The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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244330 Pte. Edwin Leonard Gatward British Army Royal Berkshire Regiment from:Hackney My father, Ted Gatward, served in WW2 and fascinated us all with his stories. He started off in a mounted division but soon discovered that he did not get on with horses, so that was short lived. He served in Israel and mounted a machine gun on the wailing wall and the little green hill. Ted originally ran away to join the army at 15, but his age was discovered and he was sent home. He went straight back as soon as he was legally able to do so. He also got peed on in Egypt by a camel and had to have a whole load of injections. He had a dog and a pet monkey there too. The monkey used to get into the store of liquor and was found all over the camp drunk and disorderly. He was always talking of the good times too, about the bond he made with his comrades. He got special leave to marry my mum on Christmas Day, but he was back in camp on Boxing Day. My mum was evacuated in 1944 and my brother was born in Willersley Castle, Matlock in Berkshire. Although war was obviously a terrible time, I cannot help but feel I would have liked to have been born in that time to see the closeness of communities and to have been a part of the sense of pride everyone felt in fighting for their country. My brother has our father's long service medal. My granddad was in the Navy in WW1, but unfortunately died before I was born. Theresa Lovell Add to this record.  Related Content: Royal Berkshire Regiment 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.