Anyone have family or relatives who served in WW2?

My Hungarian Grandad Joseph might've fought against some of your Grandfathers. He was in the Royal Hungarian Army and was part of the Axis fighting alongside the Nazis. He defended Budapest against the Soviets but survived and fled. He settled here after WW2 and was an extraordinary man and told some brilliant but also some harrowing stories. Sorry if it offends anyone by this admission but the Hungarian people didn't have much choice but to join the war or face the consequences of the brutal Nazi regime.

No offence at all. We are all products of our environment. If people just signed up to do their patriotic duty, fine. If they bought into Nazi doctrine, then not fine.
 
My uncle was in the 1st Airborne Corps and dropped over the Rhine on his 19th birthday as part of the ill fated Operation Market Garden. Made it out alive but didn't speak much about what is was like, not surprising considering.

My parents were the youngest of the family so were not in the war but were in the RAF as part of the Berlin Airlift.
 
My Grandad served in the Royal Navy. He was 32 when called up. He was a gunner on merchant ships. Atlantic Pacific and Indian Oceans in convoys.
My Grans brother was an engineer on the Battleship Prince of Wales when it was sunk by Japanese bombers off Singapore.
 
My parents were the youngest of the family so were not in the war but were in the RAF as part of the Berlin Airlift.

I don't think the people involved in the Airlift get enough credit for what they did. Flying around the clock in all weathers, sometimes with practically nil visibility carrying stuff like coal etc (with coal dust having a massive explosion risk).

I've always liked the story of the 'Candy Bomber' though, until the Soviets brought a stop to it.
 
My Dad fought in WW2 as a Glider Pilot. He enjoyed the war, by and large, but then got posted to Palestine afterwards.

He did not enjoy Palestine although he had a very good relationship with the local Arabs. He detested the Jewish terrorists (as he saw them) and he felt the British Government well and truly fucked the Arabs.
 
My Grans brother was an engineer on the Battleship Prince of Wales when it was sunk by Japanese bombers off Singapore.

Wasn't it the Prince of Wales that was sent out to hunt the Bismark with half of its main turrets out of commission? Think it left port with a load of civilian contractors still aboard trying to get it battle ready.
 
Wasn't it the Prince of Wales that was sent out to hunt the Bismark with half of its main turrets out of commission? Think it left port with a load of civilian contractors still aboard trying to get it battle ready.
It was mate. Sadly he died when I was young so never got to talk about his experiences. My grandad was very lucky not to be torpedoed several times as ships were hit next to his.
 
My paternal grandfather and Great grandfather served in the war. Great grandfather a lower officer with the Brittisch forces in WWI serving at Ypres. Grandfather Serving in the Belgium army.

Grandfather was lucky, in truth the only thing Belgian forces could hope to do was bravely fight and die to gain some time for the allies, he was a mortar gunner so when his brigade was completly overrun by Blitzkrieg they surrendered and he survived. Apparently back then the Gerry's didn't have time to take in POW's when busy performing their blitz, so uppon surrendering my Grandfather was told that he had to wait a few more hours until the troops handling the POW's (i gather the millitary police) arrived. BEcause he knew that surrendering to the Germans woul give hima one way ticket to a German labour camp he rather choose to sneak away in between and hide under the barn of my great grandfather at my grandmothers side. Grandpa and Grandma met there and Grandma had to bring food everyday and after the war the married.

Maternal Grandfather was the mayor of a city in Flanders. When the Germans came they installed a German favourite afcourse. He was a caring and a pragmatic man, he had been very succesfull in bussiness and so it allowed him to help a lot of people during the war which only made him more popular afterwards.
Because business had to keep on during the war, and because the Germans had introduced their own money into Belgium, at the end of the war my Grandfather had the issue that practicly all his wealth was now in reichsmarks. As to save the bussiness he had to whitewash that money at a 50% return rate trough the catholic church.
 
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i have lots of family that were in ww1 and 2 and we had absolutely no idea about it up until a few years ago -we did a lot of research into my family. my grandparents/nana rarely ever spoke about it and it was quite hard to find out about past family. my nana had 3 brothers that died in ww2, had family serving in burma, belguim and all over and had family in south africa fighting way before that swell. also my great grandma worked in the ammunitions factory in manchester during the war.
 
Further to Kompany Car's post regarding his parents being involved in the Berlin Airlift, just thought i'd add this vid/documentary on the Candy Bomber.
Well worth a watch and especially liked the 'Special Delivery' bit about 25mins in

 

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