Week 27 (June 28-July 4) Canada and the United States have a holiday celebrating their country. All
How does your family celebrate now? How did they celebrate in the past?
Have your family members served their country? How?
Answers
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My grandfather, Charles Ernest East, had a hearing impairment and was assigned to the Home Guard during WWII in Dartford, England. I have been researching to learn more about his life, so I decided to read about the local military efforts. My finds have been quite interesting.
https://www.dartfordarchive.org.uk/20th_century/military_ww2.shtml
My mother and grandmother had told me that Dartford was a target for air raids by German bombers. Dartford was on the flight path to London and the pilots often deposited their bomb loads on Dartford.
Charles worked in the local armaments factory and this was a target for the bombs. My mother told me that a bomb landed in the factory one night, but since the factory was built on a peat bog, the bomb failed to explode. She indicated that they roped off the area and continued manufacturing armaments.
The above mentioned site contained pictures and details that helped me to understand the stories that I had been told. I can see the uniform hat like my grandfather would have worn.
My grandfather used to dismantle bombs that landed in his neighborhood. Over 13,000 houses in the Dartford area were damaged during the raids. This sister reported that local officials included 6,000 high explosive bombs, twenty-three land mines, 200 oil bombs, seventy-three phosphorous bombs and an estimated 200,000 incendiary bombs. were found in Dartford. 150 local people were killed in the air raids and another 700 injured.
Details are given about how the families used gas masks, blackened their windows, and where they could seek shelter. I have found information that will be very useful in writing my family history. I have limited details from my family and my family members that could tell the story have passed away. I will be using the information and photos from this site to help me share my family history.
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Many of my family members were in the military. I have found quite a few military records that helped me find other information for them as well.
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Do you have any examples that you could share with us? I suspect many people have not seen many military records. It could be useful to see what some of these records look like.
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Sure!! I've been looking for my great-grandfather's birthplace on my dad's side for a long time. I found FamilySearch Communities, asked a question, and the wonderful @Shari Duce found this draft record that has his birthplace written clearly on it. I am so grateful to her for finding it! I went and looked at the collection this draft card came from, and the second page of my great-grandfather's record has a physical description. I never met my great-grandfather, and so it's nice to hear about something as simple as hair and eye colors. On the draft as well, the person applying has to include employment, and you can learn a lot about the type of person they were based on their jobs. Here's John Prater's Draft Record, page 1: https://community.familysearch.org/s/contentdocument/0693A000009ScXvQAK?language=en_US
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Thanks Camilla for sharing this. I learned something interesting on a record for my great grandfather. I learned that he had been SHOT TWICE while working for the Post Office. Talk about "going postal" before that was even a thing!
This record indicates that he has wounds in left forearm received in service 1st World War. Gun shot wound between heart and kidney rec'd while in P.O. Service. I REALLY need to order his records to see if I can find out why he was shot while working for the Post Office.
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That's crazy! I wonder why he was shot. 🤔 It would be amazing to find out. I hope you receive his service records!
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