Any family history in WW2?

I grew up in a household where someone RAAF New Guinea SW PAcific...so stories about that were never in short supply, and it probably led to or fed into my ongoing interest in anything Pacific War/Japanese..

Or Burma too, gone into that a bit..the old Commando Comic stories which were not either ETO or North Africa, were usually re Burma..
I've read Slim's book, I think, or I have it..and 'the Johnnies"...and 'Tank tracks to Rangoon" I think it was..re tanks in Burma.

the old 70s history series narrated by Laurence Olivier, one of it's best ever episodes was the one about Burma..and the Japanese 33rd division vet describing how he used to curry rats..

I read those commando books when I was a kid and still have a load in a box somewhere. Also got a book on the Chindits to read when I get round to it. The best of all I got my grandfathers war diaries to read through, interesting enough he was a movie buff and states which ones he saw with a rating to them.

yeah, there are a few on Burma..'the Long and the short and the Tall " a lot of people think is Burma, but may be a little hard to pin down exactly when and where in setting..

Great Grandfather in the Boer War and WW one. Both Grandfathers in WW Two with an even ten uncles etc in WW2. 3 in the RCN, 3 in the RCAF, 1 in RAF, 2 in Canadian Tank outfits and I in the Infantry. Two of them, RCAF, Lancaster crewmen, never came back. One tanker was captured in Italy. My dad and two of his cousins were in Korea during that conflict. One cousin served in Afghanistan.

"Yesterdays Enemy" with Stanley Baker set in Burma.

My Great-Great Uncle was in the Royal Marines Chatham Light Infantry and landed at Anzac Cove.He was listed as missing in April 1915 just two days after landing and his name (Neale) is on the memorial at Cape Helles.

WW2-My English Grandfather was a Captain in the Royal Engineers and served in Italy from 1944.My Italian Grandfather was too old to fight in the Army and was sent to work in Germany as a warehouse foreman.He came back to Italy 3 months before the Allies landed at Salerno whereas many of his workmates remained in Germany and were never seen again.

that was the one I was trying to think of!

and "Purple Plain" of course, even though it is not really an attempt at a movie about the ground war in Burma itself.

My Great-Great Uncle was in the Royal Marines Chatham Light Infantry and landed at Anzac Cove.He was listed as missing in April 1915 just two days after landing and his name (Neale) is on the memorial at Cape Helles.


were they the ones who landed on the coal barges converted to LCIs, they might have been named after Arthurian knights, Tristram or Galahad or something?

I think some were also, like, Lancashire Fusiliers, or something?

that landing if particular episode I'm thinking of, was pretty disastrous initially, so was the French one...the casualties were far higher than the Australians suffered in their initial landing, was impression I had..