D Day - 80th anniversay

[Runningman]

Some of you will be aware that on June 6th we remember the 1944 D Day landings.

Before I post further with a memory of a relative who was there, perhaps some Forum members and the moderator of course could say if such a post remembering relatives or friends who took part is an appropriate addition to this section.

I await your response !

[Brian Hardy]

Why would it be inappropriate?After all this is something we should never ever forget.They paid the ultimate sacrifice for us and to hear their stories is something that should be told.

We soon forget but if it wasnt for them we would not even have a forum to use as a platform for free speech.

Brian Hardy

[cuttsie]

2 hours ago, Brian Hardy said:

Why would it be inappropriate?After all this is something we should never ever forget.They paid the ultimate sacrifice for us and to hear their stories is something that should be told.

We soon forget but if it wasnt for them we would not even have a forum to use as a platform for free speech.

Brian Hardy

Brian a bit of subject , when you had the garage on Neepsend Lane you had a Latin writing on the wall .

It was something along the lines of we will fix it or make it work .  In Latin , do you remember it .

[Brian Hardy]

Why would it be inappropriate?After all this is something we should never ever forget.They paid the ultimate sacrifice for us and to hear their stories is something that should be told.

We soo n forget but if it wasnt for them we would not even have a forum to use as a platform for free speech.

Brian Hardy

Yes Cuttsie it was something like Nil Carberundum illigitimi.Which translates as dont let the B######s grind you down.As far as I can remember!!!!!!

[Brian Hardy]

Also Cuttsie ther was Nos  Operari Vel Figere Illud Faciemus.Which is the one you refere to

Bri

[cuttsie]

7 minutes ago, Brian Hardy said:

Also Cuttsie ther was Nos  Operari Vel Figere Illud Faciemus.Which is the one you refere to

Bri

Cheers Brian , you should see the old place now ver up market but no character

[Runningman]

My cousin Jack, 19 years old, a Royal Marine, Coxswain of a landing craft approaching Sword Beach.

They were shelled and Jack along with the rest finished up in that cold sea.

He swam to help a badly injured lad and pulled him to a ship moored off shore.

A crew member shouted down " Are you OK " to which Jack answered " I am, but this lad needs attention "

The crew member answered back saying " We will take him on board, you can swim to the shore "

That ship must have been a way out from the shore, so Jack in his uniform, minus his pack and rifle swam through that cold sea and reached the shore. He couldn't follow on as most of the lads had moved inland and of course he had no rifle.

He couldn't remember just how long he was on that beach with other injured lads and a lot of dead bodies.

He was eventually picked up by a US ship and brought back across the channel.

The first food he as offered was ice cream.

His mother, my Aunt, received a telegram saying he had been killed in action,  she received another telegram saying he was alive !

3 weeks later he was posted to the Far East. 19 years old, what a story !!

[YorkieontheTyne]

Deep breath.

My dad and his brother were there. Not in the first wave, but not long after. Dad age 21 was a motorcycle dispatch rider. Him and 5 others copped a load of shrapnel, which put paid to Dads involvement. He finished up minus half the thumb and index finger of his right hand, meaning he had to become left handed. The left side of his bottom jaw was smashed to bits, his left shoulder also. Four years in various hospitals in Southampton and the north east followed with his mouth being wired shut for 2 years to help his “rebuilt” jaw to set, with some of the damaged shoulder bone transplanted into his jaw to help restructure that (now THATS recycling)! 
He considered himself to be the lucky one, his brother was killed in Belgium a month after D Day aged 20.

[DUFFEMS]

D-Day should be commemorated but, also the ones who weren't there but, continued on should also be remembered. 

My father was born in Heeley Sheffield 1923, he was sent as an orphan to the Sheffield Workhouse then "adopted" in Crookes.

He'd driven a tractor on a farm in Ranmoor prior to WW2 so he was classed as " a driver" and assigned to the 16/5th Lancers in the tank  regiment. He was in Constantine North Africa in 1941 then onto Capua and Cassino Italy in 1943, Naples in 1944, and in a 16 months campaign in the Po Valley 1945. He was 5'4" and weighed 8 and a half stone driving a Sherman tank after Valentines.

His unit finished further west than any other regiment in the 8th army linking up with the American 5th then on to Austria as part of the "occupation forces", he was demobbed in March 1947. I have his army service papers which is why I know all this.

Although he'd been badly injured in his thigh in Italy  he went back to driving lorries long distance until his death aged 69. He tried to get a job driving Sheffield Corporation buses but, he failed the test because he was so deaf due to shrapnel he couldn't hear the conductor's bell!

There was a song to the tune of Lily Marlene called "The D-Day Dodgers" which is so poignant regarding the forgotten ones on and after D-Day.

My uncle, another Sheffield lad Roy Grimbley, was killed in Sicily in 1943, an uncle was a dispatch rider and another uncle a bomb aimer in the RAF. 

They rarely spoke about their war experiences, they considered it their duty and accepted it.

We celebrate 6th June but, for a more personal reason, it's our wedding anniversary, 54 years this year, we look to these forgotten heroes to give thanks that we're here to celebrate.

Regards

Duffems 

[Alextopman]

104 years old and 100 years old.

Ladies involved in D day.