Colin Russell wrote:
Do you have any diaries or letters your dad may have kept about the war :?: These can give a great insight into who he knew and served with.
Good luck in your research and keep us posted
Kind regards,Colin :-)
Nope Dad didnt keep any dairies or Journals
BUT I have JUST RE discovered a Whole heap of post cards in an tatty 1940s post card folder tucked away in my photograph album cupboard.
I finallly had time to turn them all over and read them
They are all so important and I can get a timeline from them- Mini letters from Dad to my Mum before they got married and whilst he was still on active service.
Quite a few from my Welsh nain ( nanna) to My Mum after she was married in the summer of 1946 Dads was still in Service
My mother stayed with her parents in Wrexham
What I didnt know was Mum'd had my brother in late 47 in Mold North wales but after my Dads Demob moved down to NO MANS LAND on the Wilts Hants border WITHOUT her new born son
My parents first home was an ex RAF Nissan Hut. There was no other accomodation as southampton had been bombed out)
My Paternal grandfather a WW1 Veteran was living in a converted railway carraige in the same area
What times eh
Im overwhelmed with the information on the back of a 3inch x 5inch card a TREASURE trove
I'll post any relevant details when I have a chance to read them through
My wonderful Late father Leslie Frank Tett 1925 -1994
ANYONE remember him, would welcome any relative of those in No 4/6 to contact me I would welcome ANY Operations movements and records so I can add them to our Family Pedigree which we are trying to publish for my 50th BIRTHDAY in 2009
Served with No4/6 I do believe,
went on the 44 Normandy Landings aged 19
The piece meal story i have is written below...and it took DECADES to get or assume this much
he remembers Achnacary Castle and the times they were sent out with NO ID or anything and told to do whatever necessary -without murdering any human - get back to base!! if they got into trouble then they could not cry for help.
He remebered getting jankers A LOT when he was in the holding camp in Wrexham ( where he met my mum in 1944 before he was sent out)
On the Normandy operation Overlord
HE said his lot went in Early to lay the explosives on a few bridges and pillboxs
Had to dig in and Wait?? so not to be discovered by jerry to early and give the game away
He remebered Lovat ( was he on that Op!?)
Dad was wounded three times with TWO bullets( He was left with shrapnel for the rest of his life)
First Slug had him captured and tied down in a german billet where he could see the machine gun fire at the gliders a feet feet away from the window
The Yanks freed them. Still in Commando uniform, he was evac'd to the Beach where he was shot again through BOTH legs( So much for the Red Cross stretcher bearers having protection
Sent up to the recuperation hospital patched up and THEN sent driving flaming lorries across what was left of the North African front
From Morroco Algiers Tunisia Lybia Egypt. Eventually ended up in Tele Aviv
Home to blighty and still in the army married my mother in Wrexham 1946