My old man, his oldest brother and my grandfather were all pre-war Territorials when war broke out. Grandad, a WW1 vet, was dying of cancer,uncle Alan was called up but dad was too young.
He enlisted as a War Reserve Constable at the local Police HQ, working in the radio room (he was a wireless op. in the terries anyway).
The night Clydebank got blitzed, dad was among reinforcements sent through there to help the swamped ARP services, and spent his time looking for German aircrew seen to bail out over Lennoxtown. They found one-buried up to his waist in the woods, as the poor sod's 'chute never opened.
Dad resigned from the local police when he turned 19, went to enquire where his call-up papers were and was told he was now in a reserved occupation...
He joined the Royal Corps of Signals, and landed in North Africa in Operation Torch, having narrowly avoided going to the bottom of the Med when his ship was bombed off Bougie. He fought all through Africa and Italy with the British 78th (Battleaxe) Infantry Division, before demob. in 1946. He went back into the Territorial Army post-war, as a Sergeant in the Royal Corps of Signals until I arrived in the summer of '62.
His brother Alan served with the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, 51st Highland Division in North Africa and later NW Europe, also as a wireless operator. Uncle Alan always told the story of walking along the front in Tripoli when an LRDG patrol passed and someone shouted "Hey Bannockburn". Obviously someone from the same village, but he never did find out who.
His youngest brother, Robert, qualified as an RAF wireless op. and served with Transport Command in India, having been trained in Canada under the Empire Training scheme.
None of them ever speak about it much, having had to pick up where Grandad and his brothers left off in 1919... [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]
Regards,
Gordon