My Dad and the war.

tanith

Thanks everyone it seems he was indeed in a reserved occupation then. I’ll have to settle for that.

Some jobs were very important therefore designated as reserved occupations.

Others joined up and were sent to do certain jobs eg, sent down the mines.
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a6652019.shtml#:~:text=The%20reserved%20(or%20scheduled)%20occupation,agricultural%20workers%2C%20schoolteachers%20and%20doctors.

Someone else has suggested looking him up on the '1939 England and Wales Register'. This is a very useful document, available to search on Ancestry etc. (If you are not on Ancestry I expect you know someone who is and will look him up for you.) It will give you his address in 1939, who he was living with and what his occupation was. Also it may show if he was a special constable, air raid warden etc. I hope you find him there.

The people who really have my admiration are those who were conscientious objectors who refused to fight or to contribute to the war effort on moral or ethical grounds. They were vilified as cowards. Yet many of them worked in dangerous roles as ambulance drivers and stretcher bearers and in similar positions which put them in the line of fire as surely as those who bore arms.

I believe that if this country were to be involved in a conventional war the likes of Ukraine many young people nowadays would refuse to fight or to aid the war effort in any way.

My father refused to talk about his service in the war ... he would just dismiss any enquiries. I am guessing he had a really bad time ... he was in Singapore. He was very angry about being called up and forced to, as he saw it, waste his young adult life. There was no hint of patriotism there at all. He felt the whole war was a massive mistake.
My parents-in-law were linguists and spent their war code-breaking at Bletchley Park ..... but we heard little about it as they had signed the official secrets act and maintained silence till they died.

My father was in the RAF. He spent some time in America (why?) which I know he hated. He was particularly shocked by the chain gangs he saw there. He also spent some time in the Shetlands, which he hated even more because it was so cold. He didn't succeed as a pilot (probably just as well) but he was a compass adjuster on Lancasters.

My mother was in the ATS and worked on radar. She was up in Liverpool sending information to the anti aircraft guns. She was also involved in training the Americans who came over to use Radar. She had to sign the Official Secrets Act so never told me much about it.

My Dad was involved in the liberation of Belsen. He said it was dreadful and spoke of how the made the Germans bury the corpses at gunpoint.

They, not the. He was only twenty.

Deedaa

My father was in the RAF. He spent some time in America (why?) which I know he hated. He was particularly shocked by the chain gangs he saw there. He also spent some time in the Shetlands, which he hated even more because it was so cold. He didn't succeed as a pilot (probably just as well) but he was a compass adjuster on Lancasters.

My mother was in the ATS and worked on radar. She was up in Liverpool sending information to the anti aircraft guns. She was also involved in training the Americans who came over to use Radar. She had to sign the Official Secrets Act so never told me much about it.

Your father could have been sent to America to train. My father spent nearly a year training in Canada. He was sent there in 1942, but unfortunately there wasn't enough equipment to train the wannabe pilots, so he spent months helping local farmers with the harvest.

He qualified as a bomber pilot in 1943, but somehow managed to miss Dresden. After the war, he was transferred and flew supplies into Palestine. He didn't talk about the war very much. He signed up on his 18th birthday and I think it scarred him.

Forgot to say my mom worked in a bicycle factory. But at the start of the war it became a ammunitions factory. Mom said she made pom pom shells for the acac guns . They worked 24 hours ,3 shifts .

Reading the stories what has come across most is that those that fought didn't revel in what they did . And didn't approve of those that did. They did it because they had to. No such thing as post traumatic syndrome for them. They just had to get on with life once the war was over. Some like my dad his war lasted longer than those that fought in Europe but at least it did end.

It always saddened my dad they truly thought after what their fathers went through in the first world war and what they went through that wars would stop.

But of course they never will. It's just become a way of life that there is always at least one war going on every year. Just look how many are going on at the moment. How many needless deaths and families destroyed.

It shows even though we are supposed to live in a more enlighten age the powers that be have learnt nothing . The only people who win are the makers of weapon's of destruction. There will never been an end to wars . How sad is that.

Well , I’ve learnt something this morning. I didn’t realise some occupations were reserved occupations. One of my granddads was a docker working in the London docks and the other was a bank manager, but he was partially deaf , so couldn’t join up. However he was a fire watcher (I think that’s the term) .
Both my parents lived in London and were evacuated. Dad to Kent , mum to Devon . Mum was lucky , she, my gm and her siblings stayed with friends in Devon and so were together .
My fil was a stoker on the railways and was on the troup trains from London to the south coast.
I’m not sure what my mil , and paternal gm did during the war .

My father was in the army and I believe spent most of those years in Libya, which gave him an enduring hatred of sand, that fact only came up if we were on the beach otherwise he didn't talk about any aspect of his time in the war. I learnt more from my mother who told me he caught hepatitis in North Africa and was very ill. I have some photos of him in army uniform a couple with uncles who were in their airforce uniform and one with my French uncle who was in French naval uniform and part of the Free French in London where he met and married mu aunt, my father's sister.I also have a letter he wrote to my grand mother from Palestine saying how much he'd wanted to come there. He wasn't really one of those men who wanted to re live war time experiences he thought it was something everyone should move on from. I got more information from my mother, she was a telephonist working up in London for some ministry or other and told me of her experience of seeing an incendiary bomb being dropped and in later life becoming friends with a woman who was the other side of The Thames on the same day, obviously that day stayed with them both. I remember mum saying once "you've no idea how the war destroyed relationships" or not knowing whether your home or family were going to still be there, I think she had a Canadian boyfriend who was killed. Life I imagine for both parents was on a knife's edge, they were both teenagers when it began. My parents didn't meet till after the war was over .

My mum was in the London Fire Service during the Blitz but when her mum evacuated she joined the army and met my dad who was in REME working on radar in Essex. She drove ambulances in Ireland before being stationed in Essex.
My FiL was one of the boffins who discovered radar with Watson-Watt!

A lot of “old soldiers” never discuss their experiences, sometimes when they get dementure they do lapse back into those times, my Grandad did. The other time you hear is if there is an obituary at their funeral.

My father was in a reserved occupation, worked in shipbuilding. He had tried to enlist in the RAF but was turned down on medical grounds.
He was an air raid warden and rescue worker , he did tell us about crawling into bombed buildings to rescue people.
We lived on the coast and the bombers used to fly in over the coast and follow the river bombing the shipyards, timber yards and paper mills. Where my parents lived was prone to daylight raids too and I remember father describing the parachute mines hanging from the trees in nearby streets.
Sadly my dad's cousin was the first person to be killed in a daytime raid in our town, she was at work as a maid in a big house.

He may have had a physical condition which prevented him being in the forces - something you may well have been unaware of . My father was in that situation.

My Dad was in the RAF working with the flying boats on Loch Erne in N Ireland. He never spoke much about the war even when he was younger. We had his medal and his ID book and a couple of photos of him footballing as he was a great footballer and one with half a dozen other RAF men outside what looks like a B and B and I think he once told me that was Blackpool.

Like others on here, I cannot remember him ever going to Remembrance Day Services or talking much about the war.

My Mum was working in the NAAFI at Lough Erne which is where they met. They married in 1945 and Mum came back to England with Dad. His Mother was not a nice person and went out for the evening even though she knew they would be arriving having come by boat and then 3 train rides and several miles walk. The house was cold, there was no food ready and Mum felt very hurt and upset as her Irish family would have made huge efforts to welcome someone to their family. Dad also discovered his Mother had sold his overcoat while he was away in the war.

Back in the 1940s there was still a ubiquitous understanding about "doing ones bit" and a deferential attitude to those in authority. Meaning the government of the day. That has all gone now and many people question the decisions made by governments and do not feel obliged to abide by them. Blair is still regarded as a warmonger for blindly following the USA.

Younger age groups in particular will question whether the government of the day has a right to speak for the entire nation and take it into a war. In a true democracy, and with more or less universal access to the internet, such questions should be decided by a public vote. And not by a few millionaire toffs in parliament.

The 2nd WW was less about doing one's bit and more about making a stand against an evil megalomaniac and his aggressive war machine. Imagine if our nation had just rolled over and capitulated. Look what they did to the world and the horrors he and his Nazi party inflicted on the countries occupied. They wanted world domination and complete subjugation of any of the countries that fell. The Nazis were on our doorstep they got as far as the Channel Islands and like everyone else those people suffered the horrors that occupied mainland Europe did. I don't imagine anyone wanted the best years of their lives conscripted and fighting overseas, or being bombed at home and having to live on meagre rations, it's what prevailed and I don't see either Britain or our allies had a choice.

WW1 was quite different, all those young men sent to their slaughter, over what? the powers that were could have sorted that out by diplomacy.

Having said that, wars that have followed in the later part of the 20th century and more recently, I do think western nations should keep out of other countries domestic areas of tension and conflict that are none of our business. Outside involvement often appear to make matters worse.

Well summed up, Terribull

Well summed up indeed Terribull and thank you for acknowledging the fate of the Channel Isles.
It sends shivers down my spine when people forget what their own relatives went through and don’t pay more attention to what happens on the world stage now.

My Dad's fury was directed at the call-up - and at the government for instituting this. He never spoke of the politics and the reasons for the UK entering the war.

Interestingly my Mum was at her happiest during the war. She was in the Land Army and spent quite a lot of time poisoning rats. But from the things she said it was clear that she felt a great sense of freedom and enjoyed being with a gang of girls. Sadly the rest of her life was not so free and happy.

My father was a teacher in a grammar school, which was a reserved occupation, so he was not, thank goodness, involved in the war. I like to think he would have been a conscientious objector otherwise, but I am afraid he would not.

My Dad was an electrical Engineer. He volunteered and was sent to Carlisle for interview. He was asked if he went to a private school or a public school he replied that it was a public school i,e, the local council school near his home. Apparently being a Public School boy meant you were officer material so he was assigned for officer training in the Royal Marines. Soon his employers - an Electrical Engineering firm - slapped an essential worker label on him and he thought that was that. A few months passed then he heard that his Firm's essential worker status had been overruled and he was to report to an air field in Croyden.
When he arrived there he had to sign the Official Secrets Act then was briefed that he would be a civilian worker, part of a top secret team working to design an ejector seat for combat aeroplanes. The boffins working on this project needed a skilled trades man to manufacture their designs.
He remained in London for the entire war, going to his digs late one night to find the whole street flattened and was left with his dungarees and 10bob in his pocket .Later he developed pleurisy, so was sent home to recuperate. His train was strafed on the way and, as civilian he was refused tea/food by the WRVS.
Back home for in Scotland for2 weeks,My mother somehow arranged a wedding so that she could return to London with him. My Mum was a trained hairdresser and Barber which was, for the sake of moral, another reserved occupation, so she was assigned to a barbers shop and spent the rest of the war there

I knew nothing of this until their Silver Wedding when they felt free to tell the tale to the family. Likewise I now feel able to say how my Dad helped to win the war or at least the lives of some airmen.

My grandad was too young for the First World War but too old to be called up for the Second World War. They lived in Bootle near the docks so was working as a fire watcher and fire fighter . They had a family , my mother was ten when WW2 started and the children could have been evacuated but grandmother didn’t want the family split up . My dad was only 14 when the second war started and when he was 16 he lied about his age and joined the merchant navy and was twice torpedoed in the North Atlantic Convoys. He caught TB the second time and ended up medically discharged .

How awful FoghornLeghorn