what did your relations do during ww2

[eggsarascal]

[quote name=kev7937;

 

 

My partners grandad flew this bad boy and has a few medals to show for it' date=' one of my grandparents was in communications and the other was in dad's army so not so heroic unfortunately[/quote]

 

Mrs egg says: every one was a hero, her grandad wouldnt tell her anything except hitler would have got him for sure if it wasn't for the old baccy tin in his pocket, nan lost her girls to evacuation for the duration, and some lady she never met cared for them. Women, men, they all did something, home or away. Be proud, (I'm sure you are....)

[kev7937]

I have a nagging memory that RAF Tempsford was a bit hush hush and connected with SOE. IIRC, they used to fly Lysanders out of part of it.

 

 

 

Apparently he didn't talk about it much, but they have mentioned that he helped with the french resistance so that fits in with the lysanders you mention. My knowledge of ww2 is minimal and even though I never met him I do feel proud of the connection.

[Ds Tree services]

My grandad was in ww2 7th army desert rats Then did 37 year down the pit.

[felixthelogchopper]

Apparently he didn't talk about it much, but they have mentioned that he helped with the french resistance so that fits in with the lysanders you mention. My knowledge of ww2 is minimal and even though I never met him I do feel proud of the connection.

 

The plane in the pic is certainly no Lysander but I suspect your relative would have dropped weapons and/or agents to the Maquis using something like Halifaxes or Stirlings. You are right to be proud. As Egg rightly said, anybody who had relatives that played a part in defeating the Axis powers has a reason to be proud.

 

The Tempsford Airfield Pages is a good place to start

Edited December 26, 2013 by felixthelogchopper

[Riggerbear]

Interesting thread, one grandad was a bulldozer driver in the royal engineers and the other grandad worked for the old Thames water ( metropolitan water board ) in south east London.

When I was young I remember the dozer driver calling the other one a war dodger after a couple of beers at family gatherings !

[gensetsteve]

The plane in the pic is certainly no Lysander but I suspect your relative would have dropped weapons and/or agents to the Maquis using something like Halifaxes or Stirlings. You are right to be proud. As Egg rightly said, anybody who had relatives that played a part in defeating the Axis powers has a reason to be proud.

 

I have a picture here and the plane looks the same so it must have been a halifax.

[felixthelogchopper]

I have a picture here and the plane looks the same so it must have been a halifax.

 

Yes, it is.

[kev7937]

Yep, it was a halifax but apparently he flew the french resistance about too and it looks a tad bulky for that sort of mission to me, would like to have met him, seems a shame so many details of our history will be lost over time.

[felixthelogchopper]

Yep, it was a halifax but apparently he flew the french resistance about too and it looks a tad bulky for that sort of mission to me, would like to have met him, seems a shame so many details of our history will be lost over time.

 

161 Squadron was a Special Duties squadron and flew a variety of aircraft;

 

Lockheed Hudson, Westland Lysander, Handley Page Halifax, Douglas Havoc, Shorts Stirling, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley.

[MattyF]

My great grandfather died a few years back , I was always told he was a conscientious objector and was in the merchant navy in the Atlantic.

He lived on the edge of Salisbury plain so at Christmas or holidays I would go out and pick up bullets and ect from the exercises and bring them back and he would go berserk! I always thought not to kindly to him for doing this but after he died they found his journals and he had pretty much been blackmailed as he was an orphan and a head school teacher who could speak a few languages in to joining SOE and had fought along side and trained partisans in the Balkans and other places, in his journal there was an unreal experience that the other operative he was with had been badly injured and they missed the submarine picking them up so they had to spend a month in hiding waiting for the next sub, and he described never being so relieved in all his life finally getting on it.

His whole life story is pretty amazing but that part of his life he never told any of his friends or family when the war had finished and preferred to be labeled a conchy than ever talk about what he did.