Memoirs of a WWII POW - my Grandad

[benjj]

Thought I'd add my bit to this thread as I'm in the middle of getting some stuff together on my great-grandfather. He was a Royal Engineer and served in WW1 all over the place. He was shot and wounded in Galipoli while laying telephone cable behind enemy lines in the dead of night. That earned him a DCM, then the highest award given to a non Rupert.

The medals and his personal effects are going to the Imperial War Museum on loan for a Galipoli piece they're doing. I'm very proud of him.

He died shortly after the end of hostilities from problems arising from being gassed. Poor sod, no way to go, I'd rather have had a bullet in the head I think.

This is him receiving his DCM:



This is his DCM (left) and misc other baubles.



A nice letter in his kit from the gaffer saying what a double hard bd he was:



And the man himself. Hard to imagine that at his age I was stooging around smoking tabs and chasing birds while he was getting shot, gassed and generally putting himself in harms way. They were just boys.



And lastly here with his family. The little wiener in the dress is my Grandfather who went on to join the water rats and then became an early recruit in SOE where he got into trouble in Telemark during WW2. But that's for another tale, need to do some more research on that.

[Doctor Volt]

OP Thank you so much for this, I will be reading it in the near future

[Doctor Volt]

benjj Thank you so much for your input

[Adam B]

interesting post benjj

what was the point of laying phone lines behind enemy lines I wonder?

[benjj]

Adam B said:

interesting post benjj

what was the point of laying phone lines behind enemy lines I wonder?

From what I understand it was a bulge in the lines between two platoons. They only has X yards of line available so he took the shortest route which was over into and behind an enemy position.

The trouble with WW1 stuff is that so much of the paperwork was lost during the WW2 blitz.

[Adam B]

benjj said:

From what I understand it was a bulge in the lines between two platoons. They only has X yards of line available so he took the shortest route which was over into and behind an enemy position.

aha - that makes sense thanks

[E46Ad]

Great stuff!

Slightly off topic but it's my Dads 70th shortly and I've been trying to find out about my Grandfather (he died long before I was born) who served on HMS Kenya, and I want put together an album/scrapbook as a surprise but I'm really struggling to get anywhere with it. My Nan died last year so I never got the chance to ask her about him. I do have a piece of paper with what I think is his service number on but after googling it (there is an odd symbol before the number?) I'm getting knowhere and the sites I have came across to search his name aren't helping or they seem to be 're-united' type sites. Can anybody point me in the direction of where is best to look? I can send/upload a pic of the 'service' number if that helps.

Sorry to hi-jack.

Thanks in advance.

[iacabu]

hidetheelephants said:

If you still have the drive the files can probably be recovered for a price.

We took it to a computer shop but they couldn't recover it. I'm certain my Mum has kept the drive just in case technology improvements mean it will be retrievable at some point. I've no knowledge on that subject, however.

[Doctor Volt]

iacabu said:

We took it to a computer shop but they couldn't recover it. I'm certain my Mum has kept the drive just in case technology improvements mean it will be retrievable at some point. I've no knowledge on that subject, however.

The technology is already available and as far as I am aware has been for a long time
A Computer shop is not the place to take a faulty Hard Drive, you need to find a company that dismantles and repairs Hard Drives, there are many companies that can do this work for you
If some of the discs are damaged (scratched) then the data that has been scratched is lost forever but you will be able to view all undamaged data
If the Hard Drive has all of a sudden stopped working you will have a very good chance in recovering all the data once the Hard Drive is repaired
The company that repairs your Hard Drive or removes the discs from your Hard Drive will recover all the data for you

[iacabu]

I knew you could retrieve files from drives that had stopped working, I just thought that what are supposedly irretrievable files now might be retrievable in the future.

Anyway, I will definitely check out a proper company and see what we can do.

Thanks for the advice!

[K50 DEL]

iacabu said:

I knew you could retrieve files from drives that had stopped working, I just thought that what are supposedly irretrievable files now might be retrievable in the future.

Anyway, I will definitely check out a proper company and see what we can do.

Thanks for the advice!

Check out www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk

They're based in Wales and have done a number of recovery jobs for me including the server drives from a company who had no backups at all.
They're not cheap but if they can't get it back then it can't be got. (As an example, the last drive I sent them they went as far as purchasing controller board components from the USA to try and make the drive work for long enough to get data back)

Adam Hawas is the guy I deal with there.