Our brave parents

My dad was at sea for 27 years working for Cunard White Star and a couple of the liners he was on were used as troopships during the war. Dad took me to Liverpool Pier Head in about 1947/48 onto one of the liners he'd sailed on and I still have a vivid memory of a dining room-----like a hotel with pristine tablecloths and everything laid out ready for sailing.
Dad used to feed the troops as he was a ships cook and he used to tell me how he looked after the injured/wounded and feed them his special soup----whatever that was, but easily digestible I would imagine.
He never went into the horrors of the wounds,etc, as he spoke very little about what had gone on. Because dad was always full of Liverpool humour I can well imagine that he also kept up the spirits of those poor men.
Dad's uncle is also named on the cenotaph at Birkenhead.

Late husband had the most dangerous job of all in the Merchant Navy on tankers and took turns on the gun. I think it was the Daphnella that got a hit. He'd befriended a Gurkha who gave my husband a Gurkha sword which I have to this day-------but scared of it in the house even though it's hidden.

I am watching it at the moment and thinking that there is so much that has not been told in the past and each person's story is only now being told.
My own father was too young to take part in D Day - he did his national service in Italy and was part of the forces that was sent to do a clear up .
My maternal grandfather was a Naval Medical Orderly. He died when I was 4, so have no idea if he took part in D Day or not.
I truly hope that every story is recorded and that it is taught in every school in future so that the children of today and the future appreciate that what happened made the world what it is today.

My Dad was in Egypt in WW1 Dragonfly46. after being sent back from France in 1915 with bronchitis.
I was a child in the London Blitz in WW2 and the memory that stands out to me is the comradeship and kindness of everyone in the difficult conditions.
I’m proud and grateful to have lived through those days.

Not just England moggie, the whole of the the UK and the whole of Europe, and the Far East too. They were so determined and so brave.

I think it’s true that many of the younger generation don’t really understand the bravery and sacrifices of our parents generation, and indeed our grandparents generation. My own father was in the front line at age 18, he was shot and badly injured just as he turned 19. He fought in Belgium and Germany. He was shot in the Reichwald Forest during the push into Germany at the beginning of 1945. As a young man he didn’t talk about his war experiences very much, except as very young children when we asked about the scars on his shoulder and neck. Later he told us some of his war time and battle experiences. He was quietly brave, just like all the service men and women in the forces were, and still are today and in recent history.
On the home front, both sides of my family endured the horrendous bombing attacks, and my mother was evacuated to the country.
Perhaps because this is why our older generation is so quietly patriotic. They don’t speak about their wartime experiences except in the intimacy of the family, and then not often.
I am immensely proud of my dear old Dad, who died some three and a half years ago.

To keep the U.K. free

younger generation got no idea of the sacrifice our armed forces and ordainary people made during the war years. i'm too young to know the real war and how frightening it would have been .with all the bombings etc. i always do a display for the salvation army charity shop window .as soon as i had done d-day yesterday .people were congratulating me....not that i need that. its to point out what those brave men and women did for us ,to keep england free of nasty nazis.

My father was in Bomber Command and killed in 1942 before I was born, my stepfather was a POW in the Far East, my second cousin died of wounds in North Africa in 1944, my uncle was at D Day, he survived,but never spoke of it. How brave they ALL were, and what a debt we owe them.

The one thing that seems to be repeated again and again is that those who were there rarely, if ever, spoke about it.

It was only after my father died that I learned he had been in the D-Day landings. One of his friends who attended his funeral let it slip but refused to give further details as he said my father never wanted his children to know what he saw.

My Dad was a Royal Marine Commando. Like so many other men he never spoke about his experiences, even though we asked. It wasn't until after his death that we found out that he'd been fighting for Walcheren island in Belgium on D Day.
We should indeed be grateful, and proud of those brave young men who, like my Dad, didn't want to fight and kill, but knew it was their duty to serve their country.

nina you could probably still get your dad’s medals.

My dad was in the Royal Navy 1939-45. I know he was on aircraft carriers and minesweepers in the North Atlantic. I’d love to find out more about his service history, but like many others he didn’t talk about it and when I was younger I didn’t bother to ask. After he died I found his medals shoved in the back of a drawer, I took them to a medal collectors’ shop in London and they got new ribbons for them , and framed them for me with a photo . I had the same done with my GFs WW1 medals and they are displayed proudly in my hallway. I know they will be passed down the family and they will not be forgotten.

paddyann Of course we have not had a pan-European war since 1945 and I profoundly hope we never do. Not all of the few wars I mentioned – and there were many others I didn't – were "internal" or civil wars. Even conflicts that have never been officially classified as wars – who decides that – such as twenty years of "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland, cannot possibly be classified as peace.

I don't want to hijack a thread that honours and respects a generation whose courage, fortitude and endurance I can only begin to imagine. I honour and respect them too. I just don't want our generation to kid ourselves or the next generations.

Mum and dad were both in the army. Dad parachuted into Arnhem, served time in Iceland and did a lot of things that even now we can't find out about ?
He never talked about it and never understood the vets that wore their medals, berets and attended parades, he just wanted to put it all behind him. He didn't even claim his medals.

My uncle told me about that day - he was a child playing around in the bushes on the shores of Plymouth Sound. He'd been watching the amazing sight of tanks and trucks pouring into the port and going on to the many ships in the Sound. Then one morning , the Sound was empty. All the ships had gone. It was only later that he realised that he'd witnessed the preparations for the D Day landings.

I think those wars were a different thing absent internal wars people fighting for their own country...my friends in Croatia lived in their car for a year during it and they are the most wonderful hospitable family you could ever hope to meet .They say they dont regret it as it changed their lives for the better .The WW of course involved all of Europe and we must hope that wont happen again .The rise in the far right is very frightening and we should all guard against it before it gets out of hand and we have another..maybe the last war given whose fingers are on Buttons .

Whitewave my FIL was coming home on leave from the RAF and could see the glow in the sky from Haldon Hill and knew that Plymouth had just been blitzed; his family survived but he lost his life later in the war.
My father was in both World Wars and survived. He never really spoke about his experiences.

It was very moving to see the veterans on the Boudicca this evening on their way to France. Dan Snow was interviewing some of them.

We are grateful to them all.

That was indeed a remarkable generation and I salute their courage and fortitude.

While it is true that there has not been a comparable conflict in Europe for 75 years, it is not true that there have been 75 years of peace. From the Greek Civil War that began in 1945 to several wars continuing today, there have been numerous European conflicts. We are probably all familiar with some, such as the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the Croatian war of independence, the Bosnian war, two Chechen wars and the Kosovo war all in the 1990s and the war in Georgia in 2008. These were reported in our news media, but there have been many others in unfamiliar places with unpronounceable names that have had little or no mention in British newspapers or on British television.

My dad was already in the army (enlisted 1936 at the age of 18) when war broke out, and he was on the tanks. He went to Egypt, India, Malta, Italy and Africa. He saw some terrible things, suffered Dysentery, Malaria, and eventually, of course, saw the war to the end. He met my mum, who was in the ATS and stationed in his home town, and they got married. They've both been gone some years now, and I still miss them.

Thank you all for sharing the photographs and stories, I think their generation was a different breed of people, but I'd like to think we would all rise to the occasion if there ever were the need -- and I agree it's an emotional subject- My father in-law was in the Navy and fought in the Pacific Theater, his ship was hit, he sustained injuries and lost 3 of his fingers, spent several months in the hospital- He's gone now, but I've saved several things of his to honor his service to the world when at war-

My father was a Commando. He never said a word in our hearing about the war. When he died we found all his medals. Norway, Africa, Dunkirk. We treasure those medals.

WW2 covered so many nations and years that most men of that generation ( and women) took part in it.

My father was 19 and a signalman on the Russian convoys.
I had no idea as he never ever spoke about it. I was in my 30s when a family member told me.
I read up on the subject and was horrified at what he went through.
I don't know if his experience made him the man he was, frightened of nobody or nothing.

It's so very true that those involved in both World Wars spoke little of their service. I learnt recently that my father went into France at the very start of WW2 but I don't know anything else of what he did.

My FIL served in the RAF from 1925 until the 1960's so he went the full course of the war, flying as an engineer. My MIL's brother went MIA in a plane over N Africa and no trace has ever been found of him or his crew.

Another uncle was held as a POW by the Japanese. We didn't know until his funeral that his first wife was also held and in fact gave birth to their child under horrendous conditions whilst in a concentration camp.

The Queen was right today to say that her generation is resilient.

Yes indeed. I asked mum if the war had spoiled her youth and she said that, "Yes, it did really" but rarely elaborated on it.
I think dad was at D-Day but he didn't talk about it. When he was injured by shrapnel he was in hospital for two weeks.
He kept the shrapnel in the box with his medals and would say, "This put me hospital and it probably saved my life." The rest of his company went to Japan and few came back. He always said he had a lucky war but what they went through was beyond imagination.
He liked to watch All Our Yesterdays and was disappointed when it was cancelled. He felt that his generation was forgotten.