Was your Grandad in the First World War?

[sotagals]

Mine was!

He was a Driver in the Army Service Corps. Not driving vehicles but teams of mules.

Obviously when I was little he would only tell me funny stories - horses biting officers' bottoms... that sort of thing.

Then in WW2 he was in the Home Guard and it wasn't a bit like Dad's Army. His unit was all tough blokes in their 40s who worked in the works and were hardened veterans ready for guerrilla warfare.

I know to most WW1 feels like ancient history but it still feels relevant to me today as I remember Grandad.

[Mr Tom Morrow]

My Grandfather was in WW1 as a Sapper.
Served from 1914 until he was demobbed in March 1919.

Front row far left.

[JanetteP]

My Grandad, Joseph James Rigley, POW in Eschersheim 1915, cigarette in hand 4 rows back to the left of the picture ❤

[SussexFamily]

My grandfather was a medic in the First World War, I only discovered, on my mother’s death in July, that he was awarded the Military Medal during the battle of the Somme. (His citation read he spend 18 hours in no mans land rescuing wounded, whilst under withering enemy fire). His experiences certainly affected him and when he lost his eldest son, aged 20, at Dunkirk, I think it finished him. I remember them both, and many others today.

[TrueBlueAngel]

No but my granta was in WW2. As a child, he would tell me stories. I knew he was a desert rat and really isn’t like Montgomery, saying he was arrogant. He always told me and my mum that he was just a chef and had never killed anyone. He had a wooden box with a leather embossed Egyptian picture on top. It held his 5 years stripes, his medals and photos of friends from the war. There is even a photo of him in his uniform hanging in my hallway.
Anyway, several years ago, I wrote to the MOD and got copies of his army records. He was never a chef, he was frontline and he was part of the secret ‘husky force’ who stormed Sicily, took it back and liberated it!
His papers also showed that he was fined a couple of times! The stresses of war!
The stories he told me were never quite factual and I recognise that as memories too painful to recall. He also didn’t believe in Remembrance Day as he said he didn’t need a special day to remember those who fell around him. I can never begin to imagine what he thought, felt, experienced... it’s beyond imagination.
He is my war hero, I wish he were still here. Though he would have been furious that I got his records.
Today I will be remembering my beloved Granta and all those who fought for us over the years. They will never be forgotten.

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Just a hint for those wanting to do a bit of Research on their relatives.

The National Archives if you sign up are allowing free downloads due to this Virus as opposed to paying the normal fees.
I have downloaded quite a lot of WW1 'Medal Cards' in the last few weeks as we are doing Family Research

[ERICSMUM]

My great great uncle Joseph was killed at the 3rd battle of Ypres in Sept 1917. He was 27 and left behind his wife and 3 children including a baby (then toddler) whom he had never seen.

He was buried out there :

[mick]

Joan's maternal granddad was too old to be in WW1. He tried to join up but he was 45 in 1914 and they rejected him.

He did fight in the Boer War though.

One of Joan's uncles died at Cambrai in 1917 aged 19.

Both my grandparents were in reserved occupations. One was a farm labourer and the other in a brass foundry and assume he was making shells or other such stuff..

Mick

[maidmarian]

My Grandad was, he was in the R.E.M.E and then my Dad did the same when he was older of course.

[fluffychicken]

My great grandad was in ww1. He was a stretcher bearer helping bring the wounded and deceased in from no mans land.
My Grandad was in WW2 in the submariners.