I did an Arnhem battlefield tour with a chap who piloted a Horsa there. He couldn't remember much (or chose not to) about his actions from landing up to his final position fighting on the Oosterbeek perimeter. Finally the guide asked him what actually he did remember. "I remember the bastard paras left without telling me"
For my part I knew little of my father's part in WW2 until after his death when I was given all the letters he had written to my mother. Whilst not going into much detail so as to not frighten my mother its interesting to see by how he writes how the war changes his mood from excitement at the start, through despair as the fighting starts, to resignation as the war takes its toll of his friends. Through all this humour seems to have been his defence, to the point of dismissing a close call with a mortar round which shredded his trousers as being the reason he attended a COs 'O' Group bare arsed below the waist.