D Day 80th anniversary.

[Sharky]

My mum's first husband was on Gold Beach on D-Day. Survived. But was killed by a sniper at Arnham in October.

I would not exist but for that snipers bullet.

Probably a lot of us wouldn't be here, but for the war. My FIL was a true Welshman from Cardiff, but was stationed in Dartford during the war, where he met my MIL. And so my OH came into this world and some years later, our 4 children and even later, our 4 grandchildren.

All because of the war!

 

[ColinJ]

Probably a lot of us wouldn't be here, but for the war. My FIL was a true Welshman from Cardiff, but was stationed in Dartford during the war, where he met my MIL. And so my OH came into this world and some years later, our 4 children and even later, our 4 grandchildren.

All because of the war!

True. My dad was from Kenilworth (Warwickshire) but spent a while stationed on the west coast of Scotland, near Oban. He met my mum there and married her a year later.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

It is weird looking back - basically things went the way they went
all alternatives are unknowable

My Dad would never have met my Mum if he hadn;t been injured and got out of hospital in 1947
they met when he was just out of hospital and living at his parents' house and tried walking to the local butcher shop where she worked

If he hadn;t been injured he would possibly have left the RAF in 1945 and got a job - possibly as a doctor - and moved to some unknown place

if his injury had been one disc further up his spine I woulnd't exist either way

no-one knows

pointless to speculate as things could have been much worse - or better and you cannot know

 

[presta]

What about those who were not allowed to fight in the armed forces? My grandad was a train driver so wasn't allowed to serve that way.

Yes, my father was a sheet metal worker, which was a reserved occupation prior to VE day. He wasn't in the direct line of fire either, other than the risk of the factory being bombed, but we might have been closer to running out of fighter planes during the Battle of Britain without the repair work he was doing.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Yes, my father was a sheet metal worker, which was a reserved occupation prior to VE day. He wasn't in the direct line of fire either, other than the risk of the factory being bombed, but we might have been closer to running out of fighter planes during the Battle of Britain without the repair work he was doing.

Yes - like everything it took more people to keep the front line running than most people realise
My friend's Father was conscripted but into the mines rather than the Army

Lots of people contributed but never fired a shot - or even held a rifle

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Just remembered - I have a friend that I was at school with

he is very interested in trains and busses (yes - I know)
as a result he is one of the custodians of an archive of historical transport photos and films - often 35mm cine films

The archive was left all the films by an old bloke who died and wanted his collection to be kept for history

Turned out he was a train driver in the war - and had a cine camera
only the Gods know where he got the film from but he had loads of reels taken from his cab running through cites during and after bombings and the like

Then he was transferred to France after D-Day to drive trains all over France

so he took his camera and somehow took loads of film as well!

his was effectively conscription in that he was not allowed to not do it

anyway - I'm wandering off topic again

 

[oldwheels]

There were several Cornish men lived and worked in Tobermory when I moved here in 1972 and a couple of them worked in the new distillery. Another became the local cobbler.
During the war there was a large naval presence here and they came because of that and went on to marry local girls and raise families after being demobbed.
Strange that they were all Cornish but it certainly widened the gene pool and they would never have been here without being transferred here by the navy.

 

[Smokin Joe]

A schoolmate of mine was the son of Luftwaffe fighter pilot who was shot down over Kent and spent the rest of the war as a POW. I don't know the circumstances of how he met his wife, but after the war he settled in London. By sheer coincidence I ended up working with him a few years after leaving school.

 

[Andy in Germany]

My colleague told me he was going to Finland a while back. I asked why, and he told me this story:

A member of his family had been a Wehrmacht soldier in Finland. Like many Third Reich soldiers, he'd been conscripted, didn't want to be there, and didn't see any reason to be unpleasant to local people where he was billeted.
He got on well with his host, and after the war took his family to visit them. This carried on when both families had kids, and their kids then grew up and visited with the grandkids.
The relationships developed, and as it turned out, my colleague was going to the wedding of the granddaughter of the Wehrmacht soldier and the grandson of the Finnish farmer.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Lots of people contributed but never fired a shot - or even held a rifle

As a British person, living in Germany and married to a Japanese, I'm rather glad my grandparents all fitted into this category.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

WHen I was with my ex her Mum was Austrian

One of her friends was also Austrian and still had her Germanic Accent
her husband was a Spitfire Pilot and fought in the Battle of Britain
She had his photo and his medals on her mantelpiece and it was weird hearing her talking about her war experiences in Germany with her husband's medals behind her.

A great reminder that the little people do all the work and take all the risks in war

 

[presta]

My friend's Father was conscripted but into the mines rather than the Army

Yes, they made a mistake in not making mining a reserved occupation, then had to conscript men to replace those that had gone into the services.

My father was drafted into the Navy after VE day, and was stationed with the reserve Fleet moored in the Orwell estuary. They were waiting for orders to go out Far East, but were then stood down after they dropped the bombs on Japan.

A schoolmate of mine was the son of Luftwaffe fighter pilot who was shot down over Kent and spent the rest of the war as a POW. I don't know the circumstances of how he met his wife, but after the war he settled in London. By sheer coincidence I ended up working with him a few years after leaving school.

I used to work with a Scottish guy whose German father had been a PoW who stayed and married a local lass after the war.

 

[PK99]

Yes, my father was a sheet metal worker, which was a reserved occupation prior to VE day. He wasn't in the direct line of fire either, other than the risk of the factory being bombed, but we might have been closer to running out of fighter planes during the Battle of Britain without the repair work he was doing.

My dad was a cobbler. He was unfit for Army service because of major injuries as a child.

He was "conscripted" (if that is the term) into War Work at an aircraft factory near Blackpool. Very quickly he was doing highly skilled work producing precision parts for (I think) Spitfires. That continued to 1945.

Very quickly he was told he had to leave because the Soldiers were coming back and he was not a Time Served Craftsman.

So back to Cobbling...

 

[Brandane]

My mother, then in her mid teens, was evacuated (along with the rest of her family) to the Isle of Bute, to escape the German bombing raids on the shipyards of Clydebank where they had been living.
They remained on the Isle of Bute after the war, where my mother met my father after he returned from fighting somewhere in the far east (he NEVER spoke about it) at the end of the war.
So another example here of someone who wouldn't have existed but for the war. (However each and every human on the planet will have a story of fate leading to their existence).

 

[Time Waster]

Yes, my father was a sheet metal worker, which was a reserved occupation prior to VE day. He wasn't in the direct line of fire either, other than the risk of the factory being bombed, but we might have been closer to running out of fighter planes during the Battle of Britain without the repair work he was doing.

At one point train drivers running goods up from South Coast ports to London were kind of in the front line. AIUI the German bombers if they missed their main targets were told to target trains. It was quite common at one point in the war. We had to survive the period between Dunkirk and d- day. Without goods coming into the ports we'd possibly not do that. Merchant navy right through to train drivers. High risk jobs at that point.