Finding out about my father's war service

My father was in a reserved occupation at WW11. His DF was in Boer War and WW1. I only ever heard him speak of marching for the relief of Mafeking and living off potatoes. Two if my cousins were in WW11, RAF pilot who flew Lancaster bombers. He lived a reasonable life afterwards and did have the DFM, but the other cousin, his brother, we all discovered many years later was in the secret service. He became an alcoholic within 10 years of war ending. No medals known by his family. A medal will not obliterate some of the awful experiences many were subjected to.

My Father was in the Royal Navy and never said a word about his experiences. I have gone a long way back in family history records but can find nothing about his war experience. I think I might try this link, thank you PaynesGrey

My dad never spoke about any military service he did but I found out a lot when I did my family tree. He was born in September 1899 and tried to join the Royal Scots Fusiliers in June 1915 so that would've made him 15 at the time. The war record I have states that he said he was 19. but he was discharged when they found out his real age. He never met his father as he died in 1902, when he was only 20, in the 2nd Boer War and was buried in South Africa.

Service

Yes his army ervice history will be on British army records.

At no time have I ever trawled through my familys war experience for entertainment! For my dead father, killed before I was born, I needed to know exactly, what happened to him, where he is buried, and yes, where my paternal family came from, who they were, what they did. I can assure you Paddyanne, visiting my father's grave was anything but entertaining. (I'm amazed you use that word) He was a brave very young man, and I am deeply proud of him, as I am of my grandfather, my stepfather, my uncle who was at D.day, my mother's cousin who died of wounds in North Africa, all very young, very brave men. I wear my poppy with pride both for them and all the others, as we all do in our family including grandchildren. They will always be remembered with pride, admiration and love.

My father and all of my uncles came back from war with disabilities and severe illnesses,None of them would talk about their experiences,like many on here they didn,t wear poppies or visit cenotaphs.They wanted to leave it in the past .
I would think I was showing my father and uncles disrespect if I trawled though their lives for my entertainment.
Leave it in the past ….if he’d wanted you to know he would have told you .

All my family returned home from WW, those I knew served in the RAF but not flight crew, so safer. The only person that has ever discussed was in WW1, he was invalided back but had seen the horrors and refused to attend church - there is no God, God would never allow that to happen.

My stepfather was one of those skeletal prisoners that were released from Changi jail. He was captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore, but never ever talked about his time there. Nothing Japanese was allowed into our house for very many years, until we finally did have a Sony coloured TV in the early 1980's! After he died, I had great difficulty in finding out anything about the retreat and him, but I was fortunate that someone in Canada saw my family tree on Ancestry, got in touch and was able to fill me in with certain information. However their relative was torpedoed on the way back to Japan and killed. My SF was sent back to Singapore and survived. My father was killed in Bomber Command in 1942. He's been much easier to discover. Service records do give a fairly good picture + various military sites.
I wear my poppy with great pride each year. It is certainly not a celebration of war and all its horrors, but a recognition, and a thank you to all those who fell or were badly affected by both those wars and subsequent conflicts. My grandfather fought in France from 1915-1918, entering Flanders in 1915 aged just 22. He survived, though gassed and shell shocked. These brave young men and thousands like them, should never be forgotten.🌺

My father was in the RN and very lucky to survive 2 years of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Later he was in the far East and took part in the last action against Japan. I heard him speak just once about taking skeletal prisoners from Changi jail on to his ship.

That was the only time I ever heard him mention anything about the war. In general he was a very jolly, cheerful type, so I dare say nhe just wanted to forget it.

If the film the Cruel Sea ever came on the TV, he wouldn't watch it - too close to home. He’d served on a ship with the author of the book, Nicholas Montserrat, and said he was ‘a shit’!

Somewhere I have the notification of when he was ‘mentioned in dispatches’.

watermeadow

My father never ever spoke of the war but he stayed on as a regular officer afterwards.
I don’t wear a poppy and think war is wicked and shameful, not something to be celebrated every year. We don’t remember Agincourt or the Norman conquest with flags and bands. The terrible wars of the last century should be consigned to history too.

Remembrance Day is not about celebrating war, it is about remembering those who dies for their country

I’ve been tracing my family and my paternal grandfather was in the RN during the WW1. I’ve been able to follow his navel record by the ships he was on until he DAR!😮 “did a runner” whilst in the Caribbean. He ended up in Toronto with his wife’s (my grandmother) best friend!

watermeadow

My father never ever spoke of the war but he stayed on as a regular officer afterwards.
I don’t wear a poppy and think war is wicked and shameful, not something to be celebrated every year. We don’t remember Agincourt or the Norman conquest with flags and bands. The terrible wars of the last century should be consigned to history too.

'The terrible wars of the last century should be consigned to history too.'
@ Watermeadow. This is the first year I have felt the same. I come from a military family going back generations and was brought up on King and Country. This year, I was sad and probably think the same way as the veteran who said what was it all for when you look at the state of the country now. But, it is no longer my world and it belongs to those younger than I am to do with as they will.

My father never ever spoke of the war but he stayed on as a regular officer afterwards.
I don’t wear a poppy and think war is wicked and shameful, not something to be celebrated every year. We don’t remember Agincourt or the Norman conquest with flags and bands. The terrible wars of the last century should be consigned to history too.

I found a lot about my grandfathers who both served in WW1 by getting in touch with their regiments. Many servicemen kept war diaries and regimental archives are full of information. They are usually free too.

I found out more detail when Dad turned 80. He wouldn’t ever talk about it before then. Honestly it made me want to cry. He was a navigator and saw many of his friends killed and got shot down a couple of times. Horrendous and I am very, very anti war . I wish I had known sooner, it explained a lot of things from my childhood - I think he was quite traumatised but in those days no one recognised PTSD.

PS I still have a box of records: Property of ENSA. (Entertainments National Service Association)

My father, born 1910, had a relatively easy war. He was in searchlights to begin with, but later, as a professional classical musician, was given a motorbike, a wind-up gramophone and a pile of records. He was told to go and give lecture recitals at military stations around the South coast. And at Capel le Ferne in April 1944 there was a pretty WAAF, who was actually doing very secret intelligence work, and who went along to hear this scruffy soldier tell the station about Mozart and Beethoven.
They were married in August and I was born in July 1945.

My father fought in WW2, after his death we came across his medals and a variety of papers. We have a wonderful Olive wood bound photo album of his time in North Africa. Photos of him sitting on the Sphinx! A couple of Churchill and Montgomery visiting. You’d think he was on holiday.
None of this was ever talked about.

My father fought in WW1 and was too old to be called up for WW2. He was a fire watcher instead. He was in India for some time. It seems incredible now to think that he was part of such a war torn era.

Terribull my day was a volunteer and served from 1939 through to the end of the war. He too never wore a poppy and did not think much at all of the symbolism

My father wouldn't talk about his war service either.

However, he did write some things down in diary form and I really should bring myself to read them now.

Yes I did it, my father did not talk about, like many but my siblings wanted to know. He died a long time ago and only after my mother died did I take up the challenge

I was the eldest child so was the only one who was allowed to obtain the information. I obtained his full service record and also his medals, which he never wanted. I put the details into a book I made for the family and handed the medals to a DD who had been an army major.

I have nothing in my possession now, apart from the book

You will need to find out the name of the office which deals with the service history of whatever branch of the forces your father was in. I knew the name of my father`s regiment and that was a great help

My father was mainly in North Africa during the war. He never really spoke about it, didn't pay any attention to Rememberance Day, I think he thought it was all too mawkish and he certainly never wore a poppy. I don't think he was one for looking back more for moving forward. I did find a letter of his, written to my grandmother during the war years to say he was in Palestine which was quite descriptive. When my mother died, going through cupboards, I found his medals in a little brown cardboard box with his address on it, the house I always visited my grandparents in. Also a photograph album with some pictures of him in uniform in North Africa with a desert backdrop. The only thing he ever passed on about being there was an enduring hatred of sand, that came out whenever we were on a beach. My mother told me he caught hepatitis in Libya and was very ill, not that they'd even met at the time. In later years she often spoke about her time working in London during the blitz, I think she quite enjoyed talking about war time memories.

My father was never called up in WW2 although he was fit and healthy all he would say when I asked was well I worked in and out af the ports delivering stuff but wouldn't elaborate. Could that of been a reserved occupation or could he be delivering arms etc? Just puzzled why he wouldn't be called to fight.