We can't really imagine what they went through , can we pirate . My family wasn't in the Blitz, but my dad was a Japanese prisoner of war. He very rarely talked about it .... Just an odd comment here and there .

My mum was born towards the end of WWII and I didn't really know my grandparents, so I have zilch for you! 

 

I'd love to hear people's stories too though  

BLIMEY! them jap soldiers were evil, no wonder he doesnt mention what he saw/went through

fast forward society 72yrs and everybody wants to sell their story to the tabloids, but not back then

i think its called dignity

yeah,

i only know what ive read in books, personal accounts would be interesting

God, im being sensible this evening, dont happen very often

Yes, he was very dignified pirate ... but I also think much of it was to painful to talk about ... no counselling in those days Having said that he didn't seem to bear a grudge ... said that's what happens in war .

good attitude

My parents ran like hell when the 1st 1000 Bomber Raid on Cologne started. Think on. Civilians have nothing to do with the politics.

As dusk falls, amazing, horrifying sight in London- the sun seems to be setting in the east. Burning East End is lighting the sky on fire.

no cologne,

your family experienced their fair share, but as im really interested in what happened and im in England, i naturally asked about the Blitz..its not politics, im just interested, no offence meant

Sorry pirate, but I've had this carp for 30odd years. So, yes, the London Blitz was devastating, but Germany was decimated by not just one enemy.

it just sort of fascinates me, how people lived, literally from one day to the next,stepping over rubble and bodies to make their way to work, the attitudes of the people under fire amazes me,no matter where theyre from

ANYWAY!

lets not make this political, im just interested in handed down family tales, where ever you hail from 

back ina bit

I agree pirate ... It astounds me the way people just make the best of things and struggle through

My Grandmother gave birth to one of my Uncles in an Anderson Shelter at the end of 1943. My Grandfather was on active service but came back a few times, my dad was one of the results and was born in March 1945, a few months before VE Day. My Nanna told me some amazing stories about the war years, never met my Grandfather as he died about 7 years before I was born.

My grandmother (mums, mum) had her home bombed on the first night of the Clydebank blitz - went to stay with relatives and they were bombed on the second night!

 

This would have been 6 months after the London blitz had started.

The trouble is, all wars are political

My family don't tend to talk about it, except the odd anecdote about not seeing a banana and that rationing continued for quite a while after the war.  My grandmother was a mid wife during the war.  Neither my mother nor my father lived in parts of the country that were big targets.  I expect they just got on with it as they were little more than babies.

My father was born ion 1936 in Gloucester. He recalls his first ever banana (yeurghhh apparently but he loves them now). He is now in his mid 70's and if he hears an air raid siren his stomach still clenches.

My grandad worked in an ammunition factory at the time of the clydebank bombings.

The factory he worked in took a hit just after he had changed shifts, he must have been the luckiest man in ayrshire that night! My mum and her sister were only kids at the time and he made them rings made from shrapnel found on the site. My daughter now has the ring my mother wore all her life.

Shortly before my dad was officially called up, he was a fire watcher on top of the local cinema. One night he became embroiled in an argument with his colleague...... "it's one of theirs!" "no! It's one of ours!" My Dad was correct. Suddenly one of theirs appeared and straffed the high street from north to south. We as a family had bits and bobs from that raid, and a piece of shrapnel, and a magnesium incendiary from subsequent raids. Not exactly the blitz since we remain a small market town yet an important railway junction.

I used to be fascinated but terrified when my nana talked about the war - she lived in Govan, near the shipyards , and both Govan and Clydebank got hammered. She had a tin hut in the garden we used to play in as kids - it was their shelter that had been converted to a  shed after the war . She had loads of tales, some of them funny, but some pretty horrific.

I still can't get my head round how folk kept going through all that , 

Slinki my gran and granda had the remnants of their shelter in their garden too, we used to think how exciting it must have been to live through that time..... now i think it must have been a nightmare!

My father was in the navy and my mother lived in Edinburgh at the time of the Clydebank blitz. So we have no personal stories about it. MY grandfather (dad's dad) was in the fire service, but never spoke about his war experiences. So we only ever had second hand tales of things. like how one morning when people emerged from the shelters there was one street that only had one house left standing in it, and another tale of how a shelter had received a direct hit and wiped out a family of 7.

 

All my life te centre of Clydebank has borne the scars of all the demolished houses from the blitz. It's only since I got married and moved away that Clydebank has been rebuilt and rejuvenated.

My mother was in London between June and October 1944 when the V-1 flying bombs (known as doodlebugs) were hitting London. They made a buzzing sound, so if you heard a buzz you would either dash for shelter or lie down on the ground hoping for the best. If the buzzing sound stopped then you would know that the bomb had stopped flying and that you had had it. Luckily for my mother that never happened.

 

My father lived in Gloucester near the park. There was a row of houses at the back of his church by the church hall. Only a couple of bombs were dropped on Gloucester during the war but one of these fell on one of those houses killing the occupant. When I was a child in the 50s we would sometimes go to Bristol by train. We would walk from Temple Meads railway station to the shops in the centre of Bristol and would go past derelict land where there used to be buildings but had been destroyed in the blitz.

 

My parents lived in South London they would have been 9 and 10 when the blitz started. They went to the same school and I grew up with war time stories about lessons in the school basement. Walking to school through streets that had been bombed. A school friend losing her leg and her mother dieing in a raid.

 

My grandad was in the Royal Navy but attached to a Merchant Ship so he was home for a few nights and weekends during the blitz - I remember hearing of him having to leave the house during a raid to catch the bus for his ships. Incendary bombs were being dropped down the street so he left with a cushion protecting his head.

 

My dad was 'bombed out' three times and at one point lived in Kenley caves which was all kitted out to house refugees from the blitz.

 

I remember them telling me how they could see the wast end docks blazing from miles away after a particularly bad raid and also tales of a V2 falling on a Woolworths in Plumstead and killing a lot of people.

 

it always amazes me how life went on as 'normal' school, buses etc etc. Scary times but - they seemed to just get on with it.

The advice my parents were given was 'run towards them' - that was safer than running away and hopefully they'd pass overhead.

My grandad was 12 at the time. He was Polish. There was 6 of them. Him, his brother, 2 sisters and parents. They were captured by the Germans and put into a Ghetto (his words) for about a year. After that they were put on the train to Auschwitz. He said his parents knew what was coming so they made the 4 kids jump off the train. They tried to make their way back to where they stayed and had to scavenge for food in bins and drink from puddles. Their uncle hid them for a while in a basement. Then the Russians rounded up all the people in the Ghetto and some were sent to Auschwitz while others (including him and his siblings) were taken toward North Africa. On route British forces freed them and they were taken to England. He stayed with an Aunt but she could only take one child so the other 3 were sent to Canada to a repatriation camp. He found out later his parents died in Auschwitz.

 

He never told me all this but when his brother died about 20 years ago he was given his diary and it made for very sad reading. What amazed me was that he never lost his Polish accent. He wanted to visit Auschwitz but sadly he died before we could take him. Me and my mum plan to go at some point and lay some flowers for him.

 

I feel for all the nationalities involved at the time. I think we forget that there were many innocent Germans caught up in it too. I've waffled a bit there and probably gone way off the subject

Cagney - such an interesting family history but ............terrifying and tragic too.

 

Thanks for sharing that.

All my family came from the East End of London.  Air raids were a nightly ordeal and I know that many lost family members and my husband's family were bombed out. 

 

My mother's family used to sleep in the Underground, it felt safer down there.  I am not surprised that many women had nervous breakdowns and I can only feel awe and admiration for the courage they showed.  That they would not be beaten.  And for 'the Few' whose average life expectancy was 87 hours.

 

Winston Churchill's speeches were the glue that held a nation together. It was the laughter that got people through like the story everyone knows of someone trying to get their elderly mum to the shelter but she is looking for her teeth.  And they say 'they're dropping bombs mum not sandwiches'.

My late dad was in the army in WW2.Him and his two brothers served in the war,one of my uncles was a regular before the war started.They all survived it.Glasgow was bombed but the Germans targeted the Clyde and the shipyards.The Clybank blitz was a terrible thing too.My dad was in the middle East (Egypt etc) and was a medical orderly,he didn't talk about the horrors he saw but more about general things.I have a photo album from Palestine with him and all the other young guys pictures in it.