Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
My Dad didn't get called up until WW2 was over. He said he was on essential war work, on the LNER. Very strange affair, spoke 4 languages. I figured out he was being economical with the truth though. Their story was that they met on V-E Day 1945 in Trafalgar Square. Hmm.
No such thing as "women's jobs". Rosie the riveter proved that back in the day. End of this digression.70% of all women's jobs are due to be taken over by robots, so we'll have to give them something useful to do.
Normal callup age was 19 for men . So the LNER story is possible. Aftter WW1 there was quite a bit of cyncism about WW2., And of curse 'conscies' got posted to France and shot in WW1.. So let's not judge too harshly. Thhey didn't know what seems obvous to us now. Everyone knew that the news was heavily censored.
My Dad ended up working for HM Customs & Excise after the war. They threw lots of money at him. Lent him the money to buy a house. Added 5 years to his pension for his work on the LNER. Promoted him again at 60, so he took a big pension. I've always wondered if he was one of Agent Garbo's non existent spies. He spoke English, Italian and a bit of German and Spanish. Told different stories to different people about what he did in WW2. We compared notes after the funeral, so to speak. Even went to Ireland during WW2. Had Italian POW's working for him in WW2, German POW's when he was in the RAF afterwards. Go read up about Agent Garbo on wiki. Its not a very plausible story.
Well, Garbo is intelligence, spook world, so virtually anything could be true, any set of data could fit that model, true data or fabribicated. My instinct is to procede by falsifying simple ideas rather than look for confirmation of complex ones. For example can you say for sure your Dad was not just a very good administrator who because of unpopular beliefs in the war chose to keep them hidden behind a screen of tall tales?
No. He told me things as a child which didn't come off the secrets list till 1970. He was definitely on our side. I'm just wondering whether the Agent Garbo story is just to hide the actual double agents we had in the UK. His older brother was in the army. Married a Spanish girl whose brother had been murdered by Franco's gang.
I think you mean Yes you can discount the simple explanation because the secrets released to you is not compatible. I get you, but pushing his simple ideas thing just on more notch, how many thigs did he tell you that were not borne out? Was he simply fond of romances and stories about himself?
My brother in law tried to get out of him how he managed to wrangle enough money out of the government to buy a house, £1500 in 1954 was a lot of money. Dad got defensive. In any case we got relocated 5 years before the office move actually happened. His Civil Service photo was embossed with the stamp of the Foreign and Colonial Office not Customs & Excise. He also talked about being 'roped in' to investigate everyone for communist sympathies. He must have been trusted for some reason. Like he'd worked for HMG before?
None of the women in the family were 20 before the war ended, both mothers were over 40.
OK, here's my bit of information I can add. Be warned - it's not a pretty picture I'm afraid. At the endofthe war and just after the Brutisg Forces were on "war time accounting" loose, no checks and barriers on goods or sevices, no investigations of stuff going missing. Result - graft, tons of it. My dad knew people or had mates and told me of "clocking" the odometers in motor transport so some petrol could go missing unnoticed. Also armed robbery - taking wrist watches from German civilians. The petrol would go back under one route, the wristwatches, cameras and such contraband through BFPO parcels or disguised another way. All by sea from occupied Europe on ships run by Tadaaaaa! LNER.
There's a lot to what you say there. By reputation the British infantry in quality never again reached the standards of the 6 division BEF of WW1. After the war The country as a whole was bankrupt. 800,000 casualties in a population of about 45 million has other effects. The economic drain of large invalid population. The number of kids growing up without fathers. The difficulties facing women who could not all find husbands.
I think the meaning of "greatest generation" might vary according to which side of the pond you're on. WWI wasn't the existential crisis for America that it was for European powers, and we were Johnny-come-lately with a relatively lightweight contribution. Kind of like the bench warmer who gets sent into the game in the final period, after the first and second strings have worn down the opposition, and scores the winning goal, and gets all the acclaim.
And Tarawa, and Iwo Jima and Okinawa. There's more to a "world" war than Europe.
