What stories do you know about your (Great?) grandparents experience of WW2?

[HappyPeach]

Inspired by my other thread, I realise I know nothing about my grandparents war experience. Other than one Nan was in the WRVS, though I don't know what she did. All my grandparents died years ago so I can't ask now. I wish I knew their stories. What do you know about your relatives experiences?

My gran was born in 1918, her mother died 6 months later and she was brought up by her grandmother. She left school at 14 and was a very traditional homemaker for her dad and brothers

She worked in munitions during WW2 (the only job she ever had) and her occupation is listed as electrical engineer on her marriage certificate

Paternal grandfather - served with the Eighth Army in North Africa, Monte Cassino etc. Arrived in Rome to see Mussolini's body the day after he was hanged (I have a newspaper in the loft of this). Lots of awful memories he spoke about, plus some horrendous injuries he suffered.

Paternal grandmother - lived under Nazi occupation in the South of France. Lost 21 brother in French air force, 3 year old brother to measles after Nazis stopped them accessing medication. Once killed a chicken with her bare hands so her family could have something to eat.

Maternal grandfather - served in the British Navy, left the war apparently unscathed.

Maternal grandmother - served in the WRVS in Sussex.

My Dad had high level security clearance from working on Nuclear projects in the 70s, he carried this clearance with him into his career as a contractor for military intelligence.

When the Chinook hit the cliffs on the Mull of Kintyre killing everyone, 3 of his colleagues were on board including a close friend (whose home he used to stay at). I remember his anger and upset when he came home from work that evening.

I've often wondered what my Dad really got up to at work, he certainly wasn't an agent of any sort, but I bet it was interesting. Sadly he died in his 60s so I will never get to know.

Ooh I like this thread.

Ok grandpa Arthur lost a leg in the war, had 2 prosthetic legs which to my knowledge were never replaced, not like now when you can get a few to cover eventualities and altered or changed when your stump changes.

He was also taken prisoner in I think Korea. He never ever spoke about the war except to tell me it wasnt big or clever to start one, it wasnt a pleasant time and wars were shit (he didn't say shit, he was far too gentlemanly for such cuss words) his wife my granny was a nurse in the UK.
I've seen their wedding photos a long time ago and man he was handsome in his uniform. And just to add he was a really lovely grandpa, all the patience in the world for a neuro diverse kid.

My granda oscar won a shit load of medals which I have somewhere, he served in hot countries but currently I forget which. All the very few pictures I have of him are postcards he sent home (or pictures he turned into postcards not sure, it's been years since i looked at them) pictures of him and his squaddies, tanned as fuck. He looks happy, sadly I wasnt close to him as he moved abroad before I was born so I dont know any stories, only the pictures and medals I have. His wife died very young so I dont know what she did.

DGF played cat and mouse with a German patrol around northern France and Holland. He drove a amphibian at DDay landings. Didn't say much else. He was obsessed with all war films and a member of old soldiers societies though.

Mums grandad was a POW in Asia somewhere- Burma ?
my own grandad was a very very small boy, just remembers rationing and older family members dying in the war fighting

My dad volunteered aged 17 and was in the navy in the far east. Mum was a volunteer fire watcher, spending the night on top of high buildings watching out for fires started when incendiary bombs fell, and directing the fire services.
My grandfathers both served in WW1, one on the Western Front, the other in Salonika. Both died before I was born so I never heard their stories.

These stories are so interesting.

My Gran was in Paris when the Nazis invaded, she said she once saw a human toe in a gutter…and also that people were so hungry they ate cats and passed them off as rabbit (because apparently remove the head and tail and their bodies are the same…yickkk!) Her mother was English and didn’t speak French so she stayed hidden and my Gran at 16 had to take over all the home running because her father had fled somewhere with his mistress. Her sister and brother in law spent the war in a POW camp. She died 20 years ago half way through writing her diaries of this time, I wish I’d asked her more as even remembering what she said is hazy for me.

My Grandma was younger, she lived in Wales and we only found out a year before she died that she had named our uncle after a little boy who had been evacuated with them. We found out how much she and her family adored him, so much so they actually took him with them when the family relocated for a better life in Coventry…two months in her dad was crushed in a mine and her mum couldn’t afford to keep the little evacuee, he had to go back to his alcoholic mother. So sad :( And my Grandma kept it to herself for over 70 years..! We had so many questions but she was getting unwell and unable to answer everything by the time we knew about him.

Another story I think Grandma told me was when they were on a train and Coventry was being blitzed by the Luftwaffe. They had to stop the train and everyone on board had to wait in the dark with all lights off not knowing if they would be hit next, they couldn’t move, but they could see the city being bombed from the train. I think she told me that and not another relative. It’s foggy.

Forgot, DH has an uncle who was a founder member of the SAS. The Uncle is a family legend and much discussed.

DH read his book and came to the conclusion they were all a bunch of psychopaths who got lucky that they were encouraged to kill people.

Grandad 1: Was a desert rat. He'd been in the army in the early 30s so was called up early on. He spent the war in various different places, and took his brownie camera with him, so I have lots of photos he took, some of which are very different from what you normally see. You get the men messing about, and then the next picture an army ambulance on its side having been hit and the next one the local market.
A story that he never talked about but was told to my gran after he died (at a young age-I never knew him) They were in the desert and had been fired upon for several days and many of them were getting to the end of their tether. One young lad, only about 17/18yo who'd not been out long suddenly decided to do a one-man charge towards the enemy into the mine field. That sometimes happened when the stress got too much. My grandad chased after him, tackled him to the ground and brought him back safely. He was recommended for a bravery medal, but as no officer had been present, he didn't get one.
My gran was the least sentimental of people, but she saved the telegram he sent her when he'd been discharged at the end of the way. Very basic, I have it somewhere but it says something like. "Arriving 4:42 train. Much love". The fact she kept it showed how much it had meant to her.
Gran 1: I don't really know if she did anything towards the war effort directly. I know she worked in a shop after the war, but I don't know what she did during the war. Time was very hard for them after the war and she worked 3 jobs a day right up until she retired.

Grandad 2: He joined RAFVR in 1938 because he said he saw war coming and wanted a choice what he did. He was called up immediately on onset of war and posted. He flew spitfire in the Battle of Britain. He reckoned those extra hours flying in the reserves saved his life, as later on in the war the young pilots were coming with less than 2 weeks' flying practice. They used to reckon if a new pilot survived his second sortie-and most didn't-he might survive the war.
I've a lovely copy of one of his flight reports where he's typed "I saw the EA at three o'clock and shouted, 'Tally Ho'." His CO crossed the "shouted" out and wrote "said" over the top. Obviously, this wasn't dignified enough I can't imagine him doing this, but he'd have been about 20yo at this point, and so maybe he did! He was always very calm when I knew him.
After the Battle of Britain his flight records are patchy. He was seconded to flight test but it's not clear what else he did. There's some incomplete information eg-one of the units he was assigned to was mostly bombers, and he was a fighter pilot, and there are very few records of his flights, but I know from things he said that he was flying regularly there and brought down a few planes at that point.
I think he may have been doing secret work from a few things he dropped into conversation and some things I've recently discovered-they had a cellar built into their house after the war where he had a radio-he was a keen radio ham, for example, but there's other things that are missing from records that indicate there may have been more going on.
My mum was conceived about 3 months after D-day when my grandad unexpectedly came home on leave and told her that we were now in charge of the war, and it was a matter of time, but the top brass were now confident we would win in the end. They had a little celebration, and my mum was the result
He loved flying and continued flying after the war as a test pilot. It was said about him at one point that if a plane existed, he had flown it, but the Spitfire remained his favourite.
Granny 2: She worked in a bank during the day, but was very active in the WVS, later the WRVS and continued to be active into her 60s. She probably talked the most about war memories when prompted and they weren't always good memories. One time the houses next door were bombed and when they dug out to try and reach the people in the cellars, they found a water main had also been hit and flooded the cellars and all the people had drowned as they couldn't get out because the houses had come down on the entrances.
But then there were things like collecting blackberries and making jam with the WI and although I don't think they had evacuees staying with them, they helped run parties and that sort of thing.
She also had a trunk full of single china items, including several teapots that didn't have handles or spouts because she lived with her sister who was a bit clumsy but they at the time couldn't get hold of new items so when the next got broken they sorted through and decided which was the least damaged to keep on using!
They got married during the war, and three of them (one of the others being Granny's sister) pooled all their clothing ration tokens to get fabric to make a joint wedding dress. They were quite different sizes so they made it so it could be taken in/let out easily.

These are fascinating! I love family histories

In WW1 things are rather more sketchy
On my dads side One grandfather made barbed wire so it was a protected occupation.
The other I found out just the other day was in the ambulance corp. no idea where or what but guessing on the front somewhere
There's a story of a cousin dying because he was under a lamp post and a tank crashed into the lamp and fell on him.
Mums side, one was a conscious objector- ended up in prison as a result. The other was rather old and didn't do anything

That's it no idea what the women did and actual details are very sketchy

American so...
(teenagers when they married in 1942)
GM1: raised twin babies on her own while GF1 was away
GF1: best friend died at Pearl Harbour, joined the Navy, only food on board he found edible was avocados, spent the war skirmishing around South Pacific

GM2: managed large family while GF2 was away
GF2: chaplain got stationed in England, had an affair with a nurse

My grandfathers were both in the Navy during WWII so a lot of war stories there but my favourite has always been my grandmothers memory of the outbreak of WWII. She would tell me how she sat with a group of friends after a local dance in their ball gowns talking of how they were all too young to die.

Can't believe I forgot DH's grandad - he was a Judge (or something similar) which was a reserved occupation and became part of Churchill's Secret Army, the Auxillary Unit that would have become the British Resistance in the event of invasion!

My maternal grandfather was too old to be in the services, he worked for the local council and was part of the 'heavy brigade', a team of council employees who cleared up after bomb damage eg make the gas safe, turn off water mains etc. My grandma was a housewife, as DM was born in 1942.
My paternal grandparents were irish - which was neutral during WW2.

Grandparents were too old to serve in ww2 but dad was squadron leader in bomber command and won the dfc; mum was in the waff including g some time as a coder.

My beloved grandmother was a child when the Nazis invaded her village in Czechoslovakia, she remembers being terrified of them. “They were pigs, they just took what they wanted.”

I don’t know about my other grandparents, but they all lived in occupied Czechoslovakia.

Grandfather 1 - in the Navy around Asia. He was already in the Navy when WW2 started. He was most annoyed when his ship was torpedoed as he had just picked up 14 silk shirts somewhere in Japan.

Grandfather 2 - was a foreman at a factory making Lancaster bombers

Grandmother 1 - worked in the RAF as admin. She moved from rural Wales to Manchester amd had a whale of a time.

Grandmother 2 - worked in a factory making parachutes as her normal job was making clothes for dolls so could sew.

One Grandad was a farmer, but also probably just too old to be called up anyway. His son, my uncle, was also working on the farm in a reserved occupation but volunteered anyway and was killed in 1943 in Africa.

Other grandparents lived in London. Grandad worked at the docks. They were bombed out three times.

My paternal grandfather was a gunner in the Royal Navy in WW1. He was in dockyard defence in WW2 although he got into trouble for attempting to unionise the sailors.

My uncle (mother's brother) was a Desert Rat. Apparently he spent the entire war peeling potatoes and washing plates all over North Africa and Italy, for repeated insubordination.

So both sides of the family had stubborn streaks.

Grandad was in London night time raids. Then the clean up trying to find people who had survived etc. He never talked about it granny a nurse patching up the survivors under awful conditions. My dad and uncle were both sent to Cheshire to live on a farm.

My family is Jewish.

One set of gps were Holocaust survivors. Not of the camps but of the Nazi occupation of their country, with all the associated ill-treatment. Their community was was not deported to the ghettos or the death camps, but life was still extremely tough and precarious. Their young teenage dc were all smugglers and black marketers in order to feed the family.

The other set were Polish. They escaped Poland in time, and lived in abject poverty in a part of the British Empire not substantially affected by the war. They managed to get entry visas for many of their family members to come and join them, but only about half of one gp's family were able to leave. The rest were murdered in the death camps. The other gp was the only survivor of their village.

Mine too, was he in Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry by any chance?

@Dilbertian Awful. One branch of my family was Jewish, they managed to get out of Romania between the wars. They sold everything to pay for passage to America but were dropped off in Southampton, not knowing any better. Apparently that was a common scam.

So did my late father.