jollygreengiant
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 12:45 PM |
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In Rememberance
I would have posted this poll in anything else, but there is no poll option, so I thought this is the next best place. Somewhere with a bit of respect
and thought.
Currently I am watching, with respect and humility 'The last Tommy'.
Now this set me thinking that with the passage of time (and with NO disrespect, meant or implied, to those involved with more recent wars &
conflicts) just how distant the First and Second world wars are getting with regard to generations. So I thought that I would ask these questions just
to try and maybe, just maybe make a few more people a bit more considerate of what sacrifices were and are indeed still being made.
If you find thinking or commenting about the poll too distressing then I apologise and you have my respect. If you just want to just poll then that is
fine. However if you would like to give a brief background then that is also fine.
This poll relates to Military Personnel and Civilians killed or injured as a direct or indirect result of enemy action.
I have tried to put some thought into the possible answers so that there should be an answer to cover all possibilities. So please think about your
answer before you answer.
Beware of the Goldfish in the tulip mines. The ONLY defence against them is smoking peanut butter sandwiches.
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Paradoxia0
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 12:52 PM |
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I know one of my granddads was in the army in the second world war, my great uncle was in the airforce and my great aunt in the land army. They all
survived the "action" but unfortunately my granddad and great uncle have now passed away.
God bless them and thank them for their contributions to the war efforts (and of course in everything else they did too).
Mark
There is no replacement for displacement...
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UncleFista
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 12:59 PM |
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My dad died when I was really young, my Grandad was for all intents and purposes, my Dad 
The best bits of me are from him, I've never met a better man. All the hardships of going through the war as an infantry soldier. Being shot at
by a tank in France and waking up in an English hospital.
He suffered emphysema in later life, probably due to sleeping in French fields for so long, and he never regretted for a minute putting his life on
the line for freedom.
As he used to say "as long as we don't forget"...
Even now, when faced with a dillema I think "what would Grandad do ?"
Tony Bond / UncleFista
Love is like a snowmobile, speeding across the frozen tundra.
Which suddenly flips, pinning you underneath.
At night the ice-weasels come...
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jollygreengiant
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 01:02 PM |
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My Maternal Grand Father Was in the Royal Artillery in the first world war. He was Blown up twice and gassed twice whilst on the Somme. After the war
he was kept in Banstead Hospital through the endeavors of his wife until her death in 1960 where upon he was ejected back into the world to live with
his daughter (my mother) until his death a few months later. Until he turned up on our doorstep, unannounced, no one thought or knew he was alive. I
have no recollection of him as I was only 18months old at the time.
My father Served with the RAF until the demob after the capitulation of Japan. Technically he was in the Battle of Britain albeit for only about a
week as his squadron transferred back into the battle. He was then transferred to an overseas posting in Malta until just after the invasion of Sicily
were upon he was declared medically unfit to continue fighting due to his weight dropping from 11st 10 (naked) to 8st 10 (in full uniform) in the 9
months that he was in Malta. My father pointed out that he was on the better diet in Malta because he was a Fighter pilot. Before the war he was due
to be in the next Olympics with the swimming team for distance swimming and water polo from the Plaistow swimming club.
Beware of the Goldfish in the tulip mines. The ONLY defence against them is smoking peanut butter sandwiches.
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coozer
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 01:18 PM |
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All of my grandparents and great uncles worked down the pit during the war so were exempt from national service.
Then there was what we called our 'old' granda, our great granda, he always told us he was too OLD for service during the first world war,
he died in 1975 aged 96 after working 68 years at the pit.
Me and my brother are the first generation not to have a mine to go and work all our lives at.
1972 V8 Jago
1980 Z750
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Ivan
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 01:31 PM |
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My Father served in both North Africa and Italy as medical officer in field hospitals.
My Uncle was captured in North Africa (Tabruk), escaped four times, re-captured three - they didn't like that - and my Aunt said he regularly
woke up at night screaming from what they did to him, until he died well in his eighties.
His fourth escape he used his dental tools (He was a dentist) to dig his way through the side of the train transpoting him to Germany to a more secure
camp, escaped with a buddy of his who was shot as they ran from the tracks, was hidden by a heroic Italian family for 6 months (The Germans had an
anti aircraft emplcacement in their garden and they would of been shot had he been found) and then crossed the Alps into Switzerland.
Oh - and no ill feelings - my great uncle was shot by the British in the Boer war and my great Grandfather died in a British POW camp on St Helena
Island.
[Edited on 9/11/08 by Ivan]
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 02:05 PM |
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My grandad was a coal miner in the Swansea valley during the first world war - after seeing documentaries about the life of a miner before
mechanisation, I think that he had no better life than someone at the front.
My father ended up with 3 bullet wounds in a POW camp in eastern Germany, close to the Polish border - can't have been very far from the
extermination camps. 
[Edited on 9/11/08 by David Jenkins]
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StevieB
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 02:46 PM |
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I hd one Grandad in the first world war (too old for the second) and one in the WWII in RAF Regm't.
My wife's great uncle won a MC in WWI, serving as a member of the 'Grimsby Chums'
In later years, one of my uncles served in the RAf and I've served with both the Royal Marines and an Army unit.
I'm very pround that every generation of my family has served the country we love, but I hope that this tradition will be broken and I
don't have to see my son go to foreign lands under such circumstances (sadly, probably the same confilcts as today).
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balidey
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 02:51 PM |
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Both my grandfathers served in the second war, and both survived, one with injuries. But both are now no longer with us. They are the two people I
thought of during the silence. I wished I had spoken to them about the war more. Its too easy to forget about it with the passing of time.
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Benzine
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 02:55 PM |
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My great grandfather and his brother both served in WW1. Both fought at the somme and both survived but one of them died on or the day after armistice
day trying to put out a fire at a field hospital (voted for the 1st poll option) Grandad, dad, me and my brother have been out to france a few
times around the battlefields, visited great grandad's grave Both my grandparents were too young for the second world war.
[Edited on 9/11/08 by Benzine]
The mental gymnastics a landlord will employ to justify immoral actions is clinically fascinating. Just because something is legal doesn't make
it moral.
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Shamrock GS
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 03:17 PM |
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Good effort JGG for this thread. As a TA Padre I am just back from taking a remembrance parade in Edinburgh - v moving.
Could I also make a mention of the folk who have died since WWII? Those in Aden, Falklands, Iraq (1 &2), Afghanistan.
Gary
“Let your plans be dark and as impenetratable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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blakep82
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 04:09 PM |
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^^ it shouldn't just be about WW1&2, but for those in falklands, iraqs, afgahnastan, and our heros currently fighting for us
[Edited on 9/11/08 by blakep82]
________________________
IVA manual link http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?type=RESOURCES&itemId=1081997083
don't write OT on a new thread title, you're creating the topic, everything you write is very much ON topic!
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jollygreengiant
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 04:33 PM |
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I was not forgetting those in more recent conflicts or 'operations'. I was merely trying to make people think about those conflicts which
although 'remembered' will soon be fading fast from recent memory due to bereavement through the onward and inexorable progress of time.
It will not be long now at all before it will be impossible for those who are left to gain any direct insight into the thoughts and personal
experience of those who actually took part in the conflicts which are as we speak passing into distant memories.
I was not in any position to 'talk' with my grand father, but was able to speak with my farther to a degree about his experience. I deeply
regret now that I did not take more interest or notes as he is now passed to join his comrades and those who went before.
Those who died in each and every action since have made the ultimate sacrifice and we should NEVER forget them. Those who survived gave only a little
less when you understand how they were touched by their 'experience'. We should not forget them either.
I reserve the right to add to this as might be necessary in future.
[Edited on 9/11/08 by jollygreengiant]
[Edited on 9/11/08 by jollygreengiant]
Beware of the Goldfish in the tulip mines. The ONLY defence against them is smoking peanut butter sandwiches.
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twybrow
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 05:15 PM |
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My great grandparents were killed in a concentration camp. My grandfather and great Aunt lived in the woods in Germany for a year, before escaping and
heading to the UK. All of this happened even before the war began. My grandfather only found out about his parents when he saw them on a tv program
some 50 years later. If you hadn't guessed, they were Jewish and paid the price for it....
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piddy
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 06:07 PM |
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quote:
it shouldn't just be about WW1&2, but for those in falklands, iraqs, afgahnastan, and our heros currently fighting for us
Not forgetting those from the Northern Ireland conflict.
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splitrivet
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 07:24 PM |
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My dad lived in Burma (my grandad was the postmaster general of Rangoon and provinces)when the Japs invaded the family high tailed it into India.
There my dad faked his age he was 15 at the time . Because he was fluent in Burmese he was ear marked for special services with the Burma rifles and
sent out with Wingate and the Chindits .
I dont know what he saw or what he did he never used to talk about the war although myself and my brothers asked him. It was only when I met his
younger brothers in the late 70's who lived in Canada I found out he'd been decorated quite a few times, and had spent some time in a
military hospital.
At the beginning of the nineties every summer he used to go a bit wacky, as the years went on he would get a little worse around about 1994 it got so
bad he had to be sectioned. Talking to the consultant it was a direct consequence of the war and the things he'd seen and had to do.
When he was released in 1995 he was like a shell of his former self, my dad was the funniest guy I'd ever met, so full of life and fitter than
anyone I've ever known.
He passed away in 1998 and I'm sure it was the drugs he was forced to take that killed him.
I miss him and think about him nearly every day.
The heroes arent just the guys who have died during wars, the bigger heroes are the ones who have to carry on with life afterwards.
Cheers,
Bob
[Edited on 9/11/08 by splitrivet]
I used to be a Werewolf but I'm alright nowwoooooooooooooo
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omega 24 v6
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| posted on 9/11/08 at 07:35 PM |
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A most excellent thread.
My Mothers stepfather was in the second and his brother was killed in the second. He never spoke about it to me even as a young boy. He had some
medals he used to let us see and from memory a couple of large curved bladed swords (possibly knives I was very small and everything looked big).
After he died we were going through his things and it was only then that I found out his brother had been Killed or MIA quite sad and I often
wondered what sort of things he'd been through even now.
I'd imagine that very very few of us were told what went on by our close relatives perhaps it was just to painfull to talk about. I would have
liked to know more.
Many thanks for a great thread . I'd imagine most of us still remember but each year the younger generation loose the closer connection that we
have/had.
If it looks wrong it probably is wrong.
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