War stories from fathers and grandfathers.

[eddiesolo]

What war stories did you get told regarding your fathers or grandfathers or directly from themselves.

My grandfather was a Staff Sergeant in the RAMC, he actually wanted to be a Paratrooper was so skinny he was told that even weighted down they would have drop him 10 miles early...hence he didn't get in.

A few stories from his time in the deserts of Africa.

He and a mate were driving in a ambulance and ended up on this dusty road, suddenly they noticed loads of Germans pop up around them and they were stopped. A German officer came up and checked their papers and the ambulance and then told them they could turn around and go back the way they came, but never to return up this way. My Grandfather noticed that at either side of the road were two tanks dug in with hulls showing. He thanked the officer and they returned to their HQ and he promptly told the CO who informed someone else and they showed an intelligence officer the road etc on a map. He found out later that planes had been sent up and strafed and bombed the tanks.

He and two of his friends were taking wounded down a slope when the CO-'The Old Man' called him back, as he was climbing back a mortar landed and the granite chips from the explosion killed his best friend. He never really got over that.

He also had to stand on a ridge holding a large red-cross flag. A German sniper put a bullet either side of his feet and one in the middle, my Grandfather sought fit to give the good old English two-fingered salute in return. Luckily the sniper saw the funny side.

My best one is when he was treating a wounded German officer who commented in English to the sound and actions of the English guns firing away, they could be heard on the front lines. He asked if they were electric firing as the rate was so fast. My Grandfather replied no, just the lads doing what they do best. The officer pondered over this and then said. "Germany will lose this war."

So what tales have you got?

Si

[Alan 45]

I got a handed down one from the First World War , my grandad was at hill sixty in Belgium if you don't know the story it's about the hill that the Germans held and they were so dug in it took Australian engineers months to dig tunnels under the hill and pack it with explosives and then the detonated it , it is down on record as the largest man made explosion second only to a nuclier detonation and my grandfather witnessed it.

Some time after he was discharged with shell shock and during WWII he saved about fifty people by warning a police officer to get the crowd of people away from an unexploded bomb they were all gawking at in the middle of the road , the officer moved people away from it and shortly afterward it went off , he was in the local paper but refused to comment

[Guest]

my granddad was in WW1 aged about 17 he was on sentry duty with a lewis gun at night and a german appeared over his trench. he told me he was so scared he emptied the full magazine at the german, not a lot left i beleive.

My Nan also had this tool that she used to break coal with. it was a wooden handle with a very thick spring on it and a large lump of steel attached to the spring. apparently it was used to club jerry on the head to capture prisoners in the trenches. it broke coal easy enough.

[Guest]

he was in WW11 as well in the SOE but i dont know much about what he did.

I also had a great uncle who was a mosquito pilot

[Guest]

I got a handed down one from the First World War , my grandad was at hill sixty in Belgium if you don't know the story it's about the hill that the Germans held and they were so dug in it took Australian engineers months to dig tunnels under the hill and pack it with explosives and then the detonated it , it is down on record as the largest man made explosion second only to a nuclier detonation and my grandfather witnessed it.Some time after he was discharged with shell shock and during WWII he saved about fifty people by warning a police officer to get the crowd of people away from an unexploded bomb they were all gawking at in the middle of the road , the officer moved people away from it and shortly afterward it went off , he was in the local paper but refused to comment

Yes! Aussie Engineers! Apparently a movie was made on Hill 60 and it was pretty decent...

John

[PaulTRose]

my dad was RAFVR and due to his civvie occupation was an instrument specialist/repairer

spent some of the war with coastal command in norfolk, then bomber command before going to india for 2 years

like a lot he hardly ever spoke about things

remember one story when he was at RAF Bircham Newton (which i have passed thro a zillion times as its now a construction industry training facility) that the king made a visit but his Anson went u/s, dad had to do the repairs on it..................the other was when he was hospitalised in india with an ingrowing toenail....cos there was no anestetic he got a bottle of whiskey instead

i wish i could have known my grand father and great grandfather.................ggf was a rsm in the army and went to china at the turn of the century as part of the international force that put down the boxer rebellion, grandmother was born on the troop ship on the way, gf was a sargent in the same regiment who after WW1 married the rsm's daughter.....he served in france during WW1, survived the Somme........during WW2 he was Home Guard......my mother used to tell me how after church parade on a sunday he would strip and clean a lewis gun on the kitchen table

[Guest]

I was in the war as well . 1 year old when Hitler invaded Poland & Britain declared war on Germany.

Pauline and I have talked about this a lot. By the time war was near an end we were at school for the last two years. Frightened not a bit of it. To children this was a normal world. Boys with arms out running around making Spitfire noises. The girls pretending to be nurses. Teachers probably terrified as parents when the alert siren went off and we all trooped into the shelter and sat on forms chatting until the all clear sounded. Then back to the Spitfires.

I remember, probably very early, sleeping in the Anderson Shelter in the garden. My father being a carpenter had rigged it out with bunks a bit of carpet and candles. Warm and snug and safe from my sister and my point of view. Mother, who really was a nervous person, was as cool as a cucumber and just carried on as if nothing was happening. Well done mum. A load of bangs and flashes sound of the anticraft guns. Later the buzz of the V1 and at night that rocket light tail lighting up the night, the motor died, the silence and then the thud followed by the explosion.

Pauline's Aunty and family, a few doors down, all piled into the Anderson Shelter. A bang, the all clear, and no house it had disappeared. That was in Morden in London.

We had a cousin lost in a T class submarine. Sad that. I remember visiting a cousin's house, much old than me, me 4 abouts and him about 18 and there was this beautiful gun ( they were guns to me) in the hall way which I can still picture as I spent at intervals minutes studying it.

So Hitler you did not get me but you got a lot of others so I am lucky and I can say I have not wasted that luck. No I have enjoyed what others could not in bucket loads so thanks for that.

Laurie

PS The world we live in with computers etc.

Then we had little slate trays with a wooden surround for writing we used a white chalk. For art, sand was spread over the slate, shaken to a smooth finish, then we drew pictures in the sand. For handy work, as it was called, we had a cardboard circle with string wound in segments. Then with raffia of different colours we weaved a pattern around the surface.

[spanner570]

I've put this story on here before, but someone might not have read it.....

My dad was in the RAF Regiment during WW2 and was eventually posted to the Far East fighting against the Japanese. One day he was guarding some prisoners whilst they were put to work removing some oil drums from the bottom of a trench. One prisoner mimed to my dad one drum was too heavy to lift.

My dad, armed with a sten gun, jumped down into the trench, grabbed another oil drum, empty, and threw it out of the trench. The Jap, thinking he was about to be shot, slumped down in the trench, took out some photos from his tunic and began to cry....My dad was so upset, he sat down next to the prisoner and produced a photo of my - to be - mum, and he too started to cry......

Two human beings far from home......

As an aside, my dad had to have his appendix removed whilst over there and used to delight us at the dinner table telling everyone how he had just a local anaesthetic and watched the op., and how the surgeon pinned back the flaps of skin of the incision, using good old fashioned Bulldog clips!....Tough breed!

[Guest]

My Mum's dad was in the Pay Corps (?) and think he may have risen to the giddy heights of corporal, but seems to have had a very dull war - no stories at all! My dad's dad was a different kettle of fish, but my father was never close to him and so very few stories ever got passed down. Occasionally, though, I've had odd moments of contact with him that reveal a very different man to the cold, absent father my own dad recalls, and I wish I'd had a chance to get to know that Grandfather Jamie, rather than the one my mum disapproved of so much for the effect he had on my dad growing up.

The first time I saw a glimpse of this man was when I was playing the Last Post & Reveille at the BoB memorial parade in Queenstown, South Africa, in 1987. I was the Cadet W.O.II (!!) in charge of music in one of the two bands in our Cadet Detachment (cadets was pretty big at our school - we even did a Trooping the Colour ceremony every year that local DIs from the army base down the road would help us rehearse for as it's a pig of a parade to get right). Anyway, distracted...! At he start of the BoB/Air force memorial day parade, I'd been announced by name as the cadet who'd do the L.P.&R. Afterwards, an old guy came up to me to ask if I was related to Sqn.Ldr. Gordon-Finlayson, and I said yes - but he was pretty sick at the time, and never again left Spain where he'd retired to, so no contact was made. I realised then that there was more to my grandfather than I knew.

Some years later, I got an email out of the blue, asking me again if I was related to Sqn.Ldr GF, this time from the son of a Sgt Observer from 211 Sqn who was putting together an online history of the squadron. I put him in touch with my father, who provided him with a copy of a book of sonnets my grandfather had written after the war, called Epitaph for a Squadron. I've seen a copy of this - the poetry is execrable, but the sentiment genuine! Alongside the poetry are a series of pencil sketches he drew during his time in North Africa, Greece & Crete, again not great art but a fantastic insight.

More recently, after getting back into modelling last year, I decided to do a couple of models of two my grandfather's planes (both Blenheim Mk Is)- one that was written off in a crash landing in Corfu (after AA damage taken during on a raid against Valona, modern-day Vlorë in Albania, 50 very difficult miles to the north of the crash site) that I'm going to do in 1:72 scale as my first diorama probably, based on one of those pencil sketches, the other will be a 1:48 beast that will require some serious cash outlay as they haven't been produced in a long while!

[ATTACH]75609.IPB[/ATTACH]

Aaanyway distracted again... while looking for a decent graphic of the 211 squadron badge (the sqn was disbanded after the war), I came across a very similar one that was from 211 ATC based in Newbury, Berks. They even had a Facebook page, so I dropped a note on that asking if they had a larger logo and explaining who I was. Turns out that the ATC sees themselves as kind of unofficial history keepers for the original 211 Sqn they had always been associated with since their founding, and a chap contact me whose father knew my grandfather, and was able to tell me a bit about him. (The ATC are even planning to take the cadets on a trip to Greece this year if they can afford it to track down the various locations associated with the sqn's time there!). The picture I got from him was of a brilliant pilot who was loved by his men, with a huge reputation and a certain raffish air about him. He was known as The Bish, and got this nickname after the crash I mentioned above - he and his crew (no injuries, quite remarkable). A quote attributed to him: "10 miles long the valley, they say. How wide? Well, wide enough to do a go-round in a Blenheim with one engine out"!!!

There's even an account of their trip back from the Corfu crash (which the sqn history refers to as "another forced landing" - he was quite good at them, never injured anyone even in v badly damaged planes!) in The Sphere:



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“An RAF bomber crew were reported “Missing feared killed” but they nevertheless made their way back to their base after a series of amazing experiences. Hits from anti-aircraft shells forced them to land on the beach of a tiny island. Later, they reached the Greek mainland in a fishing-boat. When their identity was discovered they were feted in the village and carried round in triumph. They were showered with bouquets, wine and other gifts, and the Squadron Leader (seen on the left above) made a speech from the Town Hall steps.”

Anyway, that's what I've found out about my grandfather in the past few years. A remarkable man. The memorial website concludes:

“A restless spirit, bold yet temperate...”

James Richmond Gordon-Finlayson was

the

central figure of 211 Squadron in the Middle East. His exuberant personality, his ability and the high regard in which he held his men—and was in turn held by them—are very readily apparent in the unfolding story of

Wings Over Olympus

and in his own verse

Epitaph for a Squadron

.

He retired in 1963, a very young Air Vice Marshall with the DSO and DFC, both awarded during his time with 211 Sqn, and lived out the rest of his life more peacefully, dying in 1990.

Of course, he was also an awful parent, and to his first wife a terrible husband - they divorced right after the War - and not terribly interested in anything that happened after his RAF career, certainly not family (not even his oldest grandchild, sob! ;-) ), but I'm very glad I got to know a bit more about him and the role he played in Hitler's downfall!

For more on 211 Squadron, the site produced by Sgt "Nobby" Clarke's son is at http://www.211squadron.org, with a page on my grandfather at http://www.211squadron.org/jr_gordon-finlayson.html.

[Guest]

Oops didn't mean to write so long a post, sorry everyone!!! Got a bit carried away...ops:

[eddiesolo]

Some interesting stories and insights, thank you for posting them. My wife's Grandfather wouldn't talk about the war, he was in the Navy. My Grandfather would talk and although witnessed many horrors and longed to be home with his wife and son, my Mum wasn't born then, it seems that it was a time in his life that he enjoyed. I know he experienced various cultures and enjoyed that immensely. A few years ago me and my mate went to Egypt and saw the pyramids-my Grandfather had bought a ticket to see them but the unit was called away before he could make the trip. I remember getting off the tour bus and walking up to the Great pyramid and stood gazing skywards at this towering stone mound and whispered: "This is for you Grandad." I also had a tear in my eye as he would have loved to have seen them for real.

Si.

[colin m]

No stories from me. But this is exactly the reason I don't get much done at the bench. I'll hop onto the internet just looking for a reference photo and end up spending the rest of the evening reading various accounts of events. Then, all of a sudden, it's bed time.

[monica]

sorry no stories from me, all i know is both my father and grandfather severed , my father had some think to do with the commandos, and would ,

never talt about it and both spend a lot off time in the rose and thorn, and say don't ask about it or don't ask about your relatives in Germany

[flyjoe180]

My Great Uncle served on HMS Ajax at River Plate. He went on to serve in submarines, finally being captured by Italians when his submarine, HMS Saracen, was hit by Italian destroyers. He was sent to POW camps, from which he escaped, was caught with Italian partisans and was sentenced to be shot as a spy. He was reprieved by none other than Field Marshall Kesselring (who happened to be visiting at the time) as they were on their way to be dealt with and claimed they were just sailors. Sent to POW camp in Berlin, he was caught as part of an espionage attempt on a railway (they were packing the earth under a bombed railway line they were repairing with ice so it would melt in the spring and buckle the lines, but the ice thawed early). He was 'tried' by the Gestapo for sabotage and sent to a concentration camp for his efforts by the Germans, and after experiencing the horrors of that, was posted to a another POW camp from which he was liberated at the end of the war. A book was written about him by Dennis Holman, 'The Man They Couldn't Kill'. His wife built radio sets for British bombers.

Grandad on Mum's side was in the Pioneers (I guess what we call Engineers now days). He was part of the clean up of Bergen Belsen concentration camp in 1945 and never spoke much of his experiences. My Grandad on Dad's side was a fireman in London throughout the war after failing an RAF flying medical due to a boxing inhury he later found out had been misdiagnosed. He had many near misses and stories. Firemen are among the forgotten heroes of the Battle of Britain and the London Blitzes.

Lastly, the man I was named after was a friend of my Great Uncle, who had served in Burma and was captured and starved by the Japanese. He survived, but had the obvious issues associated with someone who has been severely mistreated. For his stomach issues he was told to have the occasional Guiness by his doctor (how times have changed!), and taking that on board, proceeded to enjoy the rest of his life with six full pints of the stuff a night.

[PaulTRose]

My dad was in the RAF Regiment ....Tough breed!

of course, he was a Rock not that im biased in any way due to my own service

this thread got me thinking, went thro some old pics my late mum had, found a pic of dad in india......for some reason i remember him talking about Karachi, which is now in Pakistan of course, a story of walking out of the mess tent with a sarnie and a hawk swooping down and plucking it from his hands

dad is front row, second from right

he never even bothered to get his service medals after the war.....nothing fancy just service and theatre medals, when he died i contacted mod and got them for my mum, got them framed.......they are now on the wall next to my workbench