Originally Posted by
SLXOwft
Only seems like yesterday we lost the last Great War veterans. Glad to see VJ gets a mention. No WW2 veterans left in my family, my old man would have been 100 next month. His WW2 service with the RN took him as far west as Pensacola, east to the Pacific off Oz, north escorting convoys round the North Cape to Russia and south to the seas off Southern Africa and NSW. I would suspect many of his remaining contemporaries are (in their families' opinions) too frail to attend, especially if they arent going to be front and centre at what often seem to be
PR events for politicians rather than showing respect for the veterans. Shame on the RN
PR machine that the is no mention of former members of the Merchant Navy - 27% of whose comrades were killed by enemy action - sadly it doesn't surprise me.
That almost exactly matches Mogwi Snr’s service: Pensacola, HMS Tracker (North Atlantic convoys, Seafire AND Stringbag!), Ramrods over France (first kill), Arctic convoys and Tirpitz raid in HMS Indefatigable followed by transit to Far East for ops against the sons of Nipon (2 more kills), flying Seafire. Ended up in NAS Nowra before heading back to Blighty. Sadly joined the great crew room in the sky some fourteen years ago and would be 102 years old now. He walked through heavy snow from Maidstone to Chatham (10 miles) on his 18th birthday to join up.
Mog