World War Two

[Christmas Tree 4858]

Heard a few bits and bobs on the media about this today and then just pondered the same breaking news 70 years on.

 

Football league suspended for 6 years is obviously one of the minor issues, but still quite strange to think about today.

 

Then life as you know it coming to a stop, being removed from home comforts, loved ones, friends, kids and sent overseas to kill or be killed.

 

Next time you see an easyjet flying overhead, imagine sirens going off as bombs drop from it's back doors and kill all around you.

 

Pretty scary really.

[The Fish 10978]

Heard a few bits and bobs on the media about this today and then just pondered the same breaking news 70 years on.

 

Football league suspended for 6 years is obviously one of the minor issues, but still quite strange to think about today.

 

Then life as you know it coming to a stop, being removed from home comforts, loved ones, friends, kids and sent overseas to kill or be killed.

 

Next time you see an easyjet flying overhead, imagine sirens going off as bombs drop from it's back doors and kill all around you.

Pretty scary really.

 

I wouldn't worry, they'd land 20 miles from their declared target.

 

fwiw I don't think enough is made in this country, of the terrible glory that was winning World War II. Say what you like about the Americans, but they do do memorials quite well.

[snakehips 0]

I've just been up to me dad's, who was 15 when the war broke out. He got talking about the war and air raids and told me this tale:

 

'A bomb dropped between the hospital and the workhouse (somewhere near Waterloo Place in Shields, where he lived) and left a huge crater, about 20 ft big, so we went to have a look. We thought all the wardens who were in the building must have been killed, but we then heard this voice "Get me out, get me out". There was a bloke with a lump of concrete on him trapping him. The air raid blokes had, by that time, turned up and the main bloke said "okay lads, back to the base to get the lifting gear". A policeman who was there probably thought "to hell with that", so got everyone in a line with linked arms and by doing that there was enough power to get the concrete lifted off the chap trapped. Unfortunately, the bloke died about two days later in hospital. Due to the bomb, there was a fractured gas main and a fire was belching out. The policeman asked if anyone had a shovel, so I told him I did. I ran home to get it and gave it to the policeman who then shovelled dirt and soil over the gas main to put the fire out. Y'know, I never did get that shovel back"

 

He also told me that he was out with his uncle when they heard a bomb dropping close by. He said his uncle shielded him from any potential harm. Luckily, neither of them sustained any injury. Anyway, just after the bomb dropped, and my dad was against the wall being shielded by his uncle, all he could hear was tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. The bomb had caused a vaccuum, and as the air rushed in to replace the void, all the windows in the street were taken out by the wind.

 

Just thought I'd pass those two snippets on. They may bore some folk, but I find stories like these quite fascinating.

[Christmas Tree 4858]

They are Fascinating in their own right, but rather than remembering them as stories in some beamish time, if you try and transport them to now and your current location, the effect is even more chilling.

 

My dad used to have a "war draw" with all sorts of bits and bobs in. Some of the pictures he had from the camps were horrific.

[NJS 4416]

There was a thing on the first series of Doctor Who with Christopher Eccleston a few years ago which really made me think about enduring the war probably more than anything else I've seen or read.

 

It was when Billie Piper was talking to a girl in the blitz who had obviously lost hope and told her she was from the future and we'd won along the lines of "I don't speak German".

 

Of course the fact that I now work for Germans doesn't ruin that sentiment - it just shows how people can move on.

[Park Life 71]

My grandad survived the war only to be killed by pickled onions.

[The Fish 10978]

My gran used to say that although her husband came back, the man she married never did.

 

The only people he ever spoke about the war to was my Dad and the few men we knew who were there.

 

He had an horrific time by the scraps I've picked up through the years. Apparently his first engagement with the enemy left all his friends and most of his colleagues dead, so he was reassigned, that section got wiped out too. His nerves were shot, he was half deaf and he couldn't run for very long. He was so broken as a warrior but so determined to stay and "do his bit" that he was a stretcher bearer for the rest of the war.

 

I cannot begin to imagine the things he has seen and I'm selfishly grateful for that.

[NJS 4416]

My Dad was just too young to serve in the war - he did his national service in Egypt just after the end.

 

 

My auntie told me a story at my Mam's funeral that I hadn't heard before about the two of them having to run up the main road in S. Shields to avoid a German plane that was lost which was strafing the ground and only just making the shelter. She told it as if it was two teenage girls having a laugh but I can't imagine how terrifying it would have been.