Heroism/great deeds of interest

origigull · Jun 6, 2016

My grandfather was captured on his 18th birthday in northern France in the WW1 and sent to one of the German's prisoner of war camps. He managed to escape but was captured. He was given a terrible time for escaping for a long time after. This didn't deter him from escaping again later on, but was again captured and endured even more terrible treatment. He was contemplating escaping for a 3rd time (plans well advanced) when the war ended. He only managed to tell two of his 10 children his tale as it was too traumatic for him and he broke down in the telling. During WW2 he was one of the fishermen who went to rescue our lads at Dunkirk. He told my mum that if the Germans managed to invade England he would have helped try to turn the Germans back but if overrun would have gone back home to kill his family. If he was alive today he would still hate the Germans for the treatment they dished out.

Dave the OAP · Jun 6, 2016

My grandfathers were both in reserved occupations, one a miner and one in the ball bearings factory in Huddersfield which had to keep producing to keep everything going..even through many nights of bombing. My greatgrandfather's brother was killed on the khyber pass and mentioned in dispatches seemly.( he is remembered on a war memorial in Huddersfield- thanks to Moyà who found that)

My late dad was part of the design team at david brown tractors who designed the gearbox and engines for the Aston martin DB4 and 5, the James Bond car! ( db on the Aston was david brown)

Pogue Mahone · Jun 6, 2016

Dad was a bomb disposal officer after the Second World War, and defused countless bombs. Awe inspiring work, always a slightly wrong move, and it would have been the end.

He was later the first member of my family to go to university, and got a double first from Harvard before having a very successful career as an architect.

Great uncle Len Davies played for Cardiff City, and was a member of the 1927 cup winning team - the only time the FA Cup has been won by a team from outside England.

My dad's dad was a First Division referee.

Shropshire Seagull · Jun 7, 2016

My paternal Grandad was a brewers dray just before WW1 delivering beer to pubs in Brighton by horse and cart. With the outbreak of war his horse skills were put to use by leading convoys of horse and carts loaded with ammo up to the front line everynight - he did this for the full duration of the war.

Maternal Grandfather was one of the engineers that built Volks railway and daddy longlegs. He was an ARP warden during WWII and pulled many folk out of bomb damaged houses.

Dad was an RAF pilot after WWII and went to Oxford Uni. He was one of the electrical engineers that invented microwave radio technology which is still used [in revised form] by the military today.

Mum was Company Secretary for Vokins.

Me, I'm just a nobody ....

KZNSeagull · Jun 7, 2016

hans kraay fan club said:
Apart from that though?

Well, from a purely selfish point of view, just after he retired and he was living in the US, he phoned me and said "I'm bored. Get on a plane to Washington and come and play golf for 2 weeks". So I did. :thumbsup:

. Top man!

Taybha · Jun 7, 2016

Shropshire Seagull said:
My paternal Grandad was a brewers dray just before WW1 delivering beer to pubs in Brighton by horse and cart. With the outbreak of war his horse skills were put to use by leading convoys of horse and carts loaded with ammo up to the front line everynight - he did this for the full duration of the war.

Maternal Grandfather was one of the engineers that built Volks railway and daddy longlegs. He was an ARP warden during WWII and pulled many folk out of bomb damaged houses.

Dad was an RAF pilot after WWII and went to Oxford Uni. He was one of the electrical engineers that invented microwave radio technology which is still used [in revised form] by the military today.

Mum was Company Secretary for Vokins.

Me, I'm just a nobody ....

Nobody is ever a nobody , in a hundred years time there will be a thread just like this on the NSC interplantetary football forum (in other stuff ) and your great grandson will say my great grandad was a member of the original NSC he knew how to make himself sick whilst going to the toilet and knew everything there was to know about things called trains and had a poster of Gary Hart stapled to the underside of his coffin lid when he passed .(thats passed away not passed to Gary Hart , that would be silly ) .

Norman Potting · Jun 7, 2016

Great grandfather was the Fred Mills in paragraph 6 of this http://www.judithjohnson.co.uk/blog/-the-sinking-of-hms-hythe-28-october-1915. Died of old age well before my time, apparently when he retold the story it always ended with "....and I jumped and I jumped and I jumped all the way from here (Speldhurst for those who know that part of Kent) to bloody Langton Green (2 miles away!) to get off that boat..."!

Son also Fred Mills lied about his age, joined up at 17 into the Lincolnshire Regiment and received a bullet in his shoulder near the end of the war, details unclear but he alleged that a) it was British bullet from someone with poor aim and b) he received the wound whilst engaged in an act of bravery that would have earned a VC, but unfortunately no one saw him do it. Also died of old age.

Dick Swiveller · Jun 7, 2016

My Grandad would never talk about the war but I know he was at Arnhem as he went to a screen of a Bridge Too Far with other veterans. He was also in North Africa and kept a photo album he had kept secret with rather macabre photos of dead Germans.

Langley · Jun 7, 2016

hans kraay fan club said:
Not heroism in the military sense, but my great-great uncle, Harry Baldwin, played in goal for the Albion, and saved five consecutive football league penalties.

I saw Harry play a couple of times when I was about 9. He was known as the penalty king.
Also I think we had another Harry played in goal, surname of Ball. But at what stage, my memory fails me.

Langley · Jun 7, 2016

I think 200 would be nearer the mark, and even that would be high.

Bigtomfu · Jun 7, 2016

Paternal grandfather was a mastercraftsman who repaired spitfires and hurricanes, maternal grandfather was in the North Atlantic with the navy, transferred off the Hood a week before it sank, then got torpedoed out of service in 44. Won several distinguished service medals but refused them on the grounds that he was only doing what anyone else would have done.

seagully · Jun 7, 2016

On a slightly different note, my great-grandfather was one of the original Blackshirts and very chummy with Oswald Moseley

:facepalm:

Tom Hark Preston Park · Jun 7, 2016

Not heroic in the normal sense of the word, but my mum's cousin invented propranolol, a form of beta blocker that helped save countless lives. Also invented a treatment for stomach ulcers called cimetidine. Got a Nobel Prize for Medicine for his his troubles. Makes him a hero in my book.

Normal Rob · Jun 7, 2016

Bigtomfu said:
Paternal grandfather was a mastercraftsman who repaired spitfires and hurricanes, maternal grandfather was in the North Atlantic with the navy, transferred off the Hood a week before it sank, then got torpedoed out of service in 44. Won several distinguished service medals but refused them on the grounds that he was only doing what anyone else would have done.

So your maternal Grandfather may well have served with Thunder Bolts Grandfather (post 19)?

Thunder Bolt · Jun 7, 2016

Normal Rob said:
So your maternal Grandfather may well have served with Thunder Bolts Grandfather (post 19)?

My Grandfather was in WW1 in the Army Service Corps. It was my Dad who served on HMS Hood, but from 37-39. He was on HMS Vanoc when the Hood sunk.

Worthingite · Jun 7, 2016

My uncle was one of the first British soldiers on the scene when Lord Mounbatten got killed. My uncle will very very seldom talk about his time in NI in the 70's and 80's. Although his sense of humour was remarkably dark at the time - one birthday he got asked by my nan what he wanted, and his reply was a Union Jack duvet cover so he could practice laying underneath it. I'm named after him because he went out to the Falklands the day I was born. Later on in his military service, he became part of the team of marines that was in the Guinness Book of Records for highest abseil (only for a year though!!)

Langley · Jun 8, 2016

Normal Rob said:
Seeing the D Day thread made me think of this, but i did not want to hi-jack a thread dedicated to that great feat.

What things have your family members done? either in the service for their country, or in any other form.

My Grandfather worked alongside Sir Barnes Wallis on the construction of the bouncing bomb (of Damn Busters fame). His specific job was to calculate how strong to make the concrete coating surrounding the explosive so that it would not explode when it hit the water, but would when it struck the damn.

What more have we got?

My grandfather Private, Laurence Stenning from Burgess Hill, I think World's End, was in the Royal Sussex Regiment, and was killed on the Somme on the 21st November 1916, shot by a sniper whilst on patrol, he was 32. My mother was 3 and she had 3 Siblings. He is and always will be my hero.

On a different note, did not the great Tommy Farr who fought Joe Louis run a pub in that area of B H ??

boik · Dec 11, 2024

hans kraay fan club said:
Not heroism in the military sense, but my great-great uncle, Harry Baldwin, played in goal for the Albion, and saved five consecutive football league penalties.

Very belated bounce, but I was talking to my 91 year-old Dad yesterday. We were talking about goalkeepers as Dad was a decent keeper back in the day. He was talking about Harry Baldwin and the 5 consecutive penalty saves. He said he was there when he saved 2 in one match against Forest, both by England internationals: Tommy Lawton and he thinks the other was Jackie Sewell. Looking at 11v11 it looks like it must have been in '49 or '50.

That's some record on pens!

Edit: looks like Dad misremembered as it was Notts County. He'll blame me fo r it though!! ;-)

AZ Gull · Dec 11, 2024

boik said:
Very belated bounce, but I was talking to my 91 year-old Dad yesterday. We were talking about goalkeepers as Dad was a decent keeper back in the day. He was talking about Harry Baldwin and the 5 consecutive penalty saves. He said he was there when he saved 2 in one match against Forest, both by England internationals: Tommy Lawton and he thinks the other was Jackie Sewell. Looking at 11v11 it looks like it must have been in '49 or '50.

That's some record on pens!

Edit: looks like Dad misremembered as it was Notts County. He'll blame me fo r it though!! ;-)

It was the 1947-48 season. The match against Notts County set a new Goldstone attendance record of 19,572. Tommy Lawton was in the County side but the penalty-takers were Bert Howe and Reg Cumner. Despite Baldwin's heroics, the side finished bottom of the Third Division South and had to seek re-election.

This extract is from the Brighton and Hove Albion Collectors' and Historians' Society (now the BHA Heritage Society) newsletter no. 44 (Autumn 2010), which contained an obituary of Baldwin following his passing in October 2010 at the age of 90:-

Peacehaven Wild Kids · Dec 11, 2024

My mother didn’t do much as she was only 9 but she did run like the wind up Jellico Street in Clydebank on the night of 13th March 1941 while the Luftwaffe bombed the shit out of her neighbourhood killing over 1000 of her neighbours and school friends

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