:
… Unfortunately, neither one of them spoke very much at all about their ‘working life’ in those days, …
I think you’ll find that’s not exactly unusual.
My own grandfather was reluctant to talk about his service in ww2 until after I had seen action. Same with his retired business partner who was a machine gunner in ww1, a trade apparently universally despised by both sides.
My father was the same, he was a reservist when WW2 broke out so was called up straight away and his first action was at Dunkirk where he was one of many left on the beach and arrived home via submarine eventually. The Western Dessert (Tobruk, Alamein etc) then Italy (Monte Cassino) and the crossing of the Rhine. Never spoke of it, mum has his records though. It did affect him mentally though, like many ex servicemen at that time who were suddenly de-mobbed and expected to fit straight back into a ‘normal’ lifestyle once more. Even when out shopping after he married mum in 1947 he stopped at every street corner and checked that nothing was lurking around it for several years.
I remember Chris Tarrant saying on his radio show that he had gone to see the film D Day with his mother, he knew that his late father had been one of the D Day veterans and after watching the first part of the film with the horrific battle scenes realised that his father had witnessed that yet never spoke of it. He came to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly?) that the ex servicemen who shouted most loudly about all the action they had seen, and celebrated the war, had probably spent the war guarding a warehouse at a camp in the UK!
I have seen both of those Clarkson programmes, and as has been said he excells as a journalist/presenter given the right material.
windrush:
I remember Chris Tarrant saying on his radio show that he had gone to see the film D Day with his mother, he knew that his late father had been one of the D Day veterans and after watching the first part of the film with the horrific battle scenes realised that his father had witnessed that yet never spoke of it. He came to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly?) that the ex servicemen who shouted most loudly about all the action they had seen, and celebrated the war, had probably spent the war guarding a warehouse at a camp in the UK!
Having had the privilege of growing up among that generation I’ve come to the conclusion that there might be some truth in it.Possibly on the basis that at least 50% of those who celebrate it probably haven’t seen the reality at first hand.
My dad was involved in picking up the pieces and fixing the battle damage of armoured warfare in the last stages of the war in Italy.It’s what he didn’t ever say combined with just a few horrific clues which was almost enough to traumatise me.Let alone 18 year old kids who were there having to get involved with the horrific aftermath of a Panzer Faust or an 88 etc hit on the average allied tank for example.I always remembered snippets like some of the worst he’d seen had been created by an 88 mm shell fired from massive range not even needing to get through the armour but the damage and carnage it had created inside in trying.Eventually that probably resulting in the HESH type of ammunition idea.Then left me to find out for myself not wishing to say anymore on the subject.
While what I do know is that with all his often outside show of bravado that the army would be good for me and those of my age at the time.He luckily advised me against joining up in me naively thinking that getting into the RCT would be a good solution to getting into truck driving.His words went along the lines you’re a soldier first doing whatever you’re ordered to do and there’s no glory in war.
I never found out much about my father’s WW 2 service from him either, apart from a few comical tales. All I knew was that that he was in the Reconnaissance Corps and that he had arrived in Normandy a few days after D Day. The one thing that I very clearly recall as an 11 year old, was going to a War Memorial at 11 o’clock on Remembrance day with him in 1964 and being taken aback to see that he was crying.
He did talk about various tanks and armoured cars and delighted in teaching his son aspects of ‘Fieldcraft’ which I enjoyed tremendously. I also knew that he had ended up in the Far East because he had brought back wood carvings from Java. We had planned to go to Normandy to visit the war cemeteries when I ‘grew up’, but he died when I was 17 so we never got to go. Last Year I made an effort to try to find out more. By chance I came across a website about unit histories, enquired, and was emailed details which not only revealed which regiment, but also the title of the regimental history: ‘Scottish Lion on Patrol’ in which he is actually mentioned a few times. It was an even greater surprise to discover that at the time the Recce was viewed to be on a par with some of the more glamourous regiments. He seems to have survived because he was pulled out of the line shortly after the Rhine crossing in order to take up an anti-tank gun instructor’s post in the UK, prior to the proposed invasion of Japan.
Another one I knew was the father of a family friend who was in Burma, in the Chindits. He was one that didn’t speak of things over there except for things that made us laugh, just like my old dad.
peterm:
Another one I knew was the father of a family friend who was in Burma, in the Chindits. He was one that didn’t speak of things over there except for things that made us laugh, just like my old dad.
A local builder wrote several books on the Matlock/Darley Dale area, he has passed on now but he built several homes for the family and one was (and is) still named after the submarine that his older brother died in during the last war. He himself was too young. However he employed various tradesmen on the projects and one such project was building a new school in the 1960’s. The lads and himself were sitting around at ‘snap time’ and the subject of the war was brought up. One chap had been in the Paras and spoke loudly about what he had done, another was (I think) in the navy and also had seen some action, and the third lad just sat quietly saying nothing. Of course the question; “And what did you do?” came up. “Oh, nothing as exciting as you pair, I was in Singapore when it fell and spent most of the war in a Japanese pow camp. We were working on the railway, also unloading ships in the docks, all manner of things. My best friend was helping me unload a ship and a bag of grain dropped and split, my friend picked up a handful and ate it because we were all so hungry. The next day he was taken out and executed in front of all of us for stealing” Funnily enough the war was never mentioned ever again!
I also learned that the most unassuming folk who I knew in their later lives had done incredible things. When I was involved with caravan clubs one chap then in his eighties (now gone alas) had been a soliciter in Sheffield, he lived in a lovely house at Totley and I visited him a lot over the years. I knew he was interested in aircraft (and old busses!) and one day I asked him if he had ever flown. “Yes, I flew torpedo bombers off of carriers in the Pacific, I did all my training in the USA (he was in the Fleet Air Arm but he was sent there because we didn’t have the planes available in the UK!) and was shot down and sadly one of my crew drowned. The plane (can’t remember the type alas) was a fantastic aircraft and was in British markings bought on the ‘lease lend’ scheme. Alas the Fleet Air Arm couldn’t afford to purchase both the plane and the bombsight (the finest available at that time) so we were given two sticks of ebony wood to line up with the sun to aim torpedos. Absolutely useless so we bombed by eye!” To look at him, elderly and with a slight facial spasm from birth, you could never have guessed what he had been through. I was proud to represent our club at his funeral.
I decided to ‘get off the road’ for a while and worked for about four years as a gardener/handyman (I use the word gardener very loosely) in an old peoples home. Heard some interesting stories. One old boy in the dementia ward told me how he used be a test pilot at Supermarine and would go out over the Channel etc, unarmed of course. I took it with a pinch of salt until his wife came to visit one day and told me “O yes, he did all that. He has days when he’s sharp as a new pin.”
peterm:
I decided to ‘get off the road’ for a while and worked for about four years as a gardener/handyman (I use the word gardener very loosely) in an old peoples home. Heard some interesting stories. One old boy in the dementia ward told me how he used be a test pilot at Supermarine and would go out over the Channel etc, unarmed of course. I took it with a pinch of salt until his wife came to visit one day and told me “O yes, he did all that. He has days when he’s sharp as a new pin.”
peterm:
I decided to ‘get off the road’ for a while and worked for about four years as a gardener/handyman (I use the word gardener very loosely) in an old peoples home. Heard some interesting stories. One old boy in the dementia ward told me how he used be a test pilot at Supermarine and would go out over the Channel etc, unarmed of course. I took it with a pinch of salt until his wife came to visit one day and told me “O yes, he did all that. He has days when he’s sharp as a new pin.”
Mustn’t forget the ladies contributions either, many did more than ‘their bit’ and are often ignored. Harking back to my days of caravan rallying again; the Mrs and me were sitting in another couples caravan (they were both well into in their eighties) and the husband was reading his paper and mentioned that an article on the ENIGMA machine was in there. His missus, sitting there drinking tea with us, casually mentioned “Oh yes, we had some fun sorting that out” and conversation stopped! To cut a long story short she had been based at Bletchley Park for most of the war, Ted (her husband) had been in the RAF and they had been married for 60+ years yet she had never mentioned about her war work to him. “I couldn’t could I, we all signed the Official Secrets act so I had removed it from my mind until I read that article before you did and it brought it all back.” We met some fascinating folk back then, we were 20-30 years younger than most and we loved hearing their stories from that period, and in most cases you looked at them and they were just ordinary people who you wouldn’t think had done anything brave or exciting in their lives and most, unless prompted, didn’t force the fact on folk. All have sadly passed on now of course.
40 years ago I went to my best mates engagement party out in his inlays garden his father in law trver little quietest shy man you would meet I new he a prison of war far east never would speak about it anyway we got him so drunk someone mentioned the Japanese he went insane completely crazy and crying his eyes out when he said what they done to him we all broke down in tears his wife enyd said that’s the first he said since they married I took him next day to rest home he said I’m so embarrassed I said trevor we are all so proud of you both gone now RIP mr tever nash regards rowly
Absolutely useless so we bombed by eye!” To look at him, elderly and with a slight facial spasm from birth, you could never have guessed what he had been through. I was proud to represent our club at his funeral.
To cut a long story short she had been based at Bletchley Park for most of the war, Ted (her husband) had been in the RAF and they had been married for 60+ years yet she had never mentioned about her war work to him. “I couldn’t could I, we all signed the Official Secrets act so I had removed it from my mind until I read that article before you did and it brought it all back.” We met some fascinating folk back then, we were 20-30 years younger than most and we loved hearing their stories from that period, and in most cases you looked at them and they were just ordinary people who you wouldn’t think had done anything brave or exciting in their lives and most, unless prompted, didn’t force the fact on folk. All have sadly passed on now of course.