normannomates 11:32 Tue Oct 28
Great war relatives
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With up and centenary of this terrible war...just wondering if anyone on here has any living family heirlooms or medals passed down?
I was recently given my great grandfathers service medals. I decided to trace his history, and found him on the cencus going back to 1840s...and his service records.
He was officially 8st wet and through ..and 5'5.
But served throughout the war..and was injured with shrappel wounds in 1916
He was in Royal Horse Artillery.
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Replies - Newest Posts First ( Show In Chronological Order)
normannomates
12:01 Fri Oct 31
Re: Great war relatives
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Thanks fellas
Enjoyed reading the replies.
Heartwarming to know so many of us still remember our forefathers and what they sacrificed 100 yrs on.
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Far East Hammer
8:53 Thu Oct 30
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WHOicidal Maniac 6:54 Thu Oct 30
That might make some sense.
My only other theory was that he joined up with a Welsh mate who didn't make it back - and that might have been another reason for his reticence to discuss the war.
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WHOicidal Maniac
6:54 Thu Oct 30
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Far East Hammer 2:58 Thu Oct 30
"no, we don’t know how or why a kid from Plaistow ended up in that Regiment either)"
Same with my Dads Dad. Why an Irishman ended up in the Dorsets was any ones guess...Turns out that the Regiments would sent recruiting sergeants all over the place to drum up troops until they brought in conscription.
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Far East Hammer
2:58 Thu Oct 30
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My cockney great grandad (my Mum’s, Mum’s Dad) was a youth (apprentice?) footballer at West Ham as soon as he left school, which would I think have been about a year before the Great War. But when WWI broke out he lied about his age to join up. Ended up in the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers (no, we don’t know how or why a kid from Plaistow ended up in that Regiment either). So he was still only 18 when he earned the following citation for his DCM:
“3***5 Pte. H.J. Great-Grandad-of-FEH 2nd Bn. (Plaistow): For most conspicuous gallantry and initiative during the attack on Englefontaine and the Foret de Mormal on 4th November 1918. When his platoon was held up by hostile machine-gun fire, although previously wounded, he went forward and put the gun out of action, killing the crew of three and capturing the gun. He showed marked courage and set a splendid example to his men during the whole of the operations.”
That was pretty much all we ever got out of him regarding how he earned a DCM. Though sometimes he’d describe the citation as “a load of cobbler’s” and state that he got it for “keeping my mouth shut.” He basically didn’t talk about the War. Due at least in part to losing his only son in WWII, who was a navigator on Lancasters and was always complaining about the upper class idiot of a Captain who would always insist on flying too low and too fast. My Great Uncle had secured a transfer (he was supposedly a maths whizz who was to be reassigned to some kind of research or similar). On his third last (I think) Lancaster mission, the entire crew were lost. So my Great Grandparents refused to have anything to do with celebrating (or even commemorating) wars.
He was however quite a character. After WWI he decided against returning to West Ham (shame that – who knows, he could have played in the White Horse final!). Became an artesian well engineer instead. Did I believe two stints in the Sudan on hydrological surveys. One in Kordofan, where he bought supplies off of my Dad’s Dad’s Dad. Then again just before Sudanese independence, when he had a role in the Gezira project near Wad Medani and where he had dealings with my both of my Dad’s grandfathers, plus my Dad’s Dad (I think) and also had a Great Uncle (husband of a Great Aunt) working for him (or was it my Great Uncle’s brother – does get a bit confusing). Anyway, when my Dad moved to England, my Mum was working in the Home Office checking up on students from African Commonwealth countries who in their final year of student visa looked to get married to stay in the UK, as well as chasing up Italians who were settling/ working illegally in the UK. My Dad of Italian heritage, with Italian surname, was on a Sudanese passport. Then add to that my Dad’s family’s fairly strict Catholicism and the Protestantism prevalent in my English grandparents, there was a certain amount of “reservation” regarding my parents’ desire to marry. That was until my cockney Great Grandad asked whether my Dad was related to the various people he’d traded and/or worked with in Sudan; at which point he put his foot down and said that my Dad’s family were fine people.
So, my Great Grandad sacrificed a career at West Ham (or might have done, perhaps he wouldn’t have made the cut anyway?) to fight in WWI. But as a consequence of that and not returning to West Ham, he went on to be instrumental in enabling me to exist. And is also the reason why my family are West Ham. (When some plastic mong asks me how long have I supported West Ham, I tend to reply “since almost 60 years before I was born.”)
And as for how I remember my Great Grandad? He was pretty much blind from when I can remember him. But when going round his bungalow in Grays, he introduced me as a toddler to chocolate digestive biscuits, polo mints and when I was of school age, trebor extra strong mints. Oh yes, and he gave me his DCM.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
1:36 Thu Oct 30
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gph 1:35 Thu Oct 30
"Boils down to" is not the same as "said".
As predicted below.
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gph
1:35 Thu Oct 30
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Pretending you can't read so you can make a point is trolling.
"Boils down to" is not the same as "said".
You've wasted enough of my time, troll.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
1:29 Thu Oct 30
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chim chim cha boo 1:22 Thu Oct 30
'This is about our families and the sacrifices they have made in wartime. You're treading all over them by acting the cunt.'
Oh do leave off you self-righteous prick. Everyone's families made sacrifices in wartime. No-one else except gph has attempted to make their relatives out to be particularly special. It's not me that's seeking to make capital out of my relatives' sacrifices. And I've made it perfectly clear that I have respect for his relative too. Just not him.
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chim chim cha boo
1:22 Thu Oct 30
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No, I'm not confusing my world wars. An airfield in any world war is a dangerous place to work as my uncle Robert found out. He was an Aircraftsman 1st class in the RAF working at an airfield on Malta when he was killed in a bombing raid in World War 2.
Aircraft mechanics regularly were sent to the sharp end of the fighting in WW1 to retrieve crashed and forced-landed aircraft.
I know you're exactly the kind of cock who insists on having the last word so I won't be posting again on this thread (so go on and fill your boots with another cheap shot) but if you want to argue about what GPH thinks about the monarchy bore off and do it on another thread. Or start a new one. What you're doing is called trolling and is usually done by 13 year old children.
This is about our families and the sacrifices they have made in wartime. You're treading all over them by acting the cunt.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
1:02 Thu Oct 30
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chim chim cha boo 10:03 Wed Oct 29
'There are lots of ways of losing a lung on an allied airfield in the Great War.'
Yes, mate, although a copy of John Bull Magazine would save you from very few of them. It's only gph's reluctance to tell us what happened and instead have a pop at the monarchy that aroused my suspicions.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
12:57 Thu Oct 30
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chim chim cha boo 10:03 Wed Oct 29
I think you're confusing your world wars mate.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
12:56 Thu Oct 30
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gph 7:23 Wed Oct 29
Do you know how far behind those static lines the airfields were? Clearly not.
It was your link pointed me to 1906-1957. Why would the story be in John Bull 1914-1918? It could be at any point subsequent to 1914 if it existed. All you have to do is tell us the edition and independently verify it with some other source and all will be OK. After all, as you freely conceded, we can't trust the jingoistic rubbish that magazine printed.
I tried Googling 'Herbert Bishop John Bull saved breast pocket' and nothing. Which would be surprising had the British Museum or anyone else catalogued it, since their results usually show up in Google. Take away 'Herbert Bishop John Bull' and literally dozens of different versions of the story you tell appear. Funny that.
Shameful really, to invent a story like that just to have a cheap pop at the monarchy.
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chim chim cha boo
10:03 Wed Oct 29
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero 8:58 Wed Oct 29
Stop being a fucking prick for a change will you? Or if you can't stop, fuck off and do it on another thread and not one where we remember our families and the sacrifices they made.
When a plane crashed on the front who's job was it to either try and get it flying again or retrieve the plane for spares or to stop it falling into the hands of the enemy?
Who lived on an airfield that would have been a perfect target for bombing runs or artillery shelling? Even enemy fighter planes strafed airfields.
Who was around while guns were fitted and tested and pilots practised firearm drills?
There are lots of ways of losing a lung on an allied airfield in the Great War.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
8:58 Wed Oct 29
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gph 7:26 Wed Oct 29
'And where did I say that you said that non-frontline troops never see action?'
Erm, here.
gph 6:53 Wed Oct 29
'Anyway, your main objection is still boils down the absurd idea that non-frontline soldiers never see action. Without it, you have nothing. '
I'll await some desperate effort to claim that you didn't use some precise form of words tha have a special meaning to you that I failed to misunderstand.
In the meantime, you carry on trivialising WW1 whilst simultaneously attempting to bask in your Grandad's reflected glory that you made up..
It's pitiful, really.
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Rizla
7:28 Wed Oct 29
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Gt-Grandad was an original 'Kitchener' volunteer to the West Ham Battalion. Was killed with them in 1916. A story so humbling I wrote a book about it!
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gph
7:26 Wed Oct 29
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And where did I say that you said that non-frontline troops never see action?
Nowhere. So that would be a fib then. Naughty.
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WHOicidal Maniac
7:26 Wed Oct 29
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Dads Dad, 2nd Batt Dorsetshire Regiment
Mums Dad, Royal Irish Fusiliers
Both survived though Dads Dad was blown up during an Ammo run..He lived with open ulcerated wounds from the age of 19 til he dies at 82.
Mums Dad served through the whole war, went on to be an ARP warden in the second.
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stomper
7:24 Wed Oct 29
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Anyway my Grandad was one of the 'Old Contemptables' and fought all the way through the war, including Mons and the Somme without apparently picking up a scratch. He was a batman and saw 3 officers shot down in front of him. His brother however, went insane.
I never met my grandad but apparently he got a medal in the second war for pulling fellow postmen out of Mount Pleasant sorting office when it was bombed in the blitz
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gph
7:23 Wed Oct 29
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There is no point to this question "Were the airfields in WW1 not some miles behind the static lines of trenches?" if you accept that non-frontline troops get caught up in action, is there?
If you do accept it, you've no more grounds for doubting my Granddad's history than anyone else's on this thread.
Now go off and read John Bull, 1914-18 (you do know that's when the war was, not 1906-57). That will give you the evidence that I'm lying, if I am.
If I'm not, you can direct your trolling at someone else.
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stomper
7:17 Wed Oct 29
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I was once teaching a girl about the US Ciil War and she said her great-great grandfather had fought in it and was saved from a bullet which struck a bible he was carrying in his breast pocket.
I tried to let her down gently and said that tho it may have happened, but that it was a folk tale that gets told about every war with bibles, flasks or cigarette cases stopping bullets and that it was probably wishful thinking on the part of soldiers going into battle. She said she could prove it and brought the bible in.
It was indeed pocket sized and about an inch thick. And snapped (not torn) like a piece of wood from the bullets impact which was clearly visible. She even had the compacted bullet which was clearly rounder than a 20th century bullet. All of it was wrapped in the same singed punctured silk handkerchief that it had been on the day of battle.
So it does happen.
And my clabber was well and truly ghosted
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Northern Sold
7:00 Wed Oct 29
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Eddie B 6:18 Wed Oct 29
Same here Edd.... Great Unc Percy Westbrook (Essex Regiment)... fought in Galapolli... and on the Western Front...survived those hell holes and got killed in the 3rd Battle of Jerusalem in Nov 1917 (IIRC).... buried in Ramelah...
Bless em all
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
6:58 Wed Oct 29
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gph
Where did I say front line soldiers never see action? Nowhere. So that would be a fib then. Naughty.
I have just pointed out how unlikely your Grandad's tale is and that it an oft-repeated story. You have been unable to verify it. As such, you are left with 'bloke down pub said'. Naughty.
Anyone would have thought you made it up entirely to add veracity to your wrong-headed, leftie interpretation of the causes of WW1. Naughty.
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