Beneath Hill 60

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Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

I meant he never spoke about tunnelling. He did have a lot to say about gas which he reckoned was a totally unacceptable method of warfare that caused much prolonged pain and suffering and kept on killing for years and years after being gassed. He said his old comrades died off like flies in the 1920'-30's from the afteraffects of gas.

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I never met my grandfather, he died from chronic respiratory illness when my father was 15, a respiratory illness he didn't have when he went to war.

What is interesting is that his war record doesn't mention being gassed, but prior to the Messines Ridge attack he and other sappers were sent into no mans land to prepare communication and jumping off trenches for the comming attack. It is likely therefore the cause of the damaged lungs was crawling through bomb craters and working in trenches filled with gas from an earlier attack.

When WWII came he didn't want any of his sons to join the Army, one was a chemist and unable to be released from important war work and the other two too young.

It must have been terrible for veterans of WWI seeing their sons going off to war barely 20 years after the war to end all wars.

Like you, I never met my paternal grandfather. He was captured when Singapore fell and was one of the last to die at Sandakan, in spite of being over 50 years old.

He enlisted in WWII in spite of having served in WWI. I often wonder what would encourage a man who had suffered through WWI to enlist again.

Most people are probably aware of the Australian War Memorial collections. Over the last few years I had found information and photographs of my father and his father and just a few months ago, this photo was added to the collection. It is a photo of my father and grandfather taken in about 1941.

http://cas.awm.gov.au/screen_img/P09579.002

If you have never been there, visit the site and type in your relatives' names. You might be surprised at what comes up.

Search collection | Australian War Memorial

Another site worth visiting is the National Archives. I'm sure a lot of people know, but some might not know that they are digitising everyone's service records. For example my grandfather's WWI and WWII records are all there and so is my uncle's, but they have not done my father's yet.

Search the collection

thanks for the link, i did find one relo.
I think that the reason some soldiers/veterans from WW1 went to WW2 even though they saw the true horrors of war was that, they saw the true horrors of war and did not want their sons/nephews to go so they themselves listed. ( just my theory)