What did your grandparents do during the war (or great grandparents)

[listsandbudgets]

Was thinking about my grandparents last night and how they were involved in the wars. they all did very different things

My grandfather was an older father to my dad (IYSWIM) and fought in the trenches in World War one. He was exposed to mustard gas and left with life long breathing difficulties but was involved with Air Raid Precaution during the World War 2.

My father's mum was a nurse at one of the big military hospitals and also a volunteer for the WRVS.

Both of my mother's parents were farmers so were in reserved (and necessary) occupations. They had Italian and German prisoners of war working on the farm as well as the Land Girls and my Nana had to learn Italian and sometimes did translation for the military - not bad for a girl who left a very rural Irish school at the age of 12 and worked on teh land ever after

I don;t really know about DP's grandparents but I do know his great uncle was a code breaker at Betchley Park (DP would probably have ended up in the same place I think)

Red Grandad2 wasn't the most pleasant of men either. Nobody knew what had happened to him until he was in his 50s. An aunt did a lot of research when she realised his medical records had been held 'secret' and he couldn't access various support groups for his mental health.

Bbasically the Army screwed his entire life and refused to stop doing so even when he died and all his family wanted was the truth. He lived his life officially branded a coward!!

Sorry. It's a bit of a family hobby horse!

I’m not British, but from Belgium. My great-grandfather had just finished his 2 years of military service when the German invasion of Belgium started. He was amongst the very first group of soldiers that received the order to join the army to try to stop the invasion. He fought on the Flemish front during the entire war. He couldn’t even go on furlough to his family because they were in occupied territory. After that he still had to stay in the army for another 2 years to occupy Germany. So, in total he spent 8 years of his youth - against his will - in the army. He hated the Germans so much after all this that he became part of the resistance during WWII, hiding many people on his farm, amongst others a Jewish mother and her 3 children. One of those children is still alive today!
His wife, my great-grandmother, ran a pub on the border between occupied Belgium and free Netherlands during the war. I can imagine she was involved in a lot of smuggling.
Their son, my paternal grandfather, was only 15 when WWII started. He didn’t join the army, but he helped his parents with their work for the resistance.
My paternal grandmother also was a teenager during the war. Her brother had been forced to go and work in Germany and they didn’t know if he would survive this or not (he did). Her family lost everything, because the allied forces decided that their village was critically positioned (on the border between Belgium and the Netherlands). They bombed the entire village and then inundated all the land. The entire village was destroyed. They lost their farm, their land and all their animals and had to flee to the Netherlands. My great-grandmother is Dutch and knew of a barn where they could stay. The family stayed there for the entire war, together with several other families. My grandmother was really traumatised by the experience. She had seen babies die from hunger in that barn.

I don’t know what my maternal grandparents did during the war (apart from falling pregnant outside of wedlock and causing a scandal)

*That should say "after my mother fell pregnant with my sister", not "after my sister was born".

WW2 my mums parents were just leaving there teen years when it started. My mums mum did factory work including munitions - not sure what but she once made an off cuff remark that doctors were surprised by her pregnancies - in the subsequent decade - and it wasn’t just her age. My mums dad not sure at the beginning as he was turned down initially due to deafness but by 1943 they needed men so he was recruited to royal mechanics - there reasoning was he was not in direct front line. He wouldn’t go into many details but the night terrors were awful until his death. We know through off cuff remarks that he was around for d day and concentration camp liberation and served in the European theatre. I would love to find out more but that is for my mum and sibling to decide.

My dads parents were born early 30s so were children.

My maternal grandfather started the war as an evacuee schoolboy and ended the war a clerk on a supply ship. He sailed to the Far East, India and Iceland but never saw any active service. My maternal grandmother took a desk job in the police station to free up a man to go to war.

My paternal grandfather did with minesweeping for the navy, my paternal grandmother had young children so wasn’t actively involved in any way.

DH’s maternal grandmother is the most interesting though, she was a code breaker at Bletchley park. She was one of the people who replied to newspaper adverts looking for people who were good at puzzles.

CuriousaboutSamphire I believe there are some Red Cross records for POWs that archivists are trying to get made publicly available in the next few years. There are some other foreign records which the national archives are currently working on digitising and getting made open access but it's an ongoing work in progress and not due for completion for another 12 months. I believe those which have been done can be applied for at cost now though (they are being done alphabetically).

I managed to get hold of Dhs grandfather's POW photo from when he arrived at his camp in Austria a couple of years ago, as the local Austrian museum were trying to identify men and we had his POW number and details. We believed he'd just arrived from Greece on a forced march and his image was quite haunting.

I'm keen to try and learn a bit more about what happened to him, but for various reasons haven't got round to applying for the records yet.

There should be quite a bit more available in the next two years though.

I'm quite old, and my parents even older, so:

Dad - Son of a farmer, but volunteered in WW2. Was a tank commander in Africa, then fought his way up Italy. He then stopped in Northern Italy and helped run a camp for German prisoners of war. Met my 17 year old (!) mum, and they married in Italy in 1946, she had to wait over a year to join him back in England.

Mum - Wealthy landed family, thrown out of their country house first by the Germans, then requisitioned by the Canadians. Lost all their valuables, not sure which invading army stole them. She spent much of her teenage years dating first Germans, then Canadians, Poles, Scots and English. Think she had a good time. She also spent several weeks in the hills, under tunnels being bombed by the Americans. Several of her best friends were killed by American bombing. Her father (my GF) died during the war, from cancer, but early on had been arrested for not flying the Nazi flag. Earlier in the war Mum had been a Mussolini youth cadet, and then later played with the children of Mussolini who had a holiday home in their town.

Grandparents on both sides were landowners/farmers, so reserved occupation.

Thanks Red but he wasn't PoW and the Army have the records. They just won't release any that haven't been so heavily redacted as to make no sense at all. They admit they have unredacted versions of all of his records but are holding them as they are 'sensitive'.. They also refused to hand anything over to his GP and surgeon when they were needed for further surgery on his head and knee.

We know why, we just can't prove it. We also know who and that is probably the heart of the issue! Proper scandal stuff... makes me really angry that even now a peer of the realm is (probably) being protected and a poor, working class nobody was left to live his life in shame and denied a service man's pension

That REALLY sounds like the plot of a very bad book, doesn't it?

The ones I know: Grandmother in the WRAF and Grandfather in the RAF (not flying though due to poor eyesight).
DH's father was in the Italian army and did his basic training before Italy became our allies - he told me he was very glad to say he didn't see any active service until after that!
DH's mother was younger and was living at home on an estate which was requisitioned for the German army headquarters of the area. She said they were very polite at first but as the war draw to an end she was constantly scared about what they might do next.

Daddad was in thr artillary. There was something about a corrupt quartermaster which meant they didnt get sent out to the far east. The ones that did got captured by the japanese.
Dadmum was a sahm I think. She had 2 young dc, mil moved in after she was bombed out.
Mumdad was a telephone operator so was in signals. He fought in Italy and have a picture of him in Rome.
Mummum worked in a shop or a private library. I cant remember when the library closed.

Grandparents were still children in ww2 but I do know about my Great GPs

Maternal GGD - Baker, protected profession. Had to bake government recipe “daily loaves”

Paternal GGD - search light operator in the UK. On top of a hill overlooking the Portsmouth dockyards. He would shine the light into the sky and the guy next to him would operate anti-aircraft guns to shoot down German Bombers.

Both sets of GGMs were home with the kids, on my paternal side there were 12 children (in a 2up 2down terrace!)

Maternal GM- sahm
Maternal GD - too old as he was a good bit older than her
Paternal GM - teacher+farming
Paternal GF- farmer+Home Guard

DP's paternal GF- gunner on a ship during Dunkirk. Survived war but died of pneumoconiosis as he was a miner.
Paternal GM- sahm I think
Maternal GM- don't know
Maternal GF- too old I think.

WWII

Mum worked at Vickers Armstrong developing enlarging and compiling large scale aerial photographs of enemy territory. She’d been a master upholsterer before the war, so was skilled at very detailed work.

Dad was in the Belgian merchant fleet when war broke out. His ship limped to England, where the crew were absorbed into the Navy. He did service on the North Atlantic convoys amongst other things. He was torpedoed four times, and was once adrift in a lifeboat for many days.

By the end of the war his hearing was badly damaged. He rarely talked about his war experiences, even into old age I think it was still quite raw and emotional for him.

Both my grandfathers were in the army during ww2 , though one had been in a reserved occupation before the war and consequently, was often shipped home to do his old job, especially during the blitz. In fact, it is thanks to the blitz that he survived, as his unit/regiment were being shipped to a new area and the ship was sunk, losing most of those in board at the time. Both my grandmothers had young children (dmum was a newborn at the start of the war) and so were caring for their children as well as for elderly relatives. Paternal GM sadly died during the war as the result of a chronic illness. Df and his siblings were put in an orphanage until their father was demobbed.

My paternal grandfather was an RAF pilot who flew a bomber, but was invalided out with stomach cancer. The first flight his crew took without him resulted in his plane being shot down. After recovering from cancer, he was sent to USA to train the pilots there.
Paternal grandmother worked in an office in a factory making something to do with the war effort, and became a mum during that time.
Maternal grandfather was sent home from war suffering with shell shock, and unfortunately, mentally, never recovered.
Hubby’s parents were children during WWII and were bombed out of their respective homes in Birmingham several times. They both remembered seeing the sky on fire from the Coventry bombings.
What a fascinating but sombre thread!

My maternal grandfather was ground crew in the RAF and continued to serve after the war in North Africa until the Aden crisis when he left the RAF and became a car salesman. My maternal grandmother was in the WRAF where she met my grandfather. She demobbed at the end of the war and married him and followed him to wherever he was posted.
My maternal great uncles both served in the army: one fought in Italy and demobbed soon after the war ended and was quite badly effected by it: the other took part in D-Day and moved across Europe until he reached Germany and he was demobbed a few years after the war ended but only after he married a local german girl - he returned home with her but she was always quite odd and there were whispers that she was unbalanced by her war experiences. A great aunt married an italian POW which went down well (not).
My grandmother's father fought in WW1 in the mounted artillery.

On my paternal side was my wonderful grandad and he was a submariner in the Navy. He was one of only a handful of men who started and ended the war in a submarine. He was 'career' navy and joined up in the very early 1930's and saw the Japanese invasion of Manchuria but transferred to subs in the mid 1930's. During the war, his unit's job was to hunt down U-boats in the Atlantic & Arctic Oceans.
He continued to serve in the Navy until the late 1950's when he retired and was still on the subs until then - he took part in the testing of the new nuclear subs throughout the 40's & 50's. He was presented to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh quite a few times in honour of his bravery on serving on the new nuclear subs (he was on the first one launched) and grandad always said that he'd rather face a U-boat than ride in a nuke sub but he did it anyway. My grandad was the biggest bravest person that I've ever known and was so lovely with it. My paternal great uncle was also career navy but he was torpedoed in the Pacific Ocean early on in WW2. He survived the torpedo but was eaten by a shark while awaiting rescue!

WW2

My Great Grandfather was in the navy and my Great Grandmother worked in a factory of some kind

My grandparents were young children in WW2 - between 4 and 10 years old. 2 of them lived in rural England so we’re pretty much just cracking on with school etc with the addition of a few evacuees from the nearest cities
Maternal grandparents lived in a nazi occupied country deeply affected by the holocaust The only thing my Nana has ever talked about was how quickly things changed - ie one day she was going to school as normal and playing with all her friends, then the next day half her friends were wearing these strange yellow badges on their clothes (stars of David), then a few weeks after that, they simply weren’t there anymore She was obviously too young to truly understand what had happened to them at the time.
I’m honestly not sure about my great-grandparents. I know that my fore-mentioned Nana’s father was a greengrocer and her mother was a stay-at-home mum to 6 (??) children. I’m not sure if he was involved in anything military-wise, I’ll have to ask my Nana! I don’t know about my Grandad’s parents at all.
I know my paternal great-grandparents were all farmers, and both great-grandads fought with the Royal Norfolk Regiment, but I don’t know where they went or what they were involved in.

Maternal G'dad captained an oil tanker through WW2. A dangerous job and more than once, when in a convoy, the ships both in front of and behind him were torpedo'ed. He lived a charmed life.
Nan was meanwhile raising children in rural Herefordshire.

Paternal G'Dad was in the desert for most of WW1. I had photos of him on horseback and also riding camels. It wasn't something he talked about.
Gran was in service. WW2 and G'dad was both too old to serve and in a protected occupation.

Folllowing on from my earlier post, my Dad was born in 1942 (hopefully 9 months after my Grandad was on leave!) He didn't meet my Grandad until the end of the war, when he arrived home with a toy train for his 3 year old son. My Dad always idolised my Nan, but always had a difficult relationship with my Grandad. I'm sure those missing years were the root cause.

My grandma was a nurse, first in a leprosy hospital in Egypt and later rain an orphanage in the Greek islands. She stayed when the Nazi's took the area as she couldn't leave the children, but said that they left her alone (and actually provided some food and things). She got a medal. I am very proud to be related to her.

DH GD was landed on the beaches in Normandy in a glider plane...basically balsa wood, paper and glue. Pushed through all of that. Into Grrmany.
Then. He got sent to Palestune where he was getting shot at by both sides whilst turning back boatload if Jewsish holocaust survivors.
He was demobbed in 48. Then actively looked for a quiet life.
DH GM was a land girl who could make wine out of wood shavings.
Bless them both.
DH always says their idea of a day out was sitting in the car looking at a view.

My grandad was in the Flying Corp. after WW1 he helped train Indian pilots for the first Indian Air Force.

MyDad was at Dunkirk. He took us to see The Longest Day and complained throughout about the boots the soldiers were wearing. No holes and had to clean to have trudged across France and Belgium for days.

Grandad fought for the entirety of the war, he was in Belgium, France, Poland. In the army.

Grandma had signed up to be a Wren, then the war ended.

DH always says their idea of a day out was sitting in the car looking at a view.

^^

This I can believe. My gdad spoke about the war very vaguely, food they had, people he knew etc. Never said what he was actually doing.