Temporary Archive: Suzanne Brockmann's Message Board

My mother's brothers were both in WW2. I think I've posted about them before - one was a submariner, who was killed off Norway in 44, and the other joined an English Regiment (my grandfather, who'd served in WW1 refused to let him join an Irish regiment, even though he'd have gone in as an officer, because he said the English officers used the Irish as cannon-fodder.) He (that uncle) was in Africa, then Italy, but his unit was wiped out at Anzio with only - can't remember - either seven or eleven of them surviving. He attributed his survival to the bravery of the fighter pilots, who flew right in to take out the tanks. He became an interpreter for the rest of the war. I think he came back believing war was very terrible. According to my dad he had said that instead of all the pomp and ceremony on Armistice day, which gave the impression that war was a glorious thing, they should make all the mothers in the country watch footage of what warfare was really like. He became a teacher & headmaster after the war, and died about ten years ago.
My dad was born in 1927, so he was lucky enough to just miss it.