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)

My dad also was in the home guard.
I’m lucky to be here..a bomb dropped on their family home...luckily they all survived

don't know anything about paternal grandfather(df was a war baby!)
paternal gm worked in a munitions factory
maternal gm was a teacher
maternal gf was a reserved occupation - meat, abattoir , food inspector so pretty essential with food rationing

My late Dad loaded bombs onto planes. My late Mum worked at Bletchley Park !

Grandad in army and was wounded at the battle of Monte Cassino. He was then assigned to medical core where he disposed of amputated limbs!! Unsure what my nan did. Other grandparents were Irish and neutral.

My DGD was in the black watch in WW2, DGM work in an ammunition factory, when i was a teenager my DGD would cry when he talked about the war, when my DGD came home my dad his son wouldn't go near him because he couldn't remember him .
Don't know about other GP never met them they were never spoken about.

So interesting....

my maternal gf was in a reserved occupation (food distribution), gm had young children (my mum and uncles) and didn't work during the war

my paternal gf was a cartographer in the Royal Air Force - far east - gm was busy raising five kids under 6 (my dad was eldest)

On my Dads side my Grandad drove a tank and my Grandma worked in an ammunition factory in Birmingham.

WW2

GM was in the WAAFS and GD was in the RAF.

Other GD was in the Navy and GM was a SAHM

My grandparents were all children/born during the war. Not sure about most of my great grandparents, one was a builder so maybe he just kept doing that? Another was an aeroplane mechanic

Maternal grandfather served in the Somme in WW1, paternal grandfather was a butcher.

Both my parents had reserved occupations during WW2, father was in hush-hush electronics, mother was hush-hush secretarial. Neither of them ever told me what they actually did.

My PGF was a designer and worked for Murphy Radio designing among other things landing beacons for use by the resistance in France PGM was a stay at home mum as my dad was born 1939
My MGF was a Tank Gunner Loader in the Lancers and went over in D-Day he caught his way all the way up to German an was traumatised by what he saw liberating a concentration camp and suffered with PTSD for the rest of his life MGM was in the Australian Army ( yup British and in the Australian Army. ) right up until she had my mums older brother in 1943. Then evacuated SAHM
My Dad in Law ( who's 93 this year and still going strong) was In the RAF as a Radio operator on the ground went over D-Day +1 and didnt come home until 1948 spent 3 years in Berlin after the war still in the RAF. Mum in law was a secretary at the admiralty. Both DH's uncles were in the military too but what they did is still covered by the OSA.
my Dad was RAF and my DH was Army.....GREAT Grandfathers on both side we're career military too.
I'm am fascinated by military history and reading about your families has been brilliant thanks for sharing

MGF worked as a hospital pharmacist. He took medicine to pow camps.
MGM was working at the above hospital.
PGF too young to join up/ reserved occupation (farmer). They had POWs help on the farm.
PGM was an evacuee, to Cornwall, but home and 16 when it ended. She used to date American soldiers . Her dad was young enough, but still had a gammy leg left over from WW1. He was a grocer.

DHs family were all either too young or injured from WW1. His dad joined the home guard as a teen, but didn't think much to them.

There's an airfield nearby where the top of a nearby tree was taken out by a plane crash in WW2. It shocked me to realise that things in the wider landscape still show damage from nearly 80 years ago.

My family both maternal and paternal were reserved occupations.
They are both farming families so didn’t have to go either to ww1 or 2 and fight, they kept the country fed instead.

Maternal Grandad was an RAF Pilot, flew sorties over Norway dropping supplies to resistance fighters and dropping agents behind German lines, and flew as a glider tug for the Rhine crossing. He was nearly shot down and his tail gunner was killed flying through the Norwegian Fjords, he threw his medals in the bin when moving house sometime after the war.

Maternal Grandmother was a telephone exchange worker until she married.

Paternal Grandad was unfit to fight due to having crashed his motorbike in the 1930s (coma for 10days) and also had a protected profession. He was a bus mechanic for the depot in Bristol by day and an air raid warden and auxillary firefighter by night.

Paternal Grandmother was a housewife/mother.

My Grandad was also seconded to the US airforce for part of the war to work as a Pilot instructor (in Washington DC I think). He liked to talk about this part of the war, but nothing else. This probably saved his life, as normally a pilot of that calibre would have become a spitfire pilot with odds of being killed stacked against them, but by the time he came back from the US he was too long in the tooth and just flew bigger planes.

Paternal Grandfather was a miner and nan had young children so didn't work. On the maternal side Gramps was a funeral director/special constable and again grandmother was looking after young children. She also was severely affected by asthma so probably wouldn't have been able to do much.

I love reading these stories;

My maternal GD called up in 39 -my mom born just after war declared
He was either a sapper or a desert rat, I’m not sure and I’m trying to get his war records to find out. He had night terrors for years later. His brother escaped a POW camp in Italy and was hidden by an Italian Family, I found an online copy of a newspaper from 42 where he thanks the neighbours for the homecoming party!
Maternal GM worked in a munitions factory I think

Paternal GD was in the merchant navy, I don’t know much about it other than a few online records I’ve found

Paternal GM was a sahm I think, she did have 5 children during the war so GD must have made it home on occasion!

Maternal GF was in the army (I think he was in Holland)
Paternal GF was part of the Arctic Convoy & travelled to Russia many times. After the war (in the 80s/90s) he went back to Russia to visit Russia many times & was treated like a hero by people that knew what he’d done during the war

Irish grandfather was a medic on the hospital trains in ww2. English grandfather no idea why he didn't fight - protected occupation?
Irish grandad was a midwife and delivered babies in the blitz during ww2 in London.

Ddad fought in ww2. (My parents were older.) He was in the army. Fought in Africa. Italy, Greece and then had to fight in Greek civil war (which everyone has forgotten about). All his brothers fought (4) and all came back.
Mum was evacuated twice and had quite a horrible time - including being locked in a room and having her clothes stolen. Imagine sending your child to a complete stranger...

Hospital trains in ww1!

Mgf and his 7 brothers all fought in the war, they all came home. One had been a POW of the Japanese and had bad scars on his back from lashings. He was an officer and sometimes took a lashing for his weaker men. I can’t comprehend that my little gentle grandad shot people. He only spoke about it once and died that night. My MGM was only 13 at the end of the war (there was a big age gap). She was living a grand life in the Scottish countryside being brought up by her grandmother (who she thought was her mother....quite a scandal as her mother got pregnant out of wedlock to a local married farmer. Quite the rebel my great gran, she shacked up with a guy years later and they lived as s married couple without the paperwork.)

My Pgf was in the army as we have a photo of him in uniform and his used to doodle clues to his location on his letters as he was a very talented artist. He was a miner after the war and died before I was born. I have no idea what pgm did as my dad rarely spoke about them as they both died very young and it affected him deeply, he turned to alcohol.

Grandad 1 - mechanic with RAF, based in what is now Zimbabwe. Saw a lot of southern Africa but luckily not much else, though had colleagues who were lost. He was young and seemingly had a nice time for most of the war.
Grandad 2 was in the army. He was a lorry driver by trade and was in the Supplies/Transport Corps, amongst other things he was involved in taking supplies to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp when it was liberated by the British. He told a lot of stories, but never mentioned Belsen (except how he never could believe how humans could treat other humans in that way).

Nan 1 was my youngest grandparent and was young enough to be evacuated from East London (to Ipswich... seems an odd decision by someone somewhere!). She went home within a year as her dad died, and didn't go back. Her brother was in the navy, we have the birthday 'card' he sent her drawn on a piece of lined paper.
My other Nan was a sewing machinist when war broke out. I'm not sure other than that, but her brother worked for the Post office doing telegrams.

One GF was a cobbler by trade and was drafted into a specialist team detailed to travel round mending the boots of front line soldiers.

His first assignment after basic training was to Borneo to replace another team who had disappeared in the jungle. He and his team had reached Egypt and were resting en route when the original team were found. So his team were left without a posting. Somehow they then got forgotten about and he spent the rest of the war in Egypt touring the pyramids. He became something of an expert in Egyptology

My other GF spent the war driving a supply truck across the North African desert. He couldn't drive before being drafted and was given a few rushed lessons by the army. However they forgot to tell him where the brake was - led to a few hairy moments! Sadly his driving never improved!

Both my GFs fought in France in WW1. Both were lucky to survive. By WW2 one GF had died (cancer - my dad was 8); the other was by then in a reserved occupation (admin role in a shipyard). In WW2 both my parents were in school - mum turned 10 the day Poland was invaded. I think my dad’s mother worked, possibly in a bakery - she was a widow by then so had to work anyway. Dad and his sister were evacuated to cousins in the countryside - they were very distressed and lasted 2 weeks (their dad died in 1938, it must have been traumatic for them) - so back they went to the city! Mum’s dad was gassed in WW1 (tank corps) and developed what must be PTSD - he was in and out of hospital till he died in early 1960s. I don’t know exactly what the GMs did - late teens in WW1. Maternal GM might have been a nurse in France; it’s possible the other GM was already in the bakery as it was a big employer in their area.

My mum grew up in a coastal town with lots of shipyards- so there was heavy bombing. They had a house with a cellar - used that as air raid shelter. It wouldn’t have protected them if they had been bombed, just as well they weren’t. My mum told a story of the Tate and Lyle sugar factory being bombed and the syrup running/pouring down the hill. One of her uncles died when his ship was torpedoed in the Atlantic - there were no other stories. I think she was actually quite traumatised by her father’s mental breakdown.

My dad had an uncle who was a paratrooper in D Day. He was amongst the men who liberated the first French town, Ranville. He was seriously wounded but survived.

I’ve enjoyed reading all your stories too. Fascinating. Lately I’ve been reading a lot of history so it all fits together in my mind!