The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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244301 Harold Hammond British Army Royal Armoured Corps from:Leyburn I am trying to research my grandfather. As in many other stories on this website, my grandfather did not speak of the war. However, as he got older he did open up and helped towards a history project I had. This is what he told my father. He joined the army in 1941 when he was 17. (However, my father seems to think he was drafted.) He was in the Royal Armoured Corps. My father noted 'special unit 32'. I am unsure as to whether this is the 32nd Tank Brigade or something else. He stated that he was taught to drive English and German war vehicles. During training he was told if he had enough money to go and take a class in karate. My father seems to think that it was £50 or more. My granddad said that these lessons saved his life. He said that he was in the 8th Army at Tripoli and became a desert rat, before moving to the invasion of Sicily. Granddad said that he acted as a decoy by driving a vehicle in the opposite direction to deceive the Germans. He was also present at Monte Cassino. Here he was captured with his friend (I do not know his name) by the Italians. They locked my granddad and his friend in a cellar, leaving them for dead. When the damn broke my granddad survived the flooding by holding on to meat hooks until the water subsided. (This is quite ironic, as he became a butcher after the war.) Afterwards, he arrived at Belsen, which he did not wish to talk about. Granddad stated that he helped to liberate Poland, which he said was the best part of his job. My father seems to recall a story that he drove a motorcycle behind enemy lines. He also believes that my granddad was in Paris as he had a French girlfriend and also had a cigarette packet from there. We do not have my grandad's war record or number, I am trying to find this. I have noted down that he was awarded the 4 stars medal and the bravery medal, although we do not have these. I am trying to research my grandad for my dissertation at university. If you have any information or stories that you are willing to share please get in touch with me. Francesca Hammond-Banks Add to this record.  Related Content: Royal Armoured Corps 8th Army Operation Husky - Sicily Battle of Monte Cassino 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.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.