My Dad and the war.

My father's occupation was given as Leading Aircraftsman on his wedding certificate, I think he was in the auxiliary Air Force and he was later an active member of the local RAFA branch but I've not been able to find anything further about his war service - his peacetime work was in hospital administration and he might have been in the medical corps. He didn't seem to get any medals.
My mother was in the auxiliary fire service, I have a passport size picture of her in her uniform. Again, no medals.

I'd love to know more about both of them.

My grandfather - born in 1907 - drove oil tankers during WW2. He was also on fire watch at night for Gloucester docks.

My father was in a reserved occupation as a police sergeant. He was also almost forty when war broke out. I don't know how age affected the call up. My father in law volunteered for the Royal Navy at 18 and had a lot of war stories. He was also on leave in Coventry when it was saturation bombed. I would think your father was in a reserved occupation. I think folk memories are important in history but they vanish into time. The children of people who were alive during the war are now old.

My Dad was a GPO Telephone exchange engineer at the start of the war, but seconded to the Foreign Office to work on Turings Bombes at the British Tabulator Company in Letchworth Garden City. He was one of a team who took support type calls from the military engineers based at Bletchley Park and its outstations if they had issues. If the issue couldn't be solved over the phone, a car would be sent to take them to the machines location to fix it.
He did a lot of development work too and worked with 'Doc' Keen who signed a letter in my possession notifying Dad of his promotion.
He was disgusted when Gordon Welchman published his book because they'd all kept their promise to keep the official secrets act, which hadn't expired when the book was published.
He met my mother through his work - she (and my MIL) worked on the wiring looms and they never uttered a word about their work.

dragonfly46

My mum was in the London Fire Service during the Blitz but when her mum evacuated she joined the army and met my dad who was in REME working on radar in Essex. She drove ambulances in Ireland before being stationed in Essex.
My FiL was one of the boffins who discovered radar with Watson-Watt!

My dad was also one of the team who worked on radar with Watson-Watt! He worked for electronics company Cossor and was drafted in in 1937. He was initially working on the cathode ray tubes used in the radar displays and later designed a radio receiver used in aircraft. Did your FIL work at Bawdsey, @dragonfly46? They might have known each other!

My Dad was in the Air Force and it was only when he was about 80 that he started telling us about all his friends who died, the couple of times his plane was shot down, how he saw one of the pilots in the plane next to his covered in blood. Horrific stuff. He was a quiet man . Perhaps they were told not to speak under the official secrets act. I often wondered.

Hi There

My Dad was born in 1917(older parents) and he was a soldier in the 4th Suffolk Regiment became a Far East POW for 3and half years in both Changi and Omi 13B .He died at the age of 59a year older than I am now.I am lucky enough to have some of his Army documents however I have applied for his service records via Gov.uk many months ago as they are changing over to digital .
Have a look at any Facebook groups that You can find …People are often so helpful on there .
My Dad was a troubled man and was alcoholic so wasn’t the best Father or husband 🥲

Dad joined up in 1944 just after his eighteenth birthday. He went out to India as a Royal Engineer officer and later had to deal with the horrors of Partition. Mum (four years older) was in the ATS practically from the start. She rise through the ranks to become a lieutenant, working on the anti-aircraft batteries. As a result she was able to go to university after the war, where she met Dad.

My father was in the RAF. He failed the medical to take on a flying role and worked in a clerical capacity. Thank goodness he failed that medical as his ambition had been to be a rear gunner. Few rear gunners returned from action. I was born when he was in the RAF and his mates made a toy elephant for me out of an RAF blanket. Still have and cherish the elephant! I wonder if anyone noticed the missing blanket..

My father was in the Home Guard. I remember him telling me that one day they were on parade and had to March. He told me he was the only one in step! Next day I went to school telling all my friends about my clever daddy. It was some time before I cottoned on lol 😆

My dad was in the merchant navy on the arctic convoys. I’ve recently discovered through my aunt that he was also a submariner. He was an apprentice electrician before the war so could have been excused with it being a reserved occupation.
My mum was called up to Dorman Long where she spent the war as a slinger throwing heavy chains under the huge metal sheets and attaching them to cranes so they could he moved. My aunt was trained as a welder. Women did a lot of very heavy work in the war.

My father tried to join up as soon as possible, but the RAF told him that as his eyesight was too poor to let him be a pilot and as he was studying medicine, he should stay at university, as they vizualised needing all the doctors they could get. He finally did join the RAF in 1945 as a F,ight Surgeon and was stationed on Sylt in Northern Germany, where he met my mother.

She was Danish and like her sister and mother was involved in Resistance work in Copenhagen during the war - although my grandmother took great care that neither daughter knew what her sister or mother were actually doing.

In May 1945 my mother wangled herself into the WAAF as a Danish-English interpretor and was sent down to the German border.

My father never discussed what he went through during WW2. Most of what I found out about his service has been by reading about F.M. Montgomery and his 8th Army Desert Rats, one of whom was my Dad. He was posted 'missing presumed dead' after one of the battles, so Mum thought she was a widow. We moved to be near Dad's family but got bombed out of our homes twice. Luckily, after some time my Dad was found in a hospital and sent home for a few days R&R then shipped back to the front again. I do know he was one of the many rescued at Dunkirk and, silly as it sounds, if ever there are any old newsreels shown of that, I scan the men to see if I can spot him!! So far NO!!

One grandad worked in a munitions factory, the other was a postman. My dad was in the army catering corps and rarely spoke about it.

My father returned from fighting in spainish civil war in early ‘39 and joined British army ..because of his experience he was straight way made a sergeant , as they needed NCO’s ….. my mother left my sister with grannie in London and joined the ATS …she was posted to Dover Castle on Ack-Ack guns as a ‘spotter’….. she hardly saw my father in 5 years and my brother was born in ‘46. My mother then went into a different branch of army which necessitated her using a parachute ….she broke her arm in 5 places while training in Brecon Beacons, on her third practice jump! That was the end of her war effort ….she was discharged!
Her brother …my uncle …was a conscientious objector , but joined the army as a stretcher bearer ….he was killed at Dunkirk!
My point is …..everyone’s job was important during this terrible time ….and stay at home men were keeping this country going under extreme circumstances and NOT getting much praise for it! Whatever your father did with those trucks at ports ….you can bet your life it was dangerous and absolutely necessary!

My dad was posted to India,Burma. He was born 1925. Al dad ever said was he was Colonel's driver! He never got home till 1946. He would never say anything else and passed away 4 years ago. I only found out a few weeks ago that India was where offensive again Japan was being launched. I think dad saw some awful things and I know they were told never to talk about it when they came home as war was over and families did not want to hear about it any more. Amazing that they kept to that throughout their lives.

My dad made scientific instruments and was needed so no fighting for him!

My father was in one of the companies which went in to clean up Bergen Belsen.
He said he would never ever speak of what he saw at that time and he didn't.

My father didn’t fight because he was a cinema operator.
Apparently, that was a reserved occupation.

As a reserved occupation a man working on the docks was risking his life every day. They were a prized target so maybe your dad didn’t want to talk about it especially if his docks had been hit.

My father served in the army in the 1914/1918 war. He was in in the Gallipoli campaign. He caught malaria and during my childhood i remember him having bouts of illness. In the second war ".i was in the WAAF and my husband a regular in the Grenadier Guards. He was in the Normandy landings and was injured in France. As soon as he was well enough was sent to Palestine.
No post traumatic shock treatment then and he became deaf and suffered ill health.

Yes, war history is a tricky topic, my dad was called up in WW2, and despite being a 'master baker' was allocated into the Service Corps (now 'Ordnance' or 'Logistics' perhaps). He helped run mobile warehouses and stores sections, issuing people with vests, boots, soap, pencils, all manner of stuff to keep an army going. I'm not sure he ever needed a rifle to fire at the enemy, but he served in the Middle East, N Africa, then Crete and Italy, and he got bombed and shelled as if he was in frontline trenches! The Malaria he got in the War affected him for the rest of his life.

Women also had a hard time with the work they had to do, in munitions factories and other similar heavy jobs. My Mother had to sew flags, and was sent into underground stations where the flags were made. She was severely claustrophobic, but in wartime it was a case of 'tough'. She started smoking to try to steady her nerves.

He was indeed in a reserve occupation. One of my granddads was a school teacher so was a fireman in his spare time. The other had a back injury working in the brickworks so was in the home guard. Both of hubby s were coal miners so another reserved occupation but one did run away and joined the Welsh Guards

My dad was in the army,serving in Burma. He rarely spoke of it. He refused to ever eat rice as he's seen too many bodies rotting in the paddy fields. When I went through his paperwork after his death I found his army paybook & tucked inside was a letter from an officer thanking him for all he did....He was his Batman. Dad contracted malaria out there & had many bouts of illlness.
My mum lived in Manchester, worked in a factory. She was the eldest of three sisters & they apparently had a very good social life with the American troops that visited the city! Her best friend married a GI &emigrated to the US after the war.