Some of my dad's wartime photos of his time in the Birkenhead Auxilliary Fire Service:

What a fantastic account your father has given of his war years Snod. I was so gripped whist reading it. You must be very proud.

The following account I managed to obtain last night from my uncle when he was evacuated in 1939.

School term at Holt School, Liverpool should have started on 5th September 1939 and war broke out on the 3rd September 1939. The school was closed and at some point taken to be used for Admiralty purposes.
The day after school should have started, the parents were told to take their children at a certain time to Limestreet station. My uncle did not know what this was about although he assumed that his mother must have had some knowledge. Each child was given luggage label with their name on and a bag. They were put on a train to Shrewsury.
On arrival the children were lined up like sheep on the pavement outside the station. There was a system where the cars drove in at one side of the station and drove straight out at the other end.
A proccession of cars, mostly chauffer driven, slowly drove along past the children until the occupants of the car hand picked the children they wished to take home. The children were bundled into the cars and then driven off to their new homes.
The remainder were then either put into taxis or on buses. My uncle was put into a taxi with another boy and taken to their new home. A knock on the door and an introduction of 'here's your two'. and that was it.
He didn't go into any tales from days of evacuation but said they went home for Christmas and some other holidays.
After 12 months, as there had been no bombing in Liverpool, the parents of the children said they wanted their children home again.
They were returned home and he pointed out that after that, they lived through the blitz and everything else that was going on!

Just one small account but he will be following up with more.

[/quote]Hun, you are aware that my dad wrote up all his wartime memories and that I put them out on the web as

http://sites.google.com/site/continuacs/home

Although they have been there for some years now the link still mostly works - just the links to some of the Appendices now give a 404 error

Dad also wrote up his "business career" memoires but since he was rather scathing about some colleagues he asked that I did not put them on the web until "after he had gone". Well, dad died last year so maybe I should collate them all and 'publish and be damned'

Snod [/quote]


I enjoyed that,The bit towards the end scares me though.

[If there was a breakthrough there was little behind the front to stop them reaching the beaches and this would have changed the situation dramatically. Thanks to brilliant leadership and the steadfastness of our troops this did not happen but the feeling of unease I had, when I had the time to think, was probably shared by many others who knew enough to appreciate the situation. If in such case the invasion had faltered I wondered if the French, as a nation, would have maintained their support. I had little doubt about the people of Normandy and no doubt at all about the Maquis or the members of the underground, their courage and commitment were complete, but France had earned the reputation of holding back until confident they were backing winners. Thank goodness it was not put to the test]

It does make you wonder about France and winning sides
Thanks for sharing

This extract is taken from the link at the bottom.
Absolutely staggering!
All I can think is that we, as a country were so very lucky, thanks to our fighting forces and those in command.
I wonder how many ended their lives in psychiatric hospitals, there must have been many. How could those people who survived the Holocaust, witness and bare so much pain and continue a normal life?



....... There were thousands of victims during the Holocaust. Many victims survived and many did not. The victims described here are those who died during the Holocaust or immediately after as a direct result of mistreatment during the Holocaust. Victims of the Holocaust are those groups of people targeted for immediate death by the Nazis and their accomplices, or treated in such a way so as to knowingly lead to their eventual deaths. Victims come from many countries throughout Europe and are not limited to strictly victims in Germany during World War II.

The Holocaust was more than a Jewish event. Records kept by the Germans prove they exterminated millions of Communists, Czechs, Greeks, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, mentally and physically handicapped, Poles, resistance fighters, Russians, Serbs, Socialists, Spanish Republicans, trade unionists, Ukrainians, Yugoslavians, prisoners of war of many nations, and still others whose identity may never be recognized.(1) Their victims, according to one survivor of four different concentration camps, "were of some thirty nationalities, from Nepalese to Andorrans, and of a variety of racial and linguistic stocks ranging from Basques to Buriats and from Ladinos to Lapps".(2) When people were not immediately exterminated, they were sent to work and/or concentration camps. There the prisoners were divided into six penal categories and given patches on their clothing for identification purposes. Ordinary criminals were assigned green; political prisoners wore red; black was worn by asocials (slackers, prostitutes, procurers, etc.); homosexuals wore pink; conscientious objectors wore purple, and the Jewish people wore yellow.(3)

http://www.ukemonde.com/holocaust/victims.html

Another tragedy to relate from my mother, which she spoke of many times.

The morning after one of the air raids on Liverpool, my grandmother got on a bus.
At the next stop, a lady also got on and looking dreadful.
Someone asked if she was alright and could they help. She replied, telling them that she had lost 7 children the night before!

Snod - after I read your Dad's memoirs, I was so touched that I printed them off. My husband (a Vietnam vet) was very impressed and has lent them to some of his buddies who thoroughly appreciated the read.
My fondest memory is of my Dad coming home. Whilst he was "away", if we were good Mum would say "Ah - wait till Daddy gets home". When we were naughty Mum would say "You wait till your Father gets home".
To cut a long story short we went to Crew station to meet him and this very tall (knickname of Lofty) almost black (tanned) man with a handlebar moustache walked towards us and I took off screaming. I was totally convinced that this was "Father" and not "Daddy".
My Dad laughed about this for years after.

having just sat and read this for the last couple of hours id personally like to thank you for posting the link Snodvan, i get pleasure from reading personal accounts from the era, sometimes its good to feel humbled

Remember being told about a woman who lived in Livingstone Street, can't remember her name at the mo'. Anyway, her hubby was away fighting so she used to have the bed downstairs in the front room, this is in the houses that used to be down towards Corpy Rd. One night there was a raid and they hit the flour mills, the flour acting as an explosive caused even more destruction. She was laying there listening to it all and suddenly she ended up in all kinds of mayhem. A whole flagstone had been blown through the window and landed in bed beside her, wrecking the bed of course and there was little else damaged but she was a very luck woman that's for sure.

cwm2a, you got left behind a little but your pics are never the less a great contirbution. The chaps look quite happy with their lot.
Thanks for sharing them.

Should I be putting these up here? I don''t know but never the less very poingant.

From The Armed Man..Mass for Peace by Karl Jenkins. Conducted by Karl Jenkins


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyF2-4eVE4U&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8VlZOg9iv4