Nice MG advert, Slasher!
I have a mental pic of the war years involving my uncle, who was a RadNav on Beaufighters and Mosquitos. He must have spent 4 years awake in darkness from what I have gathered. He was killed on the Cherbourg peninsular in 1944. I have a copy of the accident report that makes for desperate reading - he had been awarded his 2nd DFC only weeks before.
I never knew him, as I came along some years later, and my father rarely mentioned his brother. I have one photograph , but often try to imagine myself with him.
Then there's my great grandfather, master mariner, who lost a command in 1864 - now I've got to find out more about that, and let my imagination run away again....