My Dad and the war.

My dad was in the merchant navy on the arctic convoys. I’ve recently discovered through my aunt that he was also a submariner. He was an apprentice electrician before the war so could have been excused with it being a reserved occupation.
My mum was called up to Dorman Long where she spent the war as a slinger throwing heavy chains under the huge metal sheets and attaching them to cranes so they could he moved. My aunt was trained as a welder. Women did a lot of very heavy work in the war.

My father was in the Home Guard. I remember him telling me that one day they were on parade and had to March. He told me he was the only one in step! Next day I went to school telling all my friends about my clever daddy. It was some time before I cottoned on lol 😆

My father was in the RAF. He failed the medical to take on a flying role and worked in a clerical capacity. Thank goodness he failed that medical as his ambition had been to be a rear gunner. Few rear gunners returned from action. I was born when he was in the RAF and his mates made a toy elephant for me out of an RAF blanket. Still have and cherish the elephant! I wonder if anyone noticed the missing blanket..

Dad joined up in 1944 just after his eighteenth birthday. He went out to India as a Royal Engineer officer and later had to deal with the horrors of Partition. Mum (four years older) was in the ATS practically from the start. She rise through the ranks to become a lieutenant, working on the anti-aircraft batteries. As a result she was able to go to university after the war, where she met Dad.

Hi There

My Dad was born in 1917(older parents) and he was a soldier in the 4th Suffolk Regiment became a Far East POW for 3and half years in both Changi and Omi 13B .He died at the age of 59a year older than I am now.I am lucky enough to have some of his Army documents however I have applied for his service records via Gov.uk many months ago as they are changing over to digital .
Have a look at any Facebook groups that You can find …People are often so helpful on there .
My Dad was a troubled man and was alcoholic so wasn’t the best Father or husband 🥲

My Dad was in the Air Force and it was only when he was about 80 that he started telling us about all his friends who died, the couple of times his plane was shot down, how he saw one of the pilots in the plane next to his covered in blood. Horrific stuff. He was a quiet man . Perhaps they were told not to speak under the official secrets act. I often wondered.

dragonfly46

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!

My dad was also one of the team who worked on radar with Watson-Watt! He worked for electronics company Cossor and was drafted in in 1937. He was initially working on the cathode ray tubes used in the radar displays and later designed a radio receiver used in aircraft. Did your FIL work at Bawdsey, @dragonfly46? They might have known each other!

My Dad was a GPO Telephone exchange engineer at the start of the war, but seconded to the Foreign Office to work on Turings Bombes at the British Tabulator Company in Letchworth Garden City. He was one of a team who took support type calls from the military engineers based at Bletchley Park and its outstations if they had issues. If the issue couldn't be solved over the phone, a car would be sent to take them to the machines location to fix it.
He did a lot of development work too and worked with 'Doc' Keen who signed a letter in my possession notifying Dad of his promotion.
He was disgusted when Gordon Welchman published his book because they'd all kept their promise to keep the official secrets act, which hadn't expired when the book was published.
He met my mother through his work - she (and my MIL) worked on the wiring looms and they never uttered a word about their work.

My father was in a reserved occupation as a police sergeant. He was also almost forty when war broke out. I don't know how age affected the call up. My father in law volunteered for the Royal Navy at 18 and had a lot of war stories. He was also on leave in Coventry when it was saturation bombed. I would think your father was in a reserved occupation. I think folk memories are important in history but they vanish into time. The children of people who were alive during the war are now old.

My grandfather - born in 1907 - drove oil tankers during WW2. He was also on fire watch at night for Gloucester docks.

My father's occupation was given as Leading Aircraftsman on his wedding certificate, I think he was in the auxiliary Air Force and he was later an active member of the local RAFA branch but I've not been able to find anything further about his war service - his peacetime work was in hospital administration and he might have been in the medical corps. He didn't seem to get any medals.
My mother was in the auxiliary fire service, I have a passport size picture of her in her uniform. Again, no medals.

I'd love to know more about both of them.

How awful FoghornLeghorn

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 .

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 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'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.

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.

Well summed up, Terribull

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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!