Our brave parents

My Dad - a time served electrical engineer - was called up and sent to Aldershot, where, due to the panel not understanding that a Public School in Scotland was a bog standard local school, he was passed A1 and was to be an officer in the Royal Marines! (Although he had a life long tendency to violent seasickness, even when crossing a puddle). He was waiting for orders when he received a letter from the war office telling him to report to an aircraft factory in London?? On arrival he discovered that he was to remain a civilian but undertake Top Secret work in developing a tiny, lightweight engine to power ejector seats for fighter pilots. The public were to be kept unaware that these existed for reasons of morale??

He spent his war in London through the blitz, returned to his digs, late one night to find the whole street had been flattened by a bomb, leaving him homeless and penniless except for the 10 bob note in his overalls pocket. Then he was sent home to recover from a 2nd bout of pleurisy. His train was strafed and he spent hours lying among casualties, in the dark on the floor. With daylight, help arrived, but he was refused tea and bacon rolls by the WRVS because he was a much despise 'Civvy'.

My Mum arranged their Wedding within a week so that she could return to London with him. She spent the rest of the war in London, working as a hairdresser and Barber, which was a reserved occupation.

No Medals or Glory for my Dad. Bound by the Official Secrets Act he never told anyone 'what he did in the war'. It was my Mum who told my sister and I (in confidence) about 30 years afterwards.

I echo Grannygravy’s THANK YOU to all in WW2. Those in the services and those at home fighting on the home front.

Agree about VJ Day too Craftycat.

My father was a regular, having joined as a boy in 1929. He was on a ship bound for Normandy when the ship was bombed but, the bomb did not go off. After two days and two nights in the middle of the Channel in a tremendous storm, they managed to get the bomb overboard, carried on and went ashore with Americans,

He went on as far as Holland, including Arnhem and Nijmegen, and was posted immediately to Palestine and came home in 1948 when I was four years old.

Craftycat I have visited Hell Fire Pass and the museum there, the letters home that were never sent, the meagre possessions that they were able to keep, myself and our 16 yr old were in tears. Walking through the pass was an extremely eerie and humbling experience.

We then went to the cemetery, which though extremely sad as the ages on the crosses were all so young, but it was also beautiful and immaculately kept.

I also hope they commemorate VJ Day.

I was in the WAAF. I signed the Official Secrets Act because the officers I worked for were making preparations for establishing airfields in France some time before DDay.
My husband went over DDay plus four with the Guards Armoured division. He was wounded three weeks later when his Bren gun carrier was blown up. As soon as he recovered he was posted to Palestine. No post traumatic stress counselling those days. He suffered the rest of his life with nervous problems and deafness.

After yesterday, it's a shame we're throwing away all the close links we've built up in 75yrs with our European friends.

Bijou - you have a good memory! This morning I went with a friend to visit a lady in an old age home, about the same age as you, maybe older, but her memory is failing. She said she was in the WAAF, somewhere near the coast. She couldn't remember any more about it except "we were so young".
There was a tv in the room showing today's ceremonies.
I hope people never forget the importance of D-Day.

ps the friend who came with me, and is older than me, asked "What does the ~D in D-Day mean?" I didn't know, but found this:
"In other words, the D in D-Day merely stands for Day. This coded designation was used for the day of any important invasion or military operation."

sorry I mean my friend is 20 years YOUNGER than me.

My maternal grandmother joined the Danish resistance movement as soon as a local group was formed and disturbed illegal newspapers and helped people on the Nazis arrest lists go underground. In May 1945 she house two Russian girls who had turned up in a Red Cross refugee camp that had no accommodation for women.

My father was turned down by the RAF in 1940 and asked to come back once he had qualified as a doctor, which he did. My mother who had transported guns dropped by parachute to the Resistance in Denmark, wangled her way into the WAAF (her father had been British) in 1945 and met my father in RAF Sylt.

Daddy's father served as a liaison officer between the British and French armies from 1914 -1918 and one of Grannie's brothers died in France in, I believe 1916, the other survived but suffered from the after effects of mustard gas poisoning for the rest of his life.

One of my father's paternal uncles was due to retire from the Merchant Navy in 1939, but was bluntly told, "We're not sending anyone home" so he stayed in the engine room, being convoyed back and forth to Murmansk "for the duration".

A cousin of my father's disappeared when Singapore fell and eventually returned from a Japanese POW camp. My paternal aunt did something hush-hush in the Ministry of War, while two of my mother's paternal cousins did something equally hush-hush in the Far East and in Germany.

And this thread just proves we all have similar stories to tell

Oh, I forgot to my shame, the nurse my parents knew when I was a child, who lost her entire family the night Clydebank was bombed.

She was on night duty in the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow so she survived. There were many others like her everywhere too, plus all the "old ladies" of my childhood who lost fiancés and sweethearts in WW1.

I feel we have forgotten..
The misguided brexit project will split us from our European allies and friends...
Leaving us to the mercies of our ruthless American friends...
Friends who made us pay back all the war loans...
Who suggest that the NHS is up for grabs...
Let's halt brexit and Remain.

I’m not getting into Brexit, good or bad, on this thread which is about how brave our parents and grandparents generations were. However, we should not forget that there are thousands of American servicemen who are buried in the war graves in Europe. Thousands of others were injured and disabled by their injuries. They fought alongside us, and alongside those from other nations who died or were injured. The allies were so named for a reason, everyone fought together to defeat Hitler and Germany and Japan. We will never forget.

My Granddad & his 3 brothers fought in WW1, 3 came home. My DF was too young to fight in WWII but did his National Service. Mum has lots of memories of WWII, she was at Grammer School but living in the country so escaped the worst of it. I had a boyfriend who twice served in N Ireland during the Troubles, he was in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday. I agree we owe a huge debt to all the brave men & women without whom we would have been living under Hitler's jackboot.

My BiL from my 1st marriage lost his Father to the Japanese in Singapore.

My DH's parents fled from Austria in 1939, FiL was Jewish but contributed to the War Effort in UK as did his Brother.

Craftycat, My stepfather was in Changi jail, and the Burma railroad. Like your dad, he came home on a troopship because he didn't want his parents to see how emaciated he was. I knew very little of his experiences until just before he died when he did open up a little about the horrors of war. He told us among other horrors that his Chinese girlfriend and their baby had been murdered by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore. He died of cancer 32 years ago 8 months after my mother and after all these years, I still miss them both. Please God, no more war!

I felt so humbled watching those brave men. My dad was in the Royal Navy and my mum in the RAF. both have talked about their D day involvement. I just wish they were still here so I could tell them how proud I am of them.

DH & I went, recently, to Bletchley Park where the code breakers worked. What an amazing place. Although the lives of the, mainly women, working there weren't at risk, it was work done in poor conditions, huts without heat, long shifts day and night. They couldn't tell anybody what they were doing, and even after the war couldn't say what they did as the government was worried about the cold war and thought code breaking could be needed. It is reckoned their work shortened the war by at least two years. All this, and they weren't recognised for their work until 2009 when 5000 of the remaining code breakers were recognised with a medal. A fascinating place.

My dad was in the navy and I only discovered today that his ship was a support vessel at the D Day landings off the coast of Normandy. There is quite a lot on line about individual ships and where they went. His ship was later sent to the Pacific to fight in the war against the Japanese.
I feel so immensely proud of him and everyone who fought for our freedom. I wish he was still here so I could talk to him about it. He would be nearly 94 now if he had lived. Xx

chrissy I went to Bletchley Park a few years ago, and agree it's a fascinating place.
When you first walk in they've created an atmosphere of the war, sounds sights etc.
I burst into tears, it brought back such frightening memories.
Not that we were bombed much, we were lucky in my NE town, even though we had a RN submarine base there. Others a few miles south had a terrible time.

Dad was a tank driver in the Army and Mum was on Communications in Plymouth with the WAAF.

Dad went over on 9th June 1944 with 2nd Northants Yeomanry, part of the British Armoured Division heading for Caen and the Falaise Gap.

Dad was leading a line of tanks heading for enemy lines under fire at night. Their tank was hit and the shell exploded beneath my father's seat. The blast killed his co driver outright. The tank was on fire, those following had dropped back.

Dad and his two colleague jumped from the blazing tank into a ditch at the roadside. The water in the ditch extinguished their burning clothing. They waited all night in the ditch, to be rescued at dawn by the Canadians.

Dad was just 20 years old. He lived to tell the tale, though he rarely spoke of it. The last time was just before he died, aged 77 in 2001.

There are no words.

What an emotional couple of days this has been.

It will never cease to leave us unmoved and grateful. I am so glad to see the young Services Personnel proudly giving their arm to the Veterans. It demonstrates the continuity across the years. There have been terrible losses and dreadful wars since then too. The generations in between have been courageous and shown their willingness to serve.
I would like to mention the retained Workers, who, though not in the dangerous battlefields, were left behind at no choice of their own, to keep the country alive and were often doing the work of 4 men. My father's farm before the war had five workers. During the war he farmed it alone, providing milk for the villages, grain for bread, sugar beat because we were not importing sugar and keeping chickens which was his own idea. Then there were the coal miners, the factory workers, the Women on farms and in factories, and the many people who became nurses in the extra hospitals that opened in buildings taken over for the purpose.
There were many people who served the country who never get mentioned but without whom our part in the war would never have been possible.

unmoved is wrong should read "deeply moved". sorry. (I have cataracts.)

Knew what you meant till?

Tilly re retained workers -
Also the fishermen who were recruited to minesweeping in the Channel. Many lost their lives.