Messages posted by: Gyroscope

Hi Pete

I have (hopefully) mailed you.

Regards,

Guy

Sorry, to be clear, I have no intention of chucking or recycling it, but I have no heirs and I suspect that whoever eventually clears my house would do!

So I'm looking to pass it on to someone who knows what it is.

Regards,

Guy

Thank you once again Nick.

I can hear him saying "Stanvac Mariner" even now - he had a particularly impenetrable Belgian - meets - Worcestershire accent

To be honest the knife doesn't mean a great deal to me, and I'm the last of my line so when I go it will probably end up in the recycling.

Do you know of anyone who could rehome it in context? I'm not looking for any money for it, but I wouldn't want to see it pop up on eBay the next day. I would have thought the OP would have been interested but it looks like he's not been around for a while.

Sorry if asking is a bit of an imposition.

Regards,

Guy

Hi Nick.

Thank you for getting back to me.

Yes, I figured that the seated photo was quite late because he was very much the green bean at the beginning of the war but eventually reached the giddy heights of WO 2 or 1 (sorry, I can't remember - but you can probably tell from the stripes!) later on.

He's number 15 on this photo

http://gallery.commandoveterans.org/cdoGallery/v/units/10IA/Belgian/belgian+tp/Eastbourne+Juin+1944b+copy.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

I can see that he's already on the nominal roll here

http://www.commandoveterans.org/book/export/html/7629

however his rank of "later Capt" might be a bit confusing. He was a merchant seaman (hence signals with the Commando - he already knew morse code) and later went back to sea eventually becoming a master mariner. So he was indeed a Captain, but of a ship

One more photo. I'm sufficiently old as to have forgotten what the original source of this file was - I think it might have been a framed photo. It's a reunion of No 10 (just 4 troop?) at some point in the 60s. He's middle row, far right hand side. The whole "you can wave your camera around all you like but I'm not putting my cigarette down" is him to a tee.

I've also found an album of photos from around that time. A couple of examples attached.

The one with the flag is almost certainly signals training on Malvern Common in Worcestershire.

The one with the natty little moustache and the stripes I think must be considerably later, possibly post-war?

edit: He's also in this photo. I have a copy of it here too.

http://gallery.commandoveterans.org/cdoGallery/v/units/10IA/Belgian/belgian+tp/Eastbourne+Juin+1944b+copy.jpg.html

Also found what appear to be medal certificates - "Oorlogsvrijwilliger - Strijder" etc.

Hi all.

(obvious) noob here. I stumbled across this thread while Googling for something else.

My father was in 4 troop 10 Commando, but unfortunately he is long dead and there is very little in the way of memorabilia still around.

I did, however, remember where his knife was - photo attached hopefully.

I think the technical term is "rusty as heck"

It may be "wrong" e.g. not standard issue, but it certainly belonged to him.

He trained on the border between Worcestershire and Herefordshire (where I'm from) and at Achnacarry. He was at Walcheren.

Regards,

Guy