My second cousin, Harold, was killed 8 July 1944 at Buron (near Caen). He was a private in the Highland Light Infantry of Canada.
This is a picture of him some where in the Normandy a few weeks before he was killed.
My Great Grandfather (below) served with the Canadian Forestry Corps and was at the Battle of the Bulge.
Thank you for the pictures. Very interesting!
My father served as the Medical Sergeant in 3 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force, in Nothe Africa and the Middle East. He had also served as a volunteer gunner in the militia (volunteers and ‘conscripts for local service’) coast artillery on North Head. He had already volunteered for the RAAF!
3 Squadron served in the Mediteranean theatre from late 1940 against the Italians in Egypt / Cyrenaica, against the Vichy French in what is now Lebanon AND Syria, then called Syria, then back to the Desert Air Force over Tobruk, and through all the ‘Benghazi Handicaps’ - toing and froing across the desert - against Rommel’s PAA and DAK. Then Italy and Yugoslavia.
This squadron was a regular RAAF squadron having existed since WWI! It had been intended that it be a mixed ‘Army Co-operation’ and Fighter squadron hence it’s initial eqp’t of Westland Lysanders AND Hawker Hurricane Tac1R’s and 1’s.
Then onto Tomahawks (p40B’s 2 x .50 M2 and 4 x .303 Colt/Brownings, 4 x 250lb bombs) then to Kittyhawks (Kitty bombers p40D’s and E’s I think and later Merlin engined F’s? 4 or 6 x .5’s and 4 x 500lb bombs). Then P51D’s for the latter part of Italy and Yug.
Dad was Mentioned in Dispatches twice for extracting aircrew from burning crashed aircraft, once it was a B24 on fire whose bomb load went up seconds later blowing him and the wounded man into the slit trench they hadn’t quite reached!
He caught amoebic dysentry twice*, nearly dying the second time around - falling ill towards the end of the Battle of El Alamein. He came home in a hospital ship in the convoy containing parts of of the famous 9th Infantry Division, 2nd AIF.
He was commissioned as a Flying Officer and served initially on the RAAF’s staff; writing the medical sections of the new RAAF ‘pilots handbook if shot down’ for the SWPA, and then he developed the first airborne surgical hospital. His longest job was as Adjutant to the joint RAAF/USAAF/RAF Allied G-suit/pressure suit research unit based at Sydney University, while he finished his Pharmacy degree! He died from cancer of the bowel*, in 1960 - ill from 1955!
My father in law? He was in the militia (reserves and conscripts) in MY old unit, Sydney University Regiment, until he finished his double honours degree - in Classics and Literature, and then went staright into the 2nd AIF in late 1941, having volunteered in 1939. He was recruited straight in to the Special Bureau, part of the Australia’s ‘Army Intelligence Corps’.
He was on a ship bound for Brisbane in Sydney Harbour the night of the Japanese midget submarine attack! He was an only child, and his Mum, down at home on the Georges River, had a terrible few days!
This very secret unit was THE vital cryptanalyis/traff.analysis/ strategic int. unit (for eg. Ultra from the UK and Pearl) in MacArthur’s Headquarters in Melbourne, and then Brisbane. It’s existence was not publicly acknowledged until the 1980’s!!
NB Sub-units (some just one bloke and a coupla signallers / listeners) were posted all over the SWPA. Viz. John was on Morotai with the Yanks for a long time!
WWI? My paternal grandfather joined up during the surge of volunteering during the Gallipoli campaign - when our Diggers became world famous - he served in the 3rd Division (Ist AIF) in the ‘Ammunition Column’ ie an ‘Artillery driver’. He was a Sergeant by the time they were training on Salisbury Plain.
He was blown far off a GS waggon once! A small cargo of gun cotton, and fuses, for our sappers - doing mining - was hit by a single German shell, but it was very muddy at the time, so he survived !!! ;-)! the driver of the second waggon,with the detonators! was able to drag him out of the mud! There was a field medical unit, a CCS nearby!
Oh yeah and he got VD, twice!!! Once in Liverpool on Blighty leave, and once in France! VD and Scar, with Bar!
My mother had two uncles, one was killed on Gallipoli at Anzac. He was MID’d several times and commisssioned in the field to Captain commanding his coy, and then a posthumous MC at Lone Pine - where he was blown to bits while ‘bombing along’ a covered trench!
T’other uncle? He also served at Anzac in the infantry, was commissioned. he was gassed and blinded in France near Broodseinde Ridge. Hospitalised for life he died in one of our Repatriation Hospitals when I was little!
Father was in the US Navy, my grandfather was in the US army-ETO. One uncle served in the US Army from Normandie to surrender in central Germany.
3 cousins on my mothers side served in the German Heer on the Ost front. 2 KIA and the 3rd died after his captivity in a Soviet gulag.
1 cousin served flying Fw 190A-9’s in 5./JG 301 in the fall of 44, KIA in November 26, 1944.
1 cousin became an ace in 4./NJG 3 and later Gruppenkommandeur of II./NJG 5; KIA in a stupid air accident. December 1943 … 12 victories.
my mothers side of the familie is related to Luftwaffe ace Heinz Bär of JG 1 fame.
Siegfried Baer, gefallen November 26, 1944 south of Misburg
My maternal Grandfather was in the Royal Artillery. Mainly he was a bren gunner, although he did have as a stint as a batman, which he requested to be removed from.
He never fought in Europe, being trained after the BEF evacuated and served mainly in Singapore before the surrender. He saw out the rest of the war in Japenese prisoner of war camps.
My paternal grandfather was in the RAF for two days, and was removed when they discovered he was a mining safety officer. Up until he died he could remember his RAF number.
My great uncle fought in Africa and died at El Alamein. I don’t know much about him, I don’t even know which battle of El Alamein he died during (although I suspect it was the second battle), although I do know he fought for a Republican militia in the Spanish Civil War, and I can guarantee it wasn’t a communist militia.
Another great uncle was a navigator in Lancaster bombers in Europe. He was never shot down and is the only officer from this generation (he married into the family). One of the nicest and smartest people I ever met.
Obviously I never met my great-uncle who died at El Alamein, but the other 3 are hugely responsible for my interest in history.
My wife also had a couple of family members who served in World War II.
Her Grandfather was forced into the SS, and was MIA during the march into Russia. He turned out to be a Russian POW and after the war settled in what became Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany).
Her great uncle was a para-trooper (after Crete). He fought against the Allies in Europe after D-Day and was killed in Normandy.
My grandpa,but he was a ship engineer on the mainland(U.S.A.).
i heard a rumor that i am related to rommels tank driver during el alamain.
My Grandfathers were in WWII Both US Marines ,
My first Grandfather was Michael Giangreco and was with the 1st Marines and was subjected to enemy aerial activity OCT. 1943 at Cape Sudest, Papua New Guinea. Participated in landing at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, 26 DEC.1943 TO 24 FEB. 1944.
My second Grandfather Donald Murchie was with the 4th Marines :
Asiatic-Pacific from 13 JANUARY 1944 - 10 NOVEMBER 1945. Participated in action against the enemy at Marshall Islands,also fought in Saipan and Tinian.
Mum’s been talking to her mother about the time during the war, she was able to tell me the following:
My Mother’s father, Apa was working in Rotterdam during the invasion and was in the city during the bombing (he would spend the week in Rotterdam and come home to Amsterdam for the weekend).
After that he found a job in Amsterdam as store manager for a shoe shop. Because he had access to desirable commodities (shoes) and was a trader by nature Apa got involved with the blackmarket. They are also Catholic and their church was involved with the resistance.
Mostly they would distribute pamphlets using my mother and aunt as cover (th pamphlets were hidden in their prams). But my grandmother, Ama would take in children. This was organised by their church, every morning at 7am a child would appear on their doorstep which she’d take in, feed and provide shealter for the day then at night they’d be gone.
Nothing said and no questions asked.
What made this especially dangerious was a NSB member living in the appartment above theirs. He was very suspicious and thier house was raided by the police several times.
One such time Ama had a stash of illegal butter in the fridge. When the police raided she sat on the fridge and stayed put while her niece (who was living with them at the time) stayed with the police while they searched the place. She believes that the only reason they didn’t think to search the fridge she was sitting on was because they were still rare and did not know what it was.
The closest they got was when Apa was arrested. While he was waiting in the cell the Resistance raided the place to free him and several other prisioners. During the raid all their papers and records were burned making him disappear, at least on paper.
This would have been late 1944 or early 1945 and Ama asked him to stop his activities since she was very worried for the safety of the family, having 2 children of their own and a third one on the way (my uncle was born in August 1945).
During the winter of 1944-45, Apa used his contacts and shoes to keep the family fed, while Ama’s father had to burn his old clocks to keep them warm.
At the end of the war the NSB’er living upstairs was arrested and Ama was able to laugh in his face and release the anger and hate she felt against him for all the fear he and put her through.
Apa died in 1994 but Ama is still alive and living in Holland. Not heros, but someone that can honestly say they did their bit.
(Ama and Apa are the names us grand children called them by. NSB was the Dutch Nazi party, and a NSB’er was a member of that party. During the German invasion of Holland they assisted the Germans and were branded traitors by the Dutch. The only person hated more than a Nazi was a Dutch Nazi)
–Addition to my last post–
One of my relatives, Fritz, was luckily (and somewhat unluckily) and Panzer IV driver for Rommel when Rommels tank broke down somehow (Have know clue how, but guessing by German engineering…). I only say this could have been unlucky since he was driving the command tank, and that was the big target for the Brits.
During El Alamain, Fritz’s tank broke down, and his crew left him there thinking he could repair it.
As he sat there, Canadian soldiers stormed his tank and probably through a grenade through the open hatch or something, wounding Fritz.
He was later taken to a Canadian POW camp in Canada. But, since he was only 16, the camp administrator adopted him. By the time the war was over though, according to Canadian laws, Fritz had to be sent back to Germany.
Quite interesting…if he were alive I’d love to quiz him on Rommel! 
German Army - Heinz Kristen, NCO (Unteroffizier) Wehrmacht Panzertruppe, Tiger 1 driver and later gunner
Ah. Interesting… Any further info? Wha faction was the soldier in the Tiger I in?