Honour and Valour

[SportingShooter 0]

I have been delving into my family history recently and decided to start by going to see people still alive and who can give me some of the information I would like.

 

Obvious start was my Maternal Grandmother. She was telling me of her fathers War record in the 8th Army in Africa and Italy, he was a Battery Sergeant Major.

 

Then she went and found some extraordinary items I had never been shown before. His medals, Tankard and Dog Tags.

 

Boy was I like a schoolkid in the British Museum.

 

He had the service medals as usual, then the Oak Leaf, meaning he was Mentioned in Despatches and then, WOW!, the Military Medal which is given to NCO's who are brave under fire.

 

By this point I was completely flabbergasted how I had never known all this.

 

I was about to be more so when my Gran, told me he had it for pulling a member of his squad out of the firing after he had been shot in the stomach, whilst doing this he was shot himself, above the knee cap during the battle for Monte Casino.

 

This is my first exciting and interesting find and I am extremely proud.

 

Does anyone have similar Valour and Honour in their family?

 

Regards

SS

[speedlamper 0]

my sisters done loads of research on some ancestry site none of which interested me till i actually sat down and had a proper look,

 

bob champion(jockey) is my mothers great uncle or something, dont recall her ever mentioning it though,

 

best thing she found out was a relative on my mothers side commited suicide by jumping of the end of blackpool pier in 1874,

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

George V Distinguished Conduct Medal for Conspicuous Gallantry.

15th September, 1914.

Aged 25.

 

Blown to kingdom come by German Gunners, while manning British Artillery at Spanbroekmolen, Belgium.

10th July, 1917.

Age: 28

[SportingShooter 0]

The people behind these medals are the only ones who could have told us the true story of how they received them.

 

And then there is the stark reality, So many of them did not make it that far to be able to tell us.

 

A few more inches higher, I may not be here, makes you consider.

 

Regards

SS

[undisputed 1,664]

Sorry bud! was in poor taste!

Edited July 13, 2008 by undisputed

[comanche 3,278]

My Grandad ,a Sergeant in the Post Office Rifles,was Mentioned in Dispatches in WW1 and features in the Regimental history book. Saving vital mule trains and getting them through under fire I think. I'll have to have another look at the book and talk to my Dad....One Christmas in the early1970's He rolled up his trouser leg to reveal an horrific scar from his knee to his ankle. Even my Dad (his son) had never seen it. It was only then , over fifty years on from events, that Grandad felt ready to talk about his experiences. Having several horses shot beneath him and even one hit by a shell as he rode it. Apparently though despite the awfull circumstances he'd always kept a bit of line about his person and found time for a spot of fishing! Towards the end of his life he started having flash-backs to the times he'd been in gas-attacks but he day before he died he managed to make his daily pilgrimage to the betting shop .

[SportingShooter 0]

That is the sort of thing I was trying to bring out in this post Comanche. True Bravery in the face of a strong foe.

 

He sounds like a honourous man.

 

I have found a few more things out this week too;

 

My Great Uncle was killed in the same battle that my Great Grandfather was invalided out of. He was shot only 24 hours before my Grandfather.

 

He is buried in the War Cemetery in Naples, which houses all the graves from Casino..

 

His Brother, My Paternal Grandfather has never been to visit his grave neither did his parents, which I found quite sad and touching.

 

I plan to go an see it, when I can, I know the number and location.

 

Regards

SS

[polecat 1]

ave got a letter from king george v to my dads dad for his courage under fire in second worold war got it somewhere in house see if i can locate and put it up also various medals but he was a nasty old b*****d bye all accounts died not long after i was born but he must have had something to recive this !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[skycat 6,174]

My Dad and his 2 brothers fought in WW2, his youngest brother was killed in the D Day invasion: never got up the beach; he was only 21. The elder brother was badly injured there too, lost an eye and the use of his right arm. My Dad was a sniper in Holland and went through the whole war with not a scratch! He would never talk about the horrifying things he saw, but he was there when the allied troops entered Auschwitz.

The best stories he told us, as little kids, about the war was once driving through an air raid in Holland to fetch a vet to save a farmer's cow! They were stationed on a farm and a cow got a turnip stuck in its throat and was blowing up fast: my dad couldn't quite reach the turnip with his fingers to pull it out, and didn't know then about sticking a knife through the cow's ribs to release the gas. He drove through an air raid, pulled the vet out from where he was hiding under a table and got him back to operate on the cow!

 

Twice he came very close to death: once when jumping out of a lorry and his foot landed right next to a mine, the next bloke who jumped out landed on it and got killed, and the other time he was helping to clear a mine field and almost put his hand on a mine. Once again, he got away with it, but the next bloke wasn't so lucky.

 

Weird, isn't it, how some can escape death by a whisker, and others cop it.

[mackem 29,522]

My uncle Clive used to tell us great tales when we were kids,he even had a black-and-white photograph of himself standing in a jungle clearing holding two human heads,my grandparents died 2 years ago,married 60+ years,I dont know what happened to the pic after the vultures descended upon the house.He fought in the Malaysia,told us stories of jungle patrols,bringing back pairs if hands as proof of kills etc,loads of stuff fascinating to a boy He hung himself when he was in his 40's,sad really.

Edited July 14, 2008 by mackem

[scothunter 12,609]

my grandad guarded rudolph hess at spandau prison.He says he was off his rocker.

[SportingShooter 0]

my grandad guarded rudolph hess at spandau prison.He says he was off his rocker.

Thats a very interesting bit of history Scot.

 

He died in Spandau when he was the only inmate. He refused to be let free unlike Albert Speer and others who were realeased in the 60's and 70's.

 

There are many conspiracy theories surrounding his death, one is that he was murdered by "Special Forces" another is plain and simple natural causes.

 

But yes, he was insane in the end, he was insane in 1946 at the Nuremberg Trial, try and find a video of him in the dock, he is rambling and laughing.

 

He escaped Germany in 1940 to try to make a peace deal with the Allies, something Hitler never got over.

 

Bit of info.

 

Regards

SS

[comanche 3,278]

Bit of an update on my earlier post.I've had a chat with my Dad . Seems that during WW2 Grandad held down a full time job investigating Post office theft and fraud(Dad said it must have been important because Grandad carried a pistol at work!),he was also a sergeant in the Home Gaurd and a fire-watcher. One night having survived a close-shave in a bombing raid he finally arrived home in the early hours of the morning.Instead of a sympathetic welcome he was refused access by his wife until he had stripped naked and washed on the doorstep because he was covered in brick and rubble dust!

Apparently there came a time when it seemed so likely that Britain would be over-run by Germany that Grandad destroyed all his medals and military paperwork from the 1st war because of real fears that Germans would seek revenge and that certain veterans might be rounded -up and shot to prevent the formation of resistance groups. This is the history they don't teach at school.

 

I remember him mainly as an elderly man with a passion for horse-racing, great skill with caring for injured birds and that he was always accompanied by a troupe of three poodles with jewel -encrusted collars that adored him.

In todays world of spitefull street yobs the latter fact would make him a prime target for abuse and mockery .

 

He fought that others could live free but ignorant .

[Simoman 110]

My grandad, but I'm sure many read the letter I posted on an earlier thread, the older generation have my full respect for their bravery...................

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

he was always accompanied by a troupe of three poodles with jewel -encrusted collars that adored him.

 

He fought that others could live free but ignorant .

 

And those same would call themselves and others like them " (Insert animal) Men / Women ". Mutual back slapping by those who know only what each other knows, from mutual lesons and agreement. Thus each a peer accepted 'Expert'.

 

Wankers.

 

 

My grandad, but I'm sure many read the letter I posted on an earlier thread, the older generation have my full respect for their bravery...................

 

Mine too, mate.

 

And, if they hadn't liberated Wilf's grandma from one of those enclosures .....