Now closed: Win one of 10 copies of Voices from the Second World War

My father in law doesn't talk about it much but he was a POW in Austria for a period, they were kept in the schonebrunne palace (childhood home of marie Antoinette). It all came out after my daughter visited Vienna and was showing him photos and a guidebook from the palace which he asked to keep to read. My mother in law later told me that he was fascinated with how it had been restored but didn't want to tell us he had been there, my niece actually found a photo of him stood at the same fountain outside that my daughter posed in front of. He always said he had been an army ski instructor (a lad from a poor inner city who never went SKIING in his life) but he transpired to be in intelligence, having many experiences from being saved by a gurka, being a POW, to being at arnhem bridge

Both my parents were in the Fire Service throughout the War. Dad went through the Blitz in Plymouth, before being posted back to the Midlands where he met Mum, who was a telephonist.
Mum was a Leading Firewoman, and was sent on several training courses in various parts of the country – she used to tell me about being stationed in a large (requisitioned) house near Andover in June 1944 and I have photos of her and the others on the course doing PE on the lawn .
One night the women had slept out on the wide verandah, and they were woken in the early hours by the noise of planes flying overhead; this was a frequent occurrence, but this time it was different – “They just kept coming and coming, hundreds and hundreds of them, and we knew that the invasion had started”.
The thought of those young women, lying in the darkness, watching the sky dark with planes, and knowing that in the next few days, the War would be won or lost, still makes the hair rise on the back of my neck...

My father was in the Home Guard. Plenty to do, especially during the blitz on Coventry, when the cathedral was bombed and ended up in ruins. Much of the town centre had to be rebuilt.
He married my mother during the war. The house they were due to live in was bombed, so was the shop where the bridesmaids dresses had been. His twin sister went to live with his elder brother. That was supposed to be temporary, but it became permanent, just as well, my mother had 5 children. For a long time dad's gasmask was kept in the cupboard under the stairs. We were not supposed to go in there, the 'bogeyman' would get us. Some of the floorboards in there were none too safe.
I remember dad's Home Guard coat was put on top of my bedclothes in winter for warmth.

My gran had an off-licence shop in the war I believe it was on Kent Street which I think is Holderness Road area (will check with mum). My mum lived with her until she married when they got their own house, but she usually stayed with my gran when my dad was away. After the war they got a council house in North Hull but later moved to West Hull where I grew up. My gran got a prefab on Endike Lane.

Alice ex WAAF now 91 joined up at 18 became a photographer dealing with the areal photos which were taken when bombers released their bombs
was 4 years In the WAAF and am still in touch with some ex WAAFs but not many of us left these days
The 4 years service was .an experience not to be missed feel sure it formed my life to what I did after demob! doing 40 years voluntary involvement with
charities now recently retired

My Grandfather was away in the Navy in the war - and my Mum was born whilst he was away. I think him being away in her formative years led to there being a lack of a bond there and they had a difficult relationship their whole lives. He was very lucky though - on one of his scheduled sails he was poorly and in the sick bay and was kept back to get better. His ship sank with complete loss of life!

Where did they live, Trisher?

My mother lived in one of the most bombed cities in England- Hull. The bombs that fell their were rarely reported in the press because it was thought that doing so would give the Germans more accurate bearings. She was a bus conductress and tells so many stories. One of the bomb shelters was next to a cemetery and the drivers always joked "You'll be alright, if there's a hit your mother will be saved the cost of a funeral".
One night they left the bus in the road and went into a shelter when the siren sounded. They stayed until the bombing seemed to slow down when the 2 drivers went up to see if it was safe. They came back a short while later very white faced. They had tripped over something in the dark and though it was a body. It was actually a tailor's dummy. When they got back to the bus it was full of people who had just come out of the pub. They drove a bit further but the bombing started again so they went into another shelter. When the all-clear sounded they went back to the bus but just a little further along the road (about where they would have reached if they had kept going) was a large crater where a bomb had hit.
My mum got married in 1941 on the day Hull was shut down for a mock invasion. The city was divided in 2. My dad had to get through a checkpoint to reach the church, they were looking for Germans and he needed his army pay book to get past them. There was no organist because he was involved in the invasion. The photographer had been bombed the night before so couldn't attend. In 2014 we visited Hull and talked to people who were recording the details of the war. They knew about the mock invasion but hadn't a definite date for it. My mother was able to tell them. When asked how she was so certain she gave them a hard look and said "It is my wedding anniversary!"
Mum was only 17 when war was declared and 19 when she married. She is now 94 and still tells us stories of what happened to her.

my grandad lied about his age to get in the army,he was 15 and said he was 18,he went into the RASC/transport and went to Palestine, suez canal,i don't know where else he went but I do know he came to a camp near where I live now and there he met my gran and the rest is history as they say!

My dad was unable to serve in the forces but had an important role as an instrument maker in The Radar Establishment. Although originally from Sussex the department was moved to safety in Malvern, Worcestershire. My elder sister was born in 1941 and I was born in Shoreham in 1943 whilst my dad was already working hard in Malvern. Mum and my sister moved to lodgings close to the beautiful Malvern Hills leaving me behind with my grandmother and aunt for more than six months. Because of this I was always very much their favourite which was quite unfair!. Granny and aunty took in evacuees including Henry and Tommy Cooper. Apparently they thought my aunt was too strict and was not very generous with the jam! ( After all It was probably rationed )
We were so lucky that Dad was moved to Malvern and I am the only one in the family to have moved elsewhere.

My grandfather served in the First World War and survived the battle of the Somme. he rarely spoke about his experiences and till the day he died refused to travel abroad [as he'd been there once and didn't like it]. he was a sergeant in a Scottish regiment and said wearing a kilt was very nippy in the winter in the trenches. He used to go on raids of French farms to steal hens and eggs and on one such excursion ripped his kilt on barbed wire [and yes he was wearing underwear!]

My father was evacuated with his brother to Bournemouth after coming home from school to find only the front wall of his home standing . He was an avid supporter of Bournemouth for the rest of his life.
Their father was part of a team that kept the water running throughout all the bombing - he retired long after the war ended, I remember a large certificate on the living room wall stating how he had kept the water flowing through Southampton when the bombing was at its height.

My mother was struggling to cross Manchester city centre, which was a mass of bomb sites, desperately trying to check her parents were ok after a bombing raid, dragging me, aged 3 along across the rubble. She was accosted by a tall, handsome Canadian soldier, who said," Hey, maam, you look nice, can't you ditch the kid and come for a drink with me?" She didn't know whether to be offended or flattered!

My mother was engaged to a man called Kenneth when the war began. He was sent to fight. They wrote letters, but then his letters stopped. It seems he was taken prisoner in Japan. When the war ended my mum would go and meet the ships coming in at Liverpool docks. She was so sure he would come back. Eventually she had to give up hope. She volunteered as a hospital visitor. My father was a patient who had been badly injured fighting in the war. He endured 13 operations on his legs, and remained in hospital for two years. He and mum fell in love and married. Out of the heartache they made a good life for my brother and I. Neither of them really talked about the war. They locked all their sadness away.

My father served in WW2 in the Royal Artillery as a Gunner/Driver. He enlisted in 1940 and was released into the Army Reserve in March 1946. During this time he travelled to many countries, joined Monty as part of the 8th Army during his desert campaign, and at one point was pinned down by enemy artillery fire for 6 days and nights. I can't imagine what that did to the boys.

But they had lighter times. It wasn't until he was in his 80s that he started to talk about the war and one story was when they were in Italy and he was driving a water tanker in the mountains. They came across a Vermouth factory that was deserted, so they emptied the water out and took some Vermouth back to camp. That must have been very welcome.

Being a gunner, he came home with deafness in one ear. He did't claim disability benefit because he knew that so many more men had far worse injuries than his, so he decided to live with it.

He was a lovely man and I loved him very much. He died in 2004 and I still miss him.

I was 2and 2 months when the war started and so remember the closing stages well. We lived in a relatively safe area but still had to take our gas masks and sandwiches to school everyday in case of a raid. Later on we had an evacuee billeted on us, she was a girl slightly younger than me and we got on well. She had an older brother also billeted in our village but he did not like the host family and went home but M was settled and stayed. Her mother came and stayed with us several times. We had a German prisoner of war camp about 5 miles away and it was from that that a prisoner escaped and his story was made into a film starring Hardy Kruger. We also had a lot of Americans stationed nearby to the joy of many a young woman and lots of romances flourished and also withered but at least one girl we knew well married and went to live in America. Bonfires were lit for victory in Europe and victory over Japan and we had street parties. One of my uncles was a PoW and suffered mental health problems and my cousin's husband also a PoW came back with TB and had poor health for the rest of his life.

My dad was in the tank core and away from home for 4 years. He served in Egypt but was pulled back before El Alamein because his battalion had an out break of diptheria. He never realy talked abouthis eperinces though I kow he saw his bets mate blown up in a tank.
Mum lived in Birmingham and often talked about the night the BSA works got hit just up the road. We had an anderson shelter in the garden and as kids loved playing in it.

I live in Jersey, Channel Islands & my mother often recalled how living & being occupied by German forces was very grim & slowly everyone gradually lost all their materialistic items & really struggled to feed their families as food was so very scarce. She however told of stories where once whilst out with an elderly aunt collecting bits of wood to burn a German soldier beckoned them over to speak to them. They thought they were in trouble but the German soldier kindly gave them a loaf of German specialty bread so some of these young soldiers could be decent. My father-in-law also used to recite the story that when the delivery of Red Cross parcels sailed into Jersey they could quite easily have been stolen by the Germans who at that time were also starving but to their credit none were ever tampered with & made it to those for whom they were intended.

My Dad was in The Royal Corps of signals and ended up in Egypt with The 8th Army. He and my Mum married in 1940 but he was then away for four years before coming home on leave.
My Mum worked at The Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield and was often on fire watch at night.
After the war ended, Dad was sent back to Germany to assist is re-building their telephone network.
I was born in July 1946, a "bulge baby", and remember the very large classes we had at infant and junior school. We too used to play in the old air raid shelters and did things that health and safety would be horrified at these days!
Although my Dad came through the war physically unscathed, he suffered with post traumatic stress, which I did not understand as a child, and he often woke unable to breathe and gasping for air after having nightmares about his wartime experiences. Like a lot of his generation, he died relatively young, age 62, as a result of what he had been through.
Peter May, the author, says that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history - a very sad truth.

My father was born in Berlin and was sent to an English boarding school in 1935 at the age of 10.
He never returned to Germany, however last year I was able to attend a short ceremony in Berlin, where memorial stones were placed for his grandparents who perished during 1943 in concentration camps.
These memorials commemorating the millions destroyed by the holocaust throughout Europe, are called "stumbling stones".
By drawing attention it is hoped they will serve to avert such atrocities in the future.

My father has told me that when the air-raid sirens went off his mother (my Nanna) wouldn't leave the house for the shelter until the washing-up was done!

My mother was newly married but living with her parents as my father was away in the forces. My Grandparents had a table in the kitchen that was their bomb shelter. Every time the air raid siren went off my Granny would take her false teeth out and put them in her pocket.
One night during a raid, Granny realised that her teeth had fallen out of her pocket.She told everyone to search ( in the dark) to find them before someone trod on them and broke them.My Mum said she only searched a tiny bit, with her hands, because she didn't want to touch the false teeth. She was greatly relieved when they were found!

I'm afraid I haven't got many to share. Only regrets that I didn't talk to my Grandpa about his scarring his experiences. I know he suffered from nightmares about what happened to him in France / Belgium. He used to talk about it to my brother and myself but our reaction was always "oh no, grandpas going on about the war again". If only I could reply time. These first hand experiences are so important. I wish I had realised that as a child.

As the planes flew overhead enroute to Germsny I (aged two years), would lie down face hidden in the grass on the front lawn, as they passed overhead. Even today I can clearly recall the drone of the bombers flying of to battle.

My paternal grandfather was in a reserved occupation (builder) and was sent to London, where he witnessed the crowded underground platforms where people were sleeping and sheltering from the bombing. His experiences resulted in a nervous breakdown.