Andyp wrote:Pinch wrote:Cheers Andy - we could be taking you up on that.
My Mrs P and me are planning a holiday next year on The Somme and then up to the Normandy Beaches. We've been researching our ancestry (although my family is a bit tricky on father's side) and Mrs P lost a great uncle on The Somme - his name is one of the 72,195 missing on the Thiepval Memorial. She's even found out where he was during the great battle together with other info - very moving. I've learnt my great grandfather (on mother's side) fought in Gallipoli and possibly on The Somme - don't know yet, but he survived the war and died in 1973. Anyway, I'm rambling on now... but Mrs P and me are excited about this holiday - although it will be emotional and very humbling.
Paul,
It would be a pleasure to see you. We are east of the River Orne just 5 mins from Pegasus Bridge.
We paid a visit to Thiepval in August and I can recommend a B&B close by if required. Unless you really want to see the visitors centre next door I would recommend going to Thiepal at about 8pm (in summer). With no one around you can really feel the atmosphere of the place.
The underground museum in Albert we also found very interesting.
I had a great great grandfather who survived the WW1 but with a steel plate in his head after a shrapnel wound and great great uncle who died in Thesaloniker.
Thanks again Andy and it will be a pleasure to meet you too. I might start a new thread about WW1 & 2 with places to visit, people's experiences and lost family etc - especially as we're in the 70th anniversary of D-Day landings and 100th anniversary of the start of WW1.
I would like to find more about my grandfather on my father's side. It was his parents who were Russian and Polish. I know he joined up in 1940 and was involved in 3 commando raids - 1 in Norway. He fought in Europe and was eventually killed in Burma. I've recently read some of his war letters he wrote to his brother and they're very moving - not to mention actually holding these letters. He writes to say when he was fighting along side the Gurkhas in Burma, the Gurkhas would go out on patrol and they would only be satisfied if they returned to camp with a Japanese soldier's leg or arm as a souvenir.
Also reading the letter from his C/O to my grandmother (days after he was killed) was very moving too.
In my previous life, I was a tree.