Seventy Three years ago, I know roughly where and what all four of my grand parents were doing... All were variously occupied fighting as part of the British effort of World War Two, I do not know whether they were aware of the cease fire or impending Victory in Europe, and indeed for one of my Grandfathers the war was not over; as he was aboard HMS Belfast, just refitting for redeployment to the far east and the on going war with the desperate but crumbling Empire of Japan.
In this post, I'll cover what little I know, to share that nugget of who these people where and what they were doing. So from oldest to youngest.
We have my Nan, or Nanna, Kath. She was a young woman by the end of the war, from a child at the out break, a hard beginning in life in the care system with both parents gone by wars end she was in the Land Army working the fields of Norfolk, though a native of London. She was born in the shadow of Portobello Road, and to this day (despite living in Nottingham for over 60 years) has no qualms telling me I have a "funny accent".
As we sit on the evening of this sweltering Bank Holiday Monday, she sits in the Queens Medical Center, perhaps in the last ebb of her life. Though she told me long ago she's not herself (suffering advanced dementia) and would rather still be plugging around in those fields even if the farmers wife was an utter bitch [her words, not mine].
This Nan, now the oldest of all of my forbares is the only one still alive, so with a ting of sadness, but always pride we turn to my other Nan.
Mabel, a professional nurse, with a specialty in Mental Health care, at the outbreak of war she soon took to serving the airfields of her native Norfolk (yes, how ironic both my grand mothers pull on the county of Norfolk, yet I've never ever been - at least not in my memory - maybe as a very young child).
As the war progressed the USAF called upon support from British medical services for the large number of airmen being injured in the 18th Airforce's Daylight bombing campaign. Mabel was one of the few nurses directly greeting Liberator and Flying Fortress aircraft as they landed.
One particularly vivid recollection she shared was with meeting a Liberator crew and checking on the tail gunner, seeing him with his arm raised smiling nothing ill was thought. Yet the pilot reported the young man could not be contacted. Upon approaching more closely a line of cannon fire was obvious along the twin boom tail, splitting the emergency access open two airmen began to bundle the young gunner from his position, except he was not well, his smile was his last act, he had given his life and as they brought him forward they needed two stretchers for this young man, who's upper half now lay peaceful in the long grass his eyes piercing the very sky above.
V.E. Day saw Mabel still tending the wounded, from the daylight bombing campaign still being waged by the 8th Air Force.
More happily Mabel however had met my Grandfather George, whom had married her by special license and never let himself be parted from her all their lives, but he was at the outbreak of the war already a professional soldier, though not at Dunkirk, he was stationed in Scotland. Famously he was the sergeant of the guard whom was in charge of Rudolf Hess when he deigned to fly to Scotland.
He had been on the 6th June 1944 on the Normandy beaches, as he had exchanged his army stripes for Royal Marine stripes and was a member of the Royal Marines Commandos, he recalled looking back after reaching the top of a French street and having lost half his men.
1945 saw him on the Western bank of the Rhein, near the first crossing of British Forces (the Black Watch carried the Union flag across the wide waters of the river) whilst the Commando's carried the Union Jack.
Finally, the movements of Les my last Grandfather, and the first to pass away, his movements can be quite clearly tagged for a large stretch of the war as he was in the Navy and only on one ship. However, he started the war as a boy just entering his teenage years, his brothers went off into the Infantry, whilst he had to settle with the Home Guard. And in 1939 and 1940 he was part of a crew manning a Z battery, a rocket anti-aircraft position, near Wilford in Nottingham.
Frustrated with "being left at home" however, in 1942 at fifteen (and I belief after "borrowing" details from his brother Bill's credentials, he enlisted in the Navy (unable to join the Army as Bill himself was already serving there, and the subterfuge required he join a different branch).
Basic training complete he was assigned to the company of HMS Belfast, just in time for her recommissioning; having his a magnetic mine and received a broken back the Belfast returned to the war (arguably) as Britain's most powerful cruiser. And she remains with us today, the only large gun ship from the Royal Navy preserved for the Nation.
Indeed, he was witness to the Battle of the North Cape, about which he recalled "the Parson coming around to hand out hunks of boiled white fish and tea, the best tasting Christmas dinner after being stood in the arctic air, waiting all night for the flash of massive German guns".
He was also aboard the ship on D-Day, with the Belfast leading off the shelling on their section of the coast. With one grandfather struggling up the beaches, another was literally off short lobbing covering fire to him; which amazes me. However, it was not without threat on board ship, as he recalled 88mm shells fired at the ship from the French coast, with one passing clean through the forward funnel, from which he received a laceration to the forearm and one of the ships cooks lost their lives (though, my recollection maybe wrong, and this event may have taken place in 1943 in the Med verses the Italian Navy and therefore likely not an 88mm, but the cook did loose his life).
From this posting he also traveled the world, and as the war in Europe faded he had little respite as the Belfast was refitting and reconditioning, in order to sail and join the fight against the crumbling Empire of Japan, and by August 1945 he was in Sydney, Australia.
The Navy had set his skills base down as a ships electrician, however his home guard training did not go unnoticed, and he was actually a loader for a "pom-pom" gun. This was on the left cheek of the then bridge structure - if you visit the ship today this area has been remodeled, but if ask a guide about the WW2 configuration of the ship they can explain where this battle station was.
But as a AA-gunner he did not relish the idea of facing down Japanese Kamikaze pilots, this however was to be his role, until the VJ Day.
There you go, there's a lot more detail I could add to this, if you're interested let me know in the comments below.
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Addendum: I have never set foot on my Granddads ship, it maybe too much for me.
