was grandad in the war??

[slim]

i thought i would ask you guys if any of your grandads were in the WW2 ?
my grandad was in the ROYAL IRISH FUSILIERS from 1937 to 1960


slim

 

[burnsy]

Hiya Slim, my grandad was in WW2 not sure on which regiment though.

He was shot in the leg by his mate by accident.

 

[spoons]

one of mine lost his arm in the Spanish Civil War so never made it to WW2, the other must have been in the RAF as post-war he was a navigator on Vulcan's - I'll have to ask my dad

 

[slim]

vulcan....cool m8 :mrgreen:

 

[browny]

Decent topic this one mate,glad to see people still have interests in ww1 and ww2!

My grandad was a medic in the royal west kent fusiliers and was captured by the germans in italy.

My gramps joined just after ww2 ended (too young) and was sent to fight in the korean war a few years later,he was with the 1st battalion royal norfolks.

God bless their souls and every brave serviceman/woman before and after who have given their lives to help us live the lives we live.

Really good thread this one.

 

[slim]

i am trying to find out if my grandad was in the British Expeditionary Force i know he was in the first battalion and they were there !


slim

 

[weasel]

My Grandad fought in Burma.
I think I said somewhere else that he never spoke about the war. My auld man only found out where he fought and what regiment he was in when he found granda's medals and a picture of him on parade. Only a year or two before he died did he even try to talk about it.
No idea what he saw or did but for someone to refuse to talk about it for over 60 years it can't have been plesant.

My other Grandad had pretty pish poor hearing so he was never allowed anywhere near the front lines.

 

[Joe]

I never met my Grandfather but he definitely served, I remember seeing lots of pictures of him on army bikes and my Nan has all his medals (he got quite a lot!)

The next time I speak to my Dad I will see what he knows, he researched all his medals a long time ago and I guess he spoke with him before he died about the war as my Grandfather rode bikes in the war and my Dad has been riding bikes since before he can even remember so they had a big common interest!

 

[Josh]

My Grandad fought in Burma.
I think I said somewhere else that he never spoke about the war. My auld man only found out where he fought and what regiment he was in when he found granda's medals and a picture of him on parade. Only a year or two before he died did he even try to talk about it.
No idea what he saw or did but for someone to refuse to talk about it for over 60 years it can't have been plesant.

My other Grandad had pretty pish poor hearing so he was never allowed anywhere near the front lines.

Yeah that's where my Grandad was too weasel buggers made him build the railway when they caught him, he lost lots of good mates.
This is all he had to say about it to us..... " I learnt how to like rice" they were tough as they come back then IMO.

 

[aussiejames]

Both sides of my family got ****ed up in World war 2. "My grandad fought in Burma" my grandad was burmese born with a British passport(we've all heard about the burmese railroad-it was really bad), other Grandad ended up in Changi prison- he was one of the walking skeletons you see in the pictures. Gran and my aunt ended up in a Jap POW camp in Sumatra neither talked about it. Auntie was a teenager, you could just imagine what the Japs did to her. They are all dead now WWII was a nasty war(all wars are) the SE asian part was particularly cruel. EDIT there is a movie Paradise Road(1997) this is the camp my auntie & step Gran ended up in after a Jap sub sank the ship they were being rescued in.

 

[spoons]

one of my mum's uncles was also a Japanese POW James, he was never the same after he came back

we've mostly got it very easy these days, wars are very different and with no National Service in the UK I can't really imagine what our grandparents went through.

 

[Grant]

My grand father served in WW2. He flew inside Lancaster bombers. Im not sure if he was a pilot. i dont think so tho.

Fair play to each and every one of them.

Grant. 8)

 

[sith-smith]

My Granded was a deep sea diver with the royal Navy during the war. Think he had to deal with mines and stuff. He Never spoke about it. Found out a bit from my dad, and even got to see some pictures of him after he died.

 

[weasel]

we've mostly got it very easy these days, wars are very different and with no National Service in the UK I can't really imagine what our grandparents went through.

I don't think any of us will ever come close to understanding what they went through :?

 

[slim]

flippin great responses folks :mrgreen: , everybody today could take a lesson from all the old timers ! we owe them all a debt



slim

 

[Anonymous]

Dead right - without them all we'll be speaking bloody German!

My Grandad served in the Home Guard as he was pretty deaf so couldn't join the regulars, the other was in the RAF as an engineer.
My wife's Dad (passed away this year) was in the Battle Of Monte Cassino in Italy with the Scots Guards. Always wanted to talk to him about it but he had a stroke and couldn't speak for 3 years - could kick myself now

 

[aussiejames]

"we'll be speaking German!"( which isn't a bad thing re the German forum members ) and we'd be speaking Japanese over here :lol:

 

[weasel]

Chances are the different langugaes would have made no difference to most of us as we would either have been taught to speak German/Japanese from birth or would be bi-lingual. I think the main difference would have been in the political and social freedoms we wouldn't have had and the environments we would have grown up in. But that's all a moot point, thankfully.