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This time all those years ago my grandad had just gone ashore in the second wave on Sword beach! Just take a moment and reflect on what we owe those men and women!
[Post edited 6 Jun 10:25]
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 09:30 - Jun 6 with 2181 views
Definitely. Astonishing people and an unsurpassed military achievement.
Salute to your grandad.
My late father in law was a lieutenant on an ML leading the landing craft into Gold beach that day. I have what is left of the white ensign that was flown from his boat. You can still smell the smoke and cordite on it. Touching history.
While this week saw the 85th anniversary of Operation Dynamo, but next week sees the 85th anniversary of Operation Cycle and then subsequently Operation Aerial.
Often over-shadowed by Operation Dynamo, but both quite amazing stories.
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 14:07 - Jun 6 with 1966 views
I'm fascinated by D-Day and have been fortunate enough to meet five D-Day veterans over the past year and a bit.
One who landed by glider near Pegasus Bridge in the evening. One who escorted US Rangers onto Omaha Beach. One who was a gunner on a Destroyer off of Gold Beach. One who landed on Gold Beach. One who landed on Omaha Beach alongside the Americans.
I have family who spent 5 years living under Nazi occupation, I cant begin to imagine thier existence through that time
I can only imagine their existence was b awful. Not just the fact that the enemy ransacked the countries they invaded, carted off people as slaves, starved the populations, shot anyone they didn’t like very much, murdered anyone they viewed as vermin, it’s the living day to day.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like not knowing what tomorrow would bring, but knowing in all likelihood nothing good.
Where were they living?
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 15:00 - Jun 6 with 1893 views
My father was overseas serving with the British Army in India and in the Middle East. He knew nothing of D-Day or inded VE Day until a week or more after it happened. My mother was working for the Civil Service but had been evacuated from London to Blackpool for the duration of the hostilities. I guess they weren't the D-day heroes who we rightly remember today, but like most of their generation, they played a part and paid a price.
My father was overseas serving with the British Army in India and in the Middle East. He knew nothing of D-Day or inded VE Day until a week or more after it happened. My mother was working for the Civil Service but had been evacuated from London to Blackpool for the duration of the hostilities. I guess they weren't the D-day heroes who we rightly remember today, but like most of their generation, they played a part and paid a price.
They all played their part. My mum was in the ATS. One grandfather was a Special Constable in Ipswich, the other on a recovery crew in Yarmouth. Everybody was doing something. Total war.
It’s interesting that people served in so many different places doing all sorts of stuff throughout the world, really.
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 15:44 - Jun 6 with 1863 views
I can only imagine their existence was b awful. Not just the fact that the enemy ransacked the countries they invaded, carted off people as slaves, starved the populations, shot anyone they didn’t like very much, murdered anyone they viewed as vermin, it’s the living day to day.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like not knowing what tomorrow would bring, but knowing in all likelihood nothing good.
My father was overseas serving with the British Army in India and in the Middle East. He knew nothing of D-Day or inded VE Day until a week or more after it happened. My mother was working for the Civil Service but had been evacuated from London to Blackpool for the duration of the hostilities. I guess they weren't the D-day heroes who we rightly remember today, but like most of their generation, they played a part and paid a price.
Be proud of them they really were ‘all in it together’👍
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 16:50 - Jun 6 with 1821 views
I have family who spent 5 years living under Nazi occupation, I cant begin to imagine thier existence through that time
I was speaking to someone on the train to the Newcastle game who had just come back from the Czech Republic.
Her dad had been stuck in northern France after Dunkirk and became a POW.
It was a really grim existence and he was marched all over the place, but he eventually managed to escape and was hidden (along with a few others) for the rest of the war by people in Czechoslovakia, at great personal risk to them.
The hut he was hidden in is still there, and in the same family, and she met up with, and was given hospitality by, the then owner's grandson. A women from the village who was about 8 at the time remembered those who were hidden.
[Post edited 6 Jun 16:55]
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 18:19 - Jun 6 with 1730 views
my father was in north africa at the time even thou the campaign was over he had spent 3 years there. his younger brother was at d day and was injured on the first day and had to be sent back to the uk
forensic experts say footers and spruces fingerprints were not found at the scene after the weekends rows
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 19:40 - Jun 6 with 1691 views
Turning up in your thousands when large gatherings were expressly forbidden, draping coffins in the union flag, displaying red white and blue generally ...
Passive resistance but more than just "sticking your fingers up" to a heavily armed, volatile and aggressive occupier. For me that sort of thing takes courage, particularly when one considers that liberation would only come with an Allied victory (and even then the Nazis' propensity for "retribution" would have been a constant worry until arms were finally laid down).
Can't imagine what it would have been like to live under occupation like that.
I've mentioned it before on here before but my uncle was in one of the strange tanks (known as Funnies) that paved the way for the success of the D-day landings.
I've mentioned it before on here before but my uncle was in one of the strange tanks (known as Funnies) that paved the way for the success of the D-day landings.
I’ve just read a book about the Crocodiles (flamethrower tank). Truly wicked bits of kit and if you were caught by the Germans if your tank was damaged, you’d be shot on sight.
Percy Hobart was an incredible inventor/lateral thinker and these adaptations really did contribute.
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 10:35 - Jun 7 with 1365 views
I’ve just read a book about the Crocodiles (flamethrower tank). Truly wicked bits of kit and if you were caught by the Germans if your tank was damaged, you’d be shot on sight.
Percy Hobart was an incredible inventor/lateral thinker and these adaptations really did contribute.
He was in the Royal Engineers, so assume that it was an AVRE, especially as he got the Military Cross later in the war for an act of heroism while commanding a troop of AVRE.
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 10:48 - Jun 7 with 1347 views
Quite right. My grandad was in the 'real' forgotten army that helped to liberate Rome on the same day
Another uncle of mine was in Italy.
Those who served there sarcastically referred to themselves as the D-Day dodgers.
Hamish Henderson who served there recorded a song about it, which was apparently provoked by words of Lady Astor. It is set to the tune of Lili Marlene.
He was in the Royal Engineers, so assume that it was an AVRE, especially as he got the Military Cross later in the war for an act of heroism while commanding a troop of AVRE.
Hobart’s creations were indeed the fore runner for todays Armoured Engineers,they were in the 79th Armoured division,you have to remember though there were various forms of AVRE based on the Churchill tank not just a gun tank!
My own Grandfather went in on D Day +2 I believe, so managed to miss the landings for which I'm sure he was grateful. He was a Welshman surrounded by cockneys as had been living in London at the time he joined up. He was one of only 5 men in his company to still be living within a week or two and spent the night injured in a French field.
No idea when I began here, was a very long time ago. Previously known as Spirit_of_81. Love cheese, hate the colour of it, this is why it requires some blue in it.
I can only imagine their existence was b awful. Not just the fact that the enemy ransacked the countries they invaded, carted off people as slaves, starved the populations, shot anyone they didn’t like very much, murdered anyone they viewed as vermin, it’s the living day to day.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like not knowing what tomorrow would bring, but knowing in all likelihood nothing good.
Where were they living?
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like not knowing what tomorrow would bring, but knowing in all likelihood nothing good”.
I can tell you don’t live in Wales!
A lot really struggled to deal with what they’d been through of course. They didn’t see themselves as heroes and could even be ashamed of what they’d been made to do. My grandad was in the Lancasters. He was the bomb aimer, but nobody knew that until after he died and my dad did some digging with the authorities after we found a bomb aimer pin badge in the back of a drawer. He’d told us he was a navigator and would never talk about missions or combat. He had stories, but they were only ever about training and downtime. He left the RAF immediately, burnt his uniform (gave it to kids to kids for the Guy on bonfire night) and tried to throw away his medals but my gran luckily managed to save those. It obviously scarred him deeply (I’m assuming he killed plenty of civilians, as we weren’t exactly saints or discriminating in our bombing campaigns over German cities and towns).
D Day 81 yrs ago! on 17:07 - Jun 7 by Swansea_Blue
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like not knowing what tomorrow would bring, but knowing in all likelihood nothing good”.
I can tell you don’t live in Wales!
A lot really struggled to deal with what they’d been through of course. They didn’t see themselves as heroes and could even be ashamed of what they’d been made to do. My grandad was in the Lancasters. He was the bomb aimer, but nobody knew that until after he died and my dad did some digging with the authorities after we found a bomb aimer pin badge in the back of a drawer. He’d told us he was a navigator and would never talk about missions or combat. He had stories, but they were only ever about training and downtime. He left the RAF immediately, burnt his uniform (gave it to kids to kids for the Guy on bonfire night) and tried to throw away his medals but my gran luckily managed to save those. It obviously scarred him deeply (I’m assuming he killed plenty of civilians, as we weren’t exactly saints or discriminating in our bombing campaigns over German cities and towns).
[Post edited 7 Jun 17:09]
I go to Wales a lot and I love it!
I think that's true of a great many veterans, my own Grandfather never ever talked about his experiences and he was a true Welshman, could talk the hind leg off a donkey. He never collected or wanted his medals and what I know of his war has come from my Mum, who in turn found out from her own Mum who was obviously aware of what was going on.
James Holland WW2 Historian often says that these men seem to need to escape what they have seen and done, be back in real ordinary life having families, jobs, a future, it's often only later in life that some of them seem to have the mental capacity and desire to start remembering and sharing. I don't blame them, I can't imagine living through something like that and have no words for the respect I have for their generation.
No idea when I began here, was a very long time ago. Previously known as Spirit_of_81. Love cheese, hate the colour of it, this is why it requires some blue in it.
I think I've told this story on here previously. But many many years ago I worked with a gentleman who had been part of the landings on Gold beach. As the door dropped at the front of the landing craft he said the bullets came flying in from the Germans. He said a mate to his left took a bullet in the throat, mate to his right took one in the arm. As he ran to jump off the craft into the water/beach a wave caused the craft to move to the left. This resulted in another soldier just in front of him losing his step and fell slightly to the left, and in front of my work colleague and immediately a bullet hit that soldier in the chest & killed him. Minutes later this work colleague had reached (reasonable) safety on the beach and that's when he suddenly realised if that soldier had kept his feet and not fallen in front of him, that bullet would have hit him not that soldier. Basically that soldier in an accidental way, had saved his life purely because a wave had caused that soldier to fall in front of him. Which is always why he sad, it was never about better soldiers it was purely luck who survived.
He was able to identify that soldier's name and after the war when all the war graves where created he found where that soldier was buried and every year he had gone back to the grave to pay his respects.
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D Day 81 yrs ago! on 21:41 - Jun 7 with 1005 views
D Day 81 yrs ago! on 17:07 - Jun 7 by Swansea_Blue
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like not knowing what tomorrow would bring, but knowing in all likelihood nothing good”.
I can tell you don’t live in Wales!
A lot really struggled to deal with what they’d been through of course. They didn’t see themselves as heroes and could even be ashamed of what they’d been made to do. My grandad was in the Lancasters. He was the bomb aimer, but nobody knew that until after he died and my dad did some digging with the authorities after we found a bomb aimer pin badge in the back of a drawer. He’d told us he was a navigator and would never talk about missions or combat. He had stories, but they were only ever about training and downtime. He left the RAF immediately, burnt his uniform (gave it to kids to kids for the Guy on bonfire night) and tried to throw away his medals but my gran luckily managed to save those. It obviously scarred him deeply (I’m assuming he killed plenty of civilians, as we weren’t exactly saints or discriminating in our bombing campaigns over German cities and towns).
[Post edited 7 Jun 17:09]
Nobody should ever be ashamed of Bomber Command in any way shape or form. A lot of rubbish has been written about their contribution, a lot through people who have no idea what they did, how and why, but mainly because politicians saw it as advantageous to do so or to find a way of ‘equalising’ or rationalising the evil conducted by Nazi Germany.
It’s the same way in which after the war the term forced labour was used and not slavery (the difference was slaves get fed, forced labour was meant to be worked to death - the German differentiation)
The loss rate in Bomber Command was the highest of any service. They carried the war to Germany. Nobody else could. They did it in the only practical way possible. The devastation they brought upon that country hastened the wars end. It didn’t end it as Harris hoped, but my goodness it cost Germany dear.
I don’t think anyone bar one or two apologists, religious people and the odd politician who thought it wrong to damage private property thought it was anything but the right thing to do. From destroying invasion barges, damaging and sinking warships, dropping viaducts, dams, sucking in anti aircraft defences, fighter aircraft, you name it, spoofing the Germans to thinking DDay was going to be Calais area to devastating Germany Bomber Command was in the war from day one to the end.
The bravery and skill of the crews, dedication of those that supported them, the people that designed and built the aircraft, Oboe/H2S etc, you name it was astonishing.
War crimes? I doubt my grandad who had to get a child’s head off a roof after a raid on Yarmouth in 1940 would have thought so. Nor the millions murdered in Europe, millions starved, 10s of 1000s enslaved or victims in Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry, London and the south coast towns.
War is evil and ugly. I understand why people wanted to move on from it. My grandfather after WW1 burnt his uniform too. His medals went to his parents with ‘I don’t ever want to see those again’. He said little about it bar relating one or two small incidents to my mum. Has mantra was ‘you don’t understand’.
My father in law never talked about his RN WW2 experiences at all and whilst a member of the Normandy Veterans Association, I think that was just to donate money..
Back to Bomber Command, my dad’s cousin was killed in March 1941 in a 50 Sqn HP Hampden during a sortie on Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
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