Do you have a relative that fought or was alive during WW2, Get your Video Camera out

wack61

wack61

I've got an itchy hatch
Suspended / Banned
Messages
7,344
Edit My Images
No
My father in law was on Aircraft Carriers in WW2, he was only 16 in 1945, he joined up rather than go down the mines, even though it was only a few months he saw some terrible things, especially for a 16 year old.

I spoke to him recently, this weekend my son and I are going down with a video camera to record some of his war stories and my mother in laws experiences of Warrington in WW2.

Perhaps this is something other people should consider doing, the generation that fought in WW2 is getting old, a record should be kept of their personal experiences for future generations.

This is probably the only time in history when almost every house in the UK has access to home video so we should put it to something useful.
 
Last edited:
My Great Granddad drove a tank in WWI across the trenches and no mans land, I think they were called mother somethings, but they were some of the fist tanks.

and my Granddad went round checking people lights were off at the start of the war on his bike, then later became a proffesional paratrooper in Israel.
 
Yantorsen said:
My Great Granddad drove a tank in WWI across the trenches and no mans land, I think they were called mother somethings, but they were some of the fist tanks.

and my Granddad went round checking people lights were off at the start of the war on his bike, then later became a proffesional paratrooper in Israel.
Click to expand...


what's a fist tank?

and

Can you get amatuer paratroopers?
 
Flash In The Pan said:
what's a fist tank?

and

Can you get amatuer paratroopers?
Click to expand...

one of the first tanks, can't remember the name of it, it's well known though.

might have been called a big willy or something? I remember it having a silly name.

and I meant he wasn't a conscript/volunteer, he was a proffesional full time member.
 
My granddad was in the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)

Tony
 
wack61 said:
My father in law was on Aircraft Carriers in WW2, he was only 16 in 1945, he joined up rather than go down the mines, even though it was only a few months he saw some terrible things, especially for a 16 year old.

I spoke to him recently, this weekend my son and I are going down with a video camera to record some of his war stories and my mother in laws experiences of Warrington in WW2.

Perhaps this is something other people should consider doing, the generation that fought in WW2 is getting old, a record should be kept of their personal experiences for future generations.

This is probably the only time in history when almost every house in the UK has access to home video so we should put it to something useful.
Click to expand...

I didn't have any relatives in WW2, but quite a few in WW1. My great grandfather at the age of 35, with five kids and a protected occupation was sent to the front. He was dead within 6 months.

My grandfather on the other side (of the family, not the war) was in France sheltering with his comrades in a barn when it suffered a direct hit. Luckily at the time he was bending over tending to a wounded soldier, his commanding officer who was right behind him took the full hit. I remember my grandfather telling me that all that was left of the officer were his lower legs and boots.....
 
My great uncles were both killed on the Somme in WWI. My grandad was in a reserved occupation during WWII, so never fought. He spent the war in and around Warrington and Manchester building tanks and locomotives IIRC.
 
RichardC27 said:
My great uncles were both killed on the Somme in WWI. My grandad was in a reserved occupation during WWII, so never fought. He spent the war in and around Warrington and Manchester building tanks and locomotives IIRC.
Click to expand...

The housing estate I live on used to be part of Burtonwood airforce base which was a huge logistics centre during WW2 so i'm probably sitting not far from where he worked:)
 
You're probably not far at all. I think there's a small museum at what remains of Burtonwood dedicated to the USAF personnel who were based there during WWII.
 
My Great Grandad fought in WW2 - he was on the way back from Egypt when his ship was torpedoed - he sustained an injury and couldn't fight, so he was transferred to the Royal Signals and used morse code.
Unfortunately, right before this happened, he received a gift from a German POW who was a great wood turner but it was wrapped up in cloth and he didn't look at it as he was in a hurry - it went with him but was lost when the ship went down - he never knew what it was.

He also saw the horrific site of a German's head being cut off by a Gerka and it rolled down a hill.

He died in 1999 but we have some of his WW2 stuff - medals, ration book, papers etc
 
My grandfather was one of three known survivors of a bullet through the heart in WWI. My father had the bullet on a chain with him throughout WWII, but his deranged first wife sold it (I've since met her, and she must've quietened down alot). My grandfather's diary mentions a Gurkha cutting the tap off a bowser on the way to Mesopotamia, when water was rationed. My grandfather on my mother's side was someone who didn't really want to talk about his WWI experiences. When my grandmother died a couple of years ago, I found the date of their wedding in a parish record, online. There were no other weddings for four years either side, presumably because so many had been killed.
 
My Grandad fought in WW2. He was the first British Soldier into liberated Paris. He was driving a truck that broke down. He mended it, took a short cut and got in there first. Really p*$$£d the Senior Officers off! I have the newspaper cutting and radio transcript. He was covered in lipstick and flowers at the time he was being interviewed.

Someone heard him on the radio and went to get my Gran who was working in a Pub. She hadn't known where he was since two years earlier. The day they heard him on the radio was my Mum's fifth birthday and that is also mentioned in the newspaper article.

You really couldn't make that up. I have some of his medals and his embarcation papers.

He died in 1977, Never talked directly about the War but always used to talk to us about respecting other people and cultures because of what he had experienced. We were regularly babysat as children by a woman who had been in Buchenwald concentration camp for protesting against the Nazi Party. My Grandad used to tell us that she was a real hero. I never realised what he meant at the time but I found out later on. They were both heroes to me.

Chris :)
 
We did this when I was working for the BBC. Some of the men I met I was just in awe of, and the stories they told (both sad and funny ones) were great to listen to.

Have a look at the website, there are LOADS on there
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/

It's closed for submissions, but the OP's idea is good. We need to start getting these stories down while we can/
 
I've just remembered. There was one woman who came on the BBC internet bus just before we were running this campaign.

She had heard about the internet and wondered if she could trace an old friend of hers from WW2 times. We tried the usual resources we had, but nothing came up, and she was quite disappointed.

I ended up promising to look into it for her myself, and took her number.
Eventually, after some serious searching, and a massive depletion of my Google-Wu stocks, I managed to track the elderly gentleman down (lord knows how...I only had a name and rough age to go on). He was living in America now.

I ended up getting in contact with him, and passing his address and phone number onto this lady. To say she was overjoyed was an understatement. She was a really sweet lady I remember.

It turned out she was good friends with her husband while they were stationed at Burtonwood in Warrington. They had a massive history together, the three of them at the time, and like many others during the war, lost contact.

If I remember rightly he was dating her at one point, and she ended up marrying her husband who was his friend (my memory is rubbish, and this was only 5 years ago!). He was her first love or something.

In the end they made contact again, which made me absolutely chuffed.
Best google result I've ever had :D
 
If you have any relatives that are still alive now its well worth doing the video camera thing, soon the things they had to cope with will be almost forgotten apart from one day in the year.

My great grandad is buried in Fleurs in france where he died in WW1, all my other relatives that could have served are now gone, all we have are medals and photos.

Its struggling at the mo, but http://www.bbc.co.uk/remembrance/wall/
 
All my grandparents are dead. My Dads father was in a reserved occupation to begin with (he was a spark at scott paines power boats (aka british power boats company), who had switched to making fast MTB/PT boats), I think he was called up in 43/44 and went to Egypt (not 100% sure on that), still working on the boats for the Navy, I know he had officer status, but don't remember which rank. You can read more about Scott Paine here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Scott-Paine - he was one of the founders of the supermarine company.

My mums dad was a rivetter, building spitfires for supermarine, mums mum was a rivetters mate, pretty much how they met.

We have all sorts of pictures and documentation, I'll have to go to the folks place and dig it all up.
 
Mmmmm, my grandad who died a couple of months ago served in the Merchant Navy. My grandma stayed in Britain but is still alive. Theres loads of stuff in their attic.
 
Both my mum and dad where in the army in WW2, they met while they were in the services, my Dad fought in Burma he was one of the Burmese Chindits take a look HERE he never really speaks about the war to much, as i know he seen some horrific things, and i think to this day it's affected him even in his eighties, i always feel the people who fought in that war don't seem to get as much recognition as the ones who fought the German war, which is strange really as i believe they seen far worse things in jungle warfare.
 
RichardC27 said:
You're probably not far at all. I think there's a small museum at what remains of Burtonwood dedicated to the USAF personnel who were based there during WWII.
Click to expand...

It used to be on the base until they started building Chapelford urban village, it's now at the entrance to Gullivers world and is worth a look
 
My Dad was a flight engineer on Halifax's in the Far East during WWII. He used to tell me stories of the Gurkha's catching Japanese prisoners at the airfields and them "disappearing".

He never drew any money for over 6 months as they would regularly fly between Burma, Hong Kong, China & India, they'd find out what currency was wanted at their next stop, change all their money and sell it and make quite large profits. Bit naughty but what the heck....

At the end of the war they were told to stay behind for 6 weeks after everybody had left to clear out the airfield. They got bored after a couple of weeks, nicked a Wellington and flew back to Hong Kong :rules:

All the crew dropped a rank for that little stunt. I have some of his medals, the "Engineers Handbook" from a Halifax and some other stuff upstairs.

I took him to York a few years before he died to see the only Halifax left. It was a humbling experience watching him shed tears when he saw the plane. Something that will always rest with me.


Steve
 
This is such a great idea, wished we had a video camera when my grandfathers & great grandfathers were still around to record their experiences. Fortunately though, my family members have always talked about their experiences and we have quite a lot of stories to remember them by which are being passed on to the next generation. It makes me feel like I have a real connection with these events, they are not just stories in a book or on TV.

I'm incredibly proud of my heritage: one of my great grandfathers was a tog (must be in the blood ;) ) in the Royal Observer Corp during WW1, he flew with one of the top British aces, Albert Ball, after the war he served as a tog with the White Russian forces during the Russian Revolution in 1919; one of my other grandfathers was a motorcycle runner for one Lt Col T E Lawrence and I have a great photo of him standing outside his tent in the middle of the desert with his motorbike; one of my grandfathers was an electrician in the Canadian Air Force during WW2, stationed in Canada looking after some of the worlds first flight simulators used to train bomber navigators (he was court martialed for taking a weekend jaunt to New York City to see the Glenn Millar Orchestra :eek:); and my other grandfather was in the Polish Navy, serving on ORP Blyskawica from before the invasion of Poland, through her daring escape out of the German blockade right to the end of the war. She is the oldest surviving destroyer in the world and is still afloat as a museum in Poland. He worked with the depth charges and swore that he had the first U-Boat kill of the war, but I think that is somewhat disputed in official records :D Am planning a holiday to visit her and will, needless to say take lots of pics.

Stories such as these need to be recorded, kudos to all those who are brave enough to face their horrors by sharing their experiences, it must be unbelievably hard :clap:
 
My dad was with the kings own yorkshire light infantry (koylies) during ww2, he was based in india for two years and fought the japanese alongside gurkhas in burma. He was then transfered to italy/sicily to fight against the germans/italians, he received 3 bullets to his left leg on the slopes of mount etna, had roughly 120 stitches lost most of the feeling in that leg and had to wear a caliper for the rest of his life. He would not talk about it in great detail except to say that some of his comrades and the gurkhas liked to get up close to the enemy (nough said eh!). just wish i could have recorded what he did say to reflect on.
 
Although my grand parents are all dead, i used to live right next to the Burtonwood USAF Air Base, so have heard a few stories over the years, I used to ride my motorbike up one of the old road's/runways which is still there today on the wasteland. Its a shame its going to be built over, but i guess the "new world" need it more then the old world.
 
A bit late. My grandfather was serving with the wehrmacht while invading france. Later on he was based in norway where he seemed to have a quite time without fighting. As far as I know he was securing a base for submarines. At the end he fought in russia and came in war capitvity. He never really talks about the war because of what he experienced in the russian camp. He returned to germany 4 years after the war.
There´s just one story he once told us ( my brother and me ): in russia a bullet rebounded on his canteen. The canteen was on his chest.
It´s sad how a useless war ruined his and thousends of other lifes.
My other grandfather was lucky to be too young. The last year of WW2 he spent at a school for radio operators in the netherlands.
He died on the 24th Dec 2008. http://www.fliegendezwerge.de/bilder/zwerge120.jpg
We miss him so much
 
TG. said:
Both my mum and dad where in the army in WW2, they met while they were in the services, my Dad fought in Burma he was one of the Burmese Chindits take a look HERE he never really speaks about the war to much, as i know he seen some horrific things, and i think to this day it's affected him even in his eighties, i always feel the people who fought in that war don't seem to get as much recognition as the ones who fought the German war, which is strange really as i believe they seen far worse things in jungle warfare.
Click to expand...


Hi TG,

My Dad was in the Chindits as well.He was a paratrooper and was in India and Burma.He didn't come home until 1947.He never spoke about his time and the things he saw and did.He was full of admiration for the Ghurkas and hated the Japanese until the day he died. The only exception was to talk about playing hockey against the locals...oh and about the pretty girls;)

It's too late for me to ask now.I wish I had done,but I'm not sure he would have told me.I have some photos and his medals.
 
Its a great idea but just a word of caution when approaching veterans even if they are family,both my father and stepfather both now long gone fought in WW2 and for reasons of their own never spoke about it.I know from a 3rd party that my stepfather was blown up in a tank and I think some of the horrors that they witnessed they never want to speak of.
However all those who will reminisce we need to capture so that future generations know what these guys gave for our freedoms
 
Very nice stories here (and horrifying ones too), but its interesting to read how those wars are closer than you think.

Captain Penguin is right, my granddad who died in the late 80's never spoke about his time in the trenches in ww1. And judging by some of the pictures and videos we see, i'm not at all surprised. I'd hate to go through something like that.

My dad on the other hand is a bit more open about his time in the RAF in ww2, and as a uk civilian earlier on in the war before he joined the RAF. He watches the programmes on tv, as all the stuff we know today was censored at the time, so i think its filling in gaps in his memory and knowledge of what happened at the time.

I'm very proud of all who fought and died in the 2 world wars to save this country, and of course those who have fought and died since 1945.

I want to get him to write some stuff down or something, just so i have something to keep from his past.

:)
 


Was a relative of mine related to my mother. Fought in both The Great War and WW2 for the British and received an M.B.E. I never knew about him until my recent visit to India.

Unfortunately I never heard any of his war stories but I have no doubt he had many. I need to find out more about him. Some amazing photographs of him in the house that his family still keeps.
 
My grandad who is unfortunately no longer with us was required to stay at home during the war as he was a shipwright at Devonport dockyard.

He could sleep through almost anything :) My gran said that he slept through a kerbstone coming through the roof and crashing through his bedroom after it was thrown in the air by a bomb dropped by the luftwaffe. He was also in the home guard and fell asleep under a rocket battery at Staddon, some aircraft were spotted and the rockets launched, he managed to sleep through that too :lol:
 
surrealillusions said:
He watches the programmes on tv, as all the stuff we know today was censored at the time,
Click to expand...

There must have been some truly awful things happened during the war we still don't know about, I remember reading a while back that official secrets that were meant to be released after 60 years have been reclassified for another 40, that can only be so all the members of that generation are dead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top