Children still alive of Great War veterans

[barkalotloudly]

My Mother now aged 93, her father served on a battleship and later as a driver for an admiral in Italy, dying at a quite young age of 60 I have all the post cards he sent home to my uncle during  1916-1918 

[Tim Hailwood]

My mum is alive and kicking as are her 3 older sisters and 1 younger sister. Their father served in the 11th Kings Liverpool from August 1914 up to the spring of 1918 when he transferred to the 1st Kings. He was wounded August 1918 and came home. His father, their grandfather, also served. Joining the Labour Corps late in 1915.

 

tim

[kenf48]

My mum is 96, her father who died the year before I was born, served with the 2nd SWB at Gallipoli when I pointed this out to mum a few years ago the response was 'did he?'

 

They just didn't talk about it.

Ken

[eairicbloodaxe]

My father in law is in his late 80s and still going strong. His father, Edward Southcott Smith, served in the Royal Artillery as a driver, and it is thanks to discovering this website plus the kindness of several members, including one Jeremy Banning (and the actual Chris Baker), in replying to my queries, that me and the lovely wife were able to stand in the exact place Edward was wounded in 1917 during the Battle of Bullecourt, 90 years before. As usual, father/grandfather never really talked about it.

 

My mother is also still going strong at the age of 85. She was adopted at birth so never grew up with her father, but Stanley Robert Norcott was one of those who enlisted underage in the first few weeks of the war, and managed to survive almost a year before being expelled "due to misstatement of age on enlistment."

 

In late 1917 he was called up properly, this time joining the RFC/RAF, undergoing pilot training and being sent to France towards the end of 1918. He survived the war, and was called up again in 1940. Survived that one too (I think he mainly flew a desk, being over 40 by then).

 

Her other father, John Hubert Bunton, also served in WW1, we think with the RVC.

 

Regards

 

 

Ian

 

PS. Picture shows Stanley Robert Norcott after his first solo.

Edited 2 June , 2019 by eairicbloodaxe

[mandy hall]

My dad is 84 and still going strong, his father, my grandfather served 1916-1925 with The Royal Engineers.  He is shown seated in my avatar and died in 1987.  I spent a lot of time with my paternal grandparents as a child, but never really talked about the war.

 

I recently returned a 1914-15 star, to a lady in her nineties, the medal belonged to her uncle.  Her father and uncle had joined up together and had consecutive numbers in the 4th Royal Sussex Regiment.  She also has an older sister still alive.

 

One of my dad’s cousin’s wives, is still alive in her eighties, her father served with Royal Sussex Regiment and his medals appeared in auction recently, but were pulled after my intervention and should be back with her by now.

 

Mandy

[clive_hughes]

A work colleague of mine, retired in his 60s about five years ago, has a father who served in the RAMC 1915-19 (I helped interpret his service record for him). 

 

Mind you, when I was a student in 1974 the college archivist said he knew a very old man, then still alive, whose father had been a drummer boy at Waterloo...!

[EAST YORKSHIRE]

I remember in August 2018 in the Ancre cemetery reading a wreath left by a lady to her Brother, and it was pretty recent as it was not there the year before.

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

15 hours ago, EAST YORKSHIRE said:

I remember in August 2018 in the Ancre cemetery reading a wreath left by a lady to her Brother, and it was pretty recent as it was not there the year before.

I recall just after the turn of the millenium, asking an old lady  ( 90+ years of age) about family history of disease.

She said something that I immediately thought was impossible.

She said one of her brothers had died, not in the last century, but in the century before

He had died 110 (or maybe just a bit more?) years previously.

But then she explained the facts.

She was the youngest of 15, born in the early 20th century.

Her eldest brother had died in about 1893 as an infant.

What sounded initially as totally impossible, was in fact completely true.

 

IIRC, similar circumstances related to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon , who lost a sister, Violet  in infancy in the 1890s also.

She also lost a brother, Fergus in the Great War.

And of course, she married Albert, who saw active service  in the Royal Navy during the Great War, seeing action during the Battle of Jutland.

Their daughter is still alive.

 

So, the combination of large families, with a large spread  of ages of children, re-marriage and longevity will ensure that we will still have surviving children of Great War veterans for many many years to come.

Edited 3 June , 2019 by Dai Bach y Sowldiwr

[horatio2]

1 hour ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

longevity will ensure that we will still have surviving children of Great War veterans for many many years to come.

I find your optimism very encouraging for me to hang on in there! Thank you.

[EAST YORKSHIRE]

5 hours ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

I recall just after the turn of the millenium, asking an old lady  ( 90+ years of age) about family history of disease.

She said something that I immediately thought was impossible.

She said one of her brothers had died, not in the last century, but in the century before

He had died 110 (or maybe just a bit more?) years previously.

But then she explained the facts.

She was the youngest of 15, born in the early 20th century.

Her eldest brother had died in about 1893 as an infant.

What sounded initially as totally impossible, was in fact completely true.

 

IIRC, similar circumstances related to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon , who lost a sister, Violet  in infancy in the 1890s also.

She also lost a brother, Fergus in the Great War.

And of course, she married Albert, who saw active service  in the Royal Navy during the Great War, seeing action during the Battle of Jutland.

Their daughter is still alive.

 

So, the combination of large families, with a large spread  of ages of children, re-marriage and longevity will ensure that we will still have surviving children of Great War veterans for many many years to come.

Just goes to show eh, Ian

[Gardenerbill]

My Mum (88) and my Uncle are both still with us, their father my Grandfather served in Salonika. In the 1960s I met a great grandfather who was 102 when he died having been born in the 1860's he was over 50 when the Great war began.  

[Pubfinder]

My father is a sprightly 93 years old and two of his uncles served with the North Staffordshire’s, one came home and the other is remembered at Thiepval.

My aunt, my mothers sister, who is also 93 is still with us and her father, my grandfather, served with the RGA and also served in the ‘second lot’ and came home from that too.

[James A Pratt III]

The Queen Elizabeth II father King George VI was a WW I vet. He was at Jutland.

[johntanner]

My mother is still alive at 87. Her father: RGA, RFA & RHA B 1890, enlisted 1904 - my avatar.

[Ken Lees]

I have spent the last 4 days on the battlefields of the Western Front, with a man whose father served there in WW1. I have done so with numerous sons and daughters of veterans over the last few years.

Edited 4 June , 2019 by Ken Lees

[2ndCMR]

The time to record the experiences of the Second World War generation is passing, indeed almost past.  Make haste those who can.

[Pubfinder]

43 minutes ago, 2ndCMR said:

The time to record the experiences of the Second World War generation is passing, indeed almost past.  Make haste those who can.

Well said sir

[George Rayner]

Indeed we are that same thing in Hoxne Suffolk...'While they remember'

 

George

[Chris_Baker]

My mum is still alive. Her father served in the Second Boer War and the Great War. He was born in 1879.

 

 

Edited 6 June , 2019 by Chris_Baker

[Pompey]

My grandfather was in the RMLI and my mum and one aunt now in their 80's and late 70's are both still going strong.  I also have a cousin who is now 59 whose dad served on the Somme.  He was much older than my aunt (now also deceased) when they married in the 1950's and died sometime in the 1970's.

[HenryTheGerman]

My paternal grandfather died in 1990 when I was 32 years old. He had survived both World Wars. In the Great War he served in 1918 as a 17-year-old cadet ("Fähnrich") in the "Leibkürassier Regiment Nr. 1 (Schlesisches)" (Life Cuirrassier Regiment No 1). I well remember him talking with me about his experiences in the battles in Northern France. He preferred to have French opponents, because "their machine guns were stuttering so slowly, their guns seemed to be less harmful than the British ones". He himself used his 98a carbine but "I never had a confirmed kill; I never shot at persons directly but shot towards the enemy lines only". Nevertheless he became wounded in a skirmish. He got a shot through his arm and became a POW. Prisonship was rather hard for him, fortunately his injured arm healed but during prisonship he and also comrades of him got stabbed with bayonets. He mentioned to be guarded by Senegaleses. One fact impressed him: He and his comrades daily received huge quantities of wine, more than a liter per day. According to my grandfather this was half of the quantum the French soldiers received. Of course the wine was not so strong and not the tastiest one but it helped him to get through the period of prisonship that lasted until late 1919. - His three brothers, all of them had been Life Cuirassiers like him, had fallen in 1918.

Most of the Second World War time, my grandfather spent as an occupyer officer in Norway but at the end he was thrown into the fights against the approaching Russians. For him the war ended in a Russian detention camp. The Russians set him free in 1947 when he was deathly ill, having a body weight of less than 50 kg. He just survived. I have a report of him wherein he tried to describe what kind of reatments and tortures he had to go through after being captured. But this is a topic for another forum.

 

[MartH]

On 04/06/2019 at 21:41, 2ndCMR said:

The time to record the experiences of the Second World War generation is passing, indeed almost past.  Make haste those who can.

 

Easier said than done, I had got Peter Harts agreement to go up to Sheffield and interview my mother whose WWII experience is not the standard UK one. She was a Finnish Lotta Svard surgery nurse on the Eastern Front during the great soviet 1944 push to knock Finland out of the war in the second world war, including being trapped behind Soviet lines for 48 hours. She agreed because I asked, but was very sniffy and we did not press her, after my father died she lived with me for two years and then I began to learn why after we watched war films and documentaries, including Finnish ones and she was decidedly sniffy with the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan and the TV Generations War Our Mothers Our Fathers, saying they weren't even close to the full scale horror. This is from a woman who after moving to the UK was involved with a rolling mill accident and treated by Archibald McIndoe who was decidedly sniffy treating this Scandinavian blond, that changed when she amputated her own finger with a bread knife when she discovered it got gangrene. 

 

She once said to me most people have no idea how quickly young men or boys die, and how fast they bleed out, how much they can can scream, how silent they can be, and the  a terrible waste it  all is. I believe she was of the view you could not do it justice, but she was prepared to try, but I decided not to do it even when she was down south, she had suffered terribly as 20 year old and somethings are best forgotten.

 

 

 

 

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

On 04/06/2019 at 20:54, James A Pratt III said:

The Queen Elizabeth II father King George VI was a WW I vet. He was at Jutland.

 

On 03/06/2019 at 12:11, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon ...

She also lost a brother, Fergus in the Great War.

And of course, she married Albert, who saw active service  in the Royal Navy during the Great War, seeing action during the Battle of Jutland.

Their daughter is still alive.

 

[John Beech]

My grandfather, 1201 Driver Thomas Arthur Beech was a pre war Territorial who was born 26th July 1896, see my signature, but didn't marry my grandmother until 6th May 1940. My father was born in February 1941, and is still with us!. He can't remember much about his father as he died on 11th January 1946 six weeks prior to his fifth birthday.

[johntaylor]

Just to add to the list - see this article by historians Simon Heffer and Nigel Jones: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2688570/Was-Britain-right-fight-Two-Daily-Mail-contributors-gone-war.html