Hello all, the title doesn't really tally with this post or does it? l found this site purely by accident and was drawn in with lots of cracking posts. My story began with a search for my dads war time history, he was a very quiet dad and brought up seven kids on his own for nigh on 10 years. Sadly he passed in 1976 age 59 but we knew next to nothing of his life, only a week before he died we had a visit from seven brothers we never knew existed and later on also two sisters.
Why we never knew of dads family l believe is related to a major incident which affected him enough to move from Norwich to Barnard Castle after the war finished, the following information was found by a respected military historian, he put me on the path to applying for dads war records which came through very quickly but what a disappointment they were to read or should l say lack of reading.
lt turned out that dad enlisted in the Raf in1938 and served at many bases throughout the uk where he remained until 45, it shows he was then in the Raf TA if l read it correctly until the early 50s when he was signed off long term sick. The record shows he was trained to work on Spitfire and Lancaster possibly Blenheim engines plus others l cannot read it properly. Other than that the majority of his record is blacked out which makes no sense at all to me and from what l gather there is no chance of this ever being changed. One thing that did jog a childhood memory was a trophy and matching brass candlesticks on the fireplace that was won by dad Boxing for the Raf.
The historian l mentioned earlier provided me with some very upsetting information re my dad and a fatal incident that occurred at an Raf base in the Worcester area very early in the war that made the newspapers. Dad was on guard duty at a fuel dump and was approached in the dark by 2 men, my dad was heard to call the standard challenge only for the 2 men to be known to him one a good friend, the witness stated as my dad lowered his rifle it fired, the bullet hitting his friend who sadly died an hour later. For some unknown reason the case was tried at a local court and not a military which to me seems strange unless this was the norm. The duty sergeant took charge of the rifle and it was proven to have a faulty trigger and safety catch which was stated in court, naturally my dad was exonerated of blame. None of this is mentioned in his service record unless in the blacked out redacted sections, all l can assume is that my dad carried the guilt of this accident with him. There is no family left to talk this over with so again l can only assume his friend was another Norwich local lad and for dad to remain in Norwich was just to painful. For me and my family to read this chapter is painful, writing it is even harder but nothing can compare to how much pain and remorse our dad must have carried so quietly to his grave.
Apologies for the length of this, also being a newbie to the site hopefully l have not stepped on anyone's toes. .
Why we never knew of dads family l believe is related to a major incident which affected him enough to move from Norwich to Barnard Castle after the war finished, the following information was found by a respected military historian, he put me on the path to applying for dads war records which came through very quickly but what a disappointment they were to read or should l say lack of reading.
lt turned out that dad enlisted in the Raf in1938 and served at many bases throughout the uk where he remained until 45, it shows he was then in the Raf TA if l read it correctly until the early 50s when he was signed off long term sick. The record shows he was trained to work on Spitfire and Lancaster possibly Blenheim engines plus others l cannot read it properly. Other than that the majority of his record is blacked out which makes no sense at all to me and from what l gather there is no chance of this ever being changed. One thing that did jog a childhood memory was a trophy and matching brass candlesticks on the fireplace that was won by dad Boxing for the Raf.
The historian l mentioned earlier provided me with some very upsetting information re my dad and a fatal incident that occurred at an Raf base in the Worcester area very early in the war that made the newspapers. Dad was on guard duty at a fuel dump and was approached in the dark by 2 men, my dad was heard to call the standard challenge only for the 2 men to be known to him one a good friend, the witness stated as my dad lowered his rifle it fired, the bullet hitting his friend who sadly died an hour later. For some unknown reason the case was tried at a local court and not a military which to me seems strange unless this was the norm. The duty sergeant took charge of the rifle and it was proven to have a faulty trigger and safety catch which was stated in court, naturally my dad was exonerated of blame. None of this is mentioned in his service record unless in the blacked out redacted sections, all l can assume is that my dad carried the guilt of this accident with him. There is no family left to talk this over with so again l can only assume his friend was another Norwich local lad and for dad to remain in Norwich was just to painful. For me and my family to read this chapter is painful, writing it is even harder but nothing can compare to how much pain and remorse our dad must have carried so quietly to his grave.
Apologies for the length of this, also being a newbie to the site hopefully l have not stepped on anyone's toes. .