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Post by Roadrunner on Sept 3, 2024 13:46:24 GMT
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Post by PetrolEd on Sept 3, 2024 15:07:56 GMT
Great pics. The war is more of a distant memory in the UK as we are not reminded of it in the same way as they are in many parts of Europe. The village we have a family house in Brittany, one property is still referred to as the Generals house and the owners of that property are only starting to return due to the accusations of collaboration with the enemy. There is still signs up pointing the way to Berlin, plenty of reminders of those people who were dragged out to the countryside and shot. It always opens the eyes.
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Post by Alex on Sept 5, 2024 7:07:36 GMT
Normandy is something I'd like to do one day as the older I get and the more war storys I read or listen to on history podcasts (We Have Ways with Al Murray and James Holland is particularly good) the more I want to see the place for myself. Both my grandfather's served in the war, one in Egypt and one in the far east and I also had an uncle who lost a leg somewhere in Burma. None of them ever spoke about it when asked and it's mad now to think of what it must have been like for an entiregenerationof young men to have been required to go abroad and kill people whilst seeing their mates being killed in often the most horrendous of fashions. I had the occasional snippets like my maternal grandad when I took my driving test telling me how he got his licence from his CO after a very brief single lesson on how a Jeep worked - effectively he was told what the pedals did and left to figure the rest out himself! But more or less they all kept schtum and would rather forget what they saw or did during those years.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Sept 5, 2024 7:48:57 GMT
Normandy is something I'd like to do one day as the older I get and the more war storys I read or listen to on history podcasts (We Have Ways with Al Murray and James Holland is particularly good) the more I want to see the place for myself. Both my grandfather's served in the war, one in Egypt and one in the far east and I also had an uncle who lost a leg somewhere in Burma. None of them ever spoke about it when asked and it's mad now to think of what it must have been like for an entiregenerationof young men to have been required to go abroad and kill people whilst seeing their mates being killed in often the most horrendous of fashions. I had the occasional snippets like my maternal grandad when I took my driving test telling me how he got his licence from his CO after a very brief single lesson on how a Jeep worked - effectively he was told what the pedals did and left to figure the rest out himself! But more or less they all kept schtum and would rather forget what they saw or did during those years. Yes, I must go. My cousin took my grandfather before he died to visit the grave of his younger brother, David who was a member of 1st Battalion Tyneside Scottish, Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment). They deployed to France at the end of April as part of the BEF and were part of the Dunkirk evacuation. He died on 20th May 1940 defending the retreating forces and is buried in the WW1 Cemetery at Ficheux. He was 20 and had only joined up a few months before. They were young lads, led by a few older. ex-WW1 NCOs, and only partly trained, not expected to fight and consequently poorly equipped, They were caught in the open near Ficheux on the 20 May 1940 and shot up. Fighting German tanks with rifle and bayonet, the Regiment suffered grievous losses and virtually ceased to exist. An extract from the engagement where he was killed: “The companies of the Battalion, under-armed and ill-equipped, continued to fight individual company actions until they had exhausted what little ammunition had been given them for their original role. The provost serjeant was killed as he clambered on to a tank and thrust his rifle through an embrasure. A section of the youngest soldiers, with less than eight weeks' service, was seen to fix bayonets as an enemy tank approached them. Two old-soldier G.S.M.s were both killed behind anti-tank rifles whose crews had already been knocked out”My grandad was very upset and, having served in the TA before the war, tried numerous times to join up and fight. (Un)fortunately, being older and married with 2 kids, and also a highly skilled boilermaker, he was eventually sent to the Tyneside shipyards under threat of £100 fine if he didn't work there. His older brother was a Merchant Seaman and died on the Russian convoys. They got word of his death the same time as David's.
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Post by Martin on Sept 5, 2024 8:48:55 GMT
Lindsay's Dad had talked about visiting visiting his Grandads grave, but passed away suddenly late 2014, so we made the trip in July 2015 and spent some time in the local area, such a huge amount of interesting things to see. We visited again in July this year on the way back from Paris, it's great to see how well kept even the small cemeteries are.
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Post by Tim on Sept 5, 2024 10:36:19 GMT
My Great Grandad died near the end of WW1, having been a prisoner for a while. He had been in a protected occupation but apparently succumbed to the pressure of receiving white feathers and so joined up. My Gran was born in 1916 so never really met her Dad and as he was buried somewhere behind the Iron Curtain she never visited his grave.
My Dad's dad was gassed in WW1 but survived to then go and work in the pits.
My Dad's brother in law was a gunner on a tanker in WW2 but not sure he was ever on an Arctic convoy. He only mentioned it twice, to my cousin and me, when we were kids. One of those times was to show us a little cardboard box with his medals in but even then he joked about it and told us to stand back to avoid the smell of cordite.
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