Messages posted by: joolz

Hi

I visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp last week to lay flowers for the guys on Op Checkmate as my dad was a RM Commando at the time they died. I have photos of the memorial and of the memorial wall where they have photos and info about the murder of the men. Would anyone like these posted?

My dad didn't talk much about his war service apart from the good stuff like the comrades and ships, but he teased an ex-RAF uncle for landing him chest deep in water in Holland when the RAF bombed the dams, which I've worked out was Walcheren. I have a few letters to his sister and discovered he was on HMS Warspite (his favourite ship) during Huskie. I think he was on Warspite on D-Day too and ended up piloting landing craft as 'his' gun was out of operation, before going ashore himself. I know there was an incident in Holland where he tripped a mine, as he thanked my sister's dutch in-laws for making it faulty as it didn't jump out of the ground properly and he 'only' had leg injuries and survived.

He loved the RM Commandos so much that he went back in again after the war, but he got in trouble as he had a service medal he shouldn't have had at his age (like many he'd lied about his age when joining up during the war). He had to sell his medals when he had a family so I don't even know which one got him into trouble. I have a photo of A Troop, 40 Commando RM, Imtarfa Barracks, Malta in July 1949, which was his second time in the Marines and 6 months after after he had married my mum near Lympston (she was in the NAAFI there). I have no idea which troop he was with the first time he was in. I have an undated group photo marked 'Medway Studio' Chatham, only the officers have ribbons so I wonder if that might be his passing out photo?

I discovered the horrors of Sachsenhausen when I was searching online for a connection between the 'RM Commandos' and 'concentration camp' as I know my dad had nightmares about being there when one of the camps was liberated as he spoke to my mum about it one night, but she doesn't know which one it was and I haven't found anything on the internet. Does anyone know?

I have some papers that show which ships he was on, but it doesn't give much other info. I know he went to Egypt, Mexico, Palestine, Malta, Gibraltar and loads of other places with the Marines, he described the freezing cold going up the west coast of Canada to the Arctic and how ungloved hands would stick to the ships railings. It's sad to just have snippets, for example, when his ship sailed under the Forth Rail Bridge a half crown landed on the deck (thrown from a train, a good luck tradition). He reckoned it was his own good luck charm as his ship was on the way to Japan, but the trip was cancelled when they reached the Med due to the Japanese surrender. I don't know the ship or anything else about it :-(

I guess I'll have to read some of the books that have been recommended here.

cheerz

joolz