The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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208340 Sgt Eric Cyril Sparks British Army 87 Field Regt. Royal Artillery from:Colchester My dad, Eric Sparks, worked as a tailor at John Colliers in Colchester before the war. He was also the goalkeeper for Colchester United in their Southern League days. He was called up 0n 15.1.40 at Shoeburyness in Essex and joined the Royal Artillery. After training he went to the Middle East area and spent all his service there including Iraq, Persia(Iran),Syria and Italy. He was on 25 pounder field guns and eventually rose to be a sergeant. While on leave in Cairo, he fell off the back of a lorry and broke his back, but after rehab, rejoined the unit. He became a trainer on artillery weapons in Iraq. Sometime in 1944, in Italy the gun was firing when a shell exploded in the breech killing two men and wounding the rest. Eric hand his left hand severely blown apart and was sent back after initial treatment to the UK for his finger to be repaired, but it didn't happen and his finger was taken off. Obviously he was discharged medically in 1945. He married his sweetheart, Sgt Major Violet Cook of the ATS at Colchester Military Hospital in 1945. He couldn't return to his old profession so became a clerk at Colchester Barracks and eventually became the Superintendent Clerk of Works for all Military buildings and areas in Essex. Despite his disability, he played the piano and organ in Church up to his death. Unfortunately, the war got him in the end, when all the millions of minute blood clots that he had lived with in his body since the war, joined up as one huge clot and killed him in 1986. Ian Sparks Add to this record.  Related Content: Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

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