WW2 history

anno brought tears to my eyes
I'm still proud of my Dad too. He served in the RNVR and thankfully came home safe and well. physically. But mentally I think they were all damaged.

annodomini - what a lovely memory to have of your father.

My Dad was the Captain (not Mainwaring) of our local Home Guard. He was in a reserved occupation and couldn't serve in the forces. He loved Dad's Army and said it was quite a fair representation of the reality! I was only 4.5 when the war ended but I remember seeing him marching along the promenade, at the head of his Company, in the VE Day parade. I felt proud to be able to say, 'That's my Daddy'.

My uncle regaled us with stories about being in the Home Guard, in 1940 it was of course serious after Dunkirk, after that mostly routine training and patrols. Plenty of stories about the characters involved and the scrapes they got into, none of which involved actual enemy action.

I was born in 1937 in Glasgow , I remember having to move to Rutherglen then East-Kilbride , my Granda was a cabinetmaker and I remember not going in his workshop for a while as he was too busy making coffins

I lived through it too. I was born in Plymouth in 1937.
It was a fascinating time to be alive, in spite of the terror I can remember feeling. My father survived the war, and my grandfather survived WW1, so we were lucky.

Although born after the war there were so many stories circulating that you knew some of it but not all of it. These programmes give different nuances and are very interesting. I didn’t realise for example that half the government wanted to surrender to Germany when our troops were stranded at Dunkirk. As it was an epic speech from Churchill and thousands of little boats saving so many of our men turned the tide.
Another programme was all about Stalin which may have been on Channel 5 which also has some interesting history programmes. I didn’t realise Russia was in alliance with Germany at the start of the war. A lot of political shinanigans went on. The same probably still happening today that we don’t know about.

I loved listening to my Dad who was in fact Uncle Albert and was a sailor. He saw five years of action including D-Day and was always very interesting when he spoke although my mother didn't enjoy him talking about it. FIL was a police inspector in the Met in Central London all through the bombing. He didn't speak about it much I imagine he dealt with some terrible things. Mother was an ATS telephonist at the War Office. She wanted to be a driver but was told she was too short but as she was the same as the Queen who was a mechanic/driver she wasn't impressed.

I agree with you. Programmes like that are of great interest, particularly to those who remember loved ones fighting in it ! My father was in the R.A.F and survived, his cousin’s Sterling bomber crashed after being hit at Hamburg. Other uncles fought in tanks in North Africa, and my mother’s favourite uncle died at the Battle of Crete. Our family historically ( through poverty) joined the Army and fought and died in every major campaign across the globe.
War is a terrible and evil thing, and my heart goes out to everyone in the awful conflicts that are still playing out across the world. Hopefully these types of programmes educate and inform all of us, young and old.

anyone remember, all our yesterdays.
i loved that, so atmospheric.
and later, more academic tone perhaps, the world at war.
it was good that so many excellent programmes captured the living memories of those who could give actual reportage to these events.
i remember walking behind the old soldiers of the first world war, and thinking gosh they are mostly over 70 years old !
how time flies.
and going off the subject a bit, i read that a few very old men who had been boy soldiers at crimea, and remembered florence nightingale from scutari, helped carry her coffin in 1910.

I love all those programmes Fennel - I was only just starting school when the war finished but I was well aware of what was going on - my father in a reserved occupation and also in the Homeguard and doing firewatch and the devastation when we travelled into London to see family.
It is so interesting to see more stories about what happened.