A Bloody Good War Would Sort Them Out

[Pasty]

My grandad in law was in the Navy in WW2 and was sunk twice. He lost his 2 best mates at close hand. He was a wonderful man but refused to talk much about his experience. God knows what he went through and I can only admire the fact that he came back home and raised his family in some kind of normal way. He must have carried so much on his shoulders. He's a hero of mine.

I think the problem with this thread is in the title. There is no such thing as a good war.

I would like to think that if it was required, I would do my duty and be brave and useful but the idea of my boys having to do that scares the crap out of me.

 

[Pasty]

Yes, very few nowadays.

When I was living in a town and in practice I would meet quite a few. I enjoyed learning about the Forgotten Army from a friend who was there ("no leave in 5 years, but endless mosquitoes") and what it was like being a tail-gunner in a Lancaster bomber ("you just got on with it") as well, of course, talking with the widows of those killed at sea, at Arnhem, or in Normandy.

One bloke had a kip on the dunes on one of the landing beaches on D Day +? and the officer overlooked him, so that the lorry started up and drove over him, killing him. The officer wrote to the widow to try to explain, which was not easily forgotten.

My point is that surprisingly few farmers served in WWII. That is why no one ever mentions it in farming circles, even though (as you correctly point out) there ought to be a few aged survivors out there.

It's not really surprising. They stayed home to grow food. That was the policy and I guess, lucky for them. My grandad always maintained he was strafed on his tractor and there are plenty of big pits around here where they dumped bombs to out-run the spitfires but in general, farmers were in the right job at the right time.

Dad says from the top of our hill you could see Plymouth burning and that's more than 20 miles away.

 

[Clayfarmer]

I always thought the reason was that farmers were generally too old to serve although it was a reserved profession. The land girls were intended to replace the men, so the staff and the sons weren't automatically exempt from service.

I am fairly certain that the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Museum and their Lancaster bomber was originally bought as a memorial to a lost older brother, by a farming family.

And the there was the top secret Auxiliary Units, highly trained local civillian guerilla/resistance units that had a life expectancy of 12 days should an invasion occur. We will never know who was really in it but working farmers were recruited as they were familiar with the terrain etc.

 

[Pilgrimmick]

I suppose you already know this, but it's worth reminding everyone that the conflicts the British Army fought after 1945 were largely with conscript soldiers under National Service.

There was (as far as I know) little or no distinction between conscript and regular, so that they were equally likely to be (and were, in fact) wounded or killed.

Very true, My father was a conscripted sailor in the Royal Navy.
Society was different then, we lost thousands of men at Dunkirk, and it was considered a victory! The ability of society to absorb losses has gone, the potential loss of a very small number of lives can cause an operation to be cancelled. I am not suggesting lives should be less valued, but there have been very few wars recently that have been in the national interest, so the patriotic support was much less for the illegal war in Iraq than it was for the morally just conflict in the Falkland Islands.
Any man who has to face death on the orders of someone safe in London deserves respect, it is a strange feeling to write your will before you are old enough to drive a bus (21).

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

Society was different then, we lost thousands of men at Dunkirk, and it was considered a victory! The ability of society to absorb losses has gone, the potential loss of a very small number of lives can cause an operation to be cancelled.

Much of this is down to the media and how it has changed.

During WW2 the War Office could control the main stream media and decide exactly what was released to the newspapers.

These days news is instant, global yet carried in the palm of your hand. ISIS have used this to great effect.

Casualties in Afghanistan were published by the BBC on a daily basis during the height of the conflict, with video clips of combat beamed across the world almost live.

 

[Selectamatic]

My father remembers WW2, as a school child, too young to take arms.

There was a searchlight positioned at a nearby farm, he remembers sitting with his mother on the bedroom windowsill watching the redness in the sky of Liverpool burning, and watching the aircraft heading home, with one in the beam of the searchlight. "He is someone's son" She would say.

WW2 was a good time for agriculture though? My grandfather took a cart load of swedes to the local hospital, for the price of £100 (A fortune back then) There's talk of growing 3 acres of potatoes, dumping them in the clamp in town, making up the weight on the trailer by what you thought it weighed, a mountain of butter, dumped in a lorry at the town hall, ready to go to the army, all stuff that my father remember's seeing through the eyes of a child.

The War Ag came round, threatening to relieve a local farmer of his meadow, overgrown and unfarmed, because he had not ploughed it for production. Dig for Victory was very important, back then...

I've said on another thread somewhere, the Fuhrer probably did more for British agriculture than most.

 

[GTB]

The NHS is broken and over-funded

True but the waste within the NHS is at times eyewatering!

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

True but the waste within the NHS is at times eyewatering!

I will re-phrase it.

The NHS is not under-funded, the money is just being spent on the wrong things.

These mainly seem to be excessive layers of management that contribute little to front line medical services, along with inefficient admin and IT systems.

 

[M-J-G]

What a weird thing to start a thread about, unless it's just to have another stab at those terrible farmers.

I am aware of plenty of farming families that had sons sent to war. Most farmers of that time were older men, with sons not taking over until the old man died.
A retired farmer is a fairly new thing.

As for the war heroes who don't speak of their medals etc. many of the guys on the front line aren't wanting to drag up memories of what they had to do to get their medals. Only someone who has had a comfortable life would fail to understand why.

 

[RagnarHairybreeks]

I will re-phrase it.

The NHS is not under-funded, the money is just being spent on the wrong things.

These mainly seem to be excessive layers of management that contribute little to front line medical services, along with inefficient admin and IT systems.

That is so true it hurts.

Lost the Father in Law over Christmas and had to have the Mother in Law sectioned and moved into a home in April.

In both we witnessed unbelievable inefficiencies (despite wonderful care).

The classic was with the MIL. Following her sectioning under the mental health act she was placed in a mental hospital in Cheltenham where she remained, and remained, and remained despite the fact that we had secured a place for her at a local residential home with all the appropriate care in place.

The reason? Although the medical and psychiatric staff at the hospital had performed full evaluations and determined that she could not be released back to her flat and that a care home was the only option, the social worker repeatedly failed to attend to rubber stamp it. For weeks. That lack of a half hour visit by a social worker left her bed blocking a hospital at a cost of who knows how many thousands of pounds.

In the end I emailed my MP. Within two days it was resolved. Amazing that.

 

[Dry Rot]

I was in the black market during the war.

The old fashioned pram had a compartment under the bed. I was removed, the bed was removed, the compartment lid was removed and the space below loaded with milk and eggs from my uncle's farm. Everything, including me, was then replaced and I was wheeled home. No accurate record could be kept of milk and eggs during the war, but everything else was meticulously recorded.

I have never, to my knowledge, ever broken a single bone in my body. I credit that to my involvement with smuggling during the war.

 

[Pond digger]

I would like to think that if it was required, I would do my duty and be brave and useful but the idea of my boys having to do that scares the crap out of me.

Done my service in Nam"................ Birmingnam.


Sorry

 

[Red Fred]

What a weird thing to start a thread about, unless it's just to have another stab at those terrible farmers.

I am aware of plenty of farming families that had sons sent to war. .

Dad was a farmer's son, in fact he grew up here, but he volunteered for the RAFVR and became a bomb aimer. I believe that several of his farming friends did similar things although he used to make light of it and would never have considered himself heroic.

 

[Doc]

My grandfather was RAAF pilot from 'good' farming family. Think he possibly used it as a way to get away from the Farm and small town living. Came home an unrecognisable antisocial alcoholic who went on to destroy a family of 6 kids. Left the family under a cloud of financial wrong doings and sh!t no one will talk about - youngest daughter 6 years old at the time.
Found dead in Subbiaco about 25 years ago, identified by an inscription of his wedding date on the back of his watch with his and my Nans names.
Good war though...