The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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257130 L/Cpl Horace Jack "Gonnet (Jack)" Keene British Army 3rd Maritime Regiment Royal Artillery from:Richmond, Surrey Jack Keene was my dad. He served in the 3rd Maritime Regiment, Royal Artillery in WW2. He was a butcher by trade. He volunteered for war service and joined the East Surrey Regiment 2 weeks after getting married in May 1940. I know his unit was involved with coastal defence work along the West and South West coastline of England during which time he got his stripe for catching a spy, and his Army false teeth after being blown up in a very bad bombing raid on Plymouth. I remember he told me that he volunteered to be a gunner on merchant ships & did his training at Shoeburyness. I believe he went to sea in 1943 & was serving in the Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship until 1946. He told me that he had visited every country on the globe (as it was then) bar 7, some multiple times. There was a little cardboard box which had six medals in it (one with bar), it also had two letters in it, one was a copy of a letter from King George V1 to the Commander of Forces congratulating all concerned for their heroism in making 20 trips across to the Normandy Beaches from D Day onward & the other one was for prize money awarded to my dad for his part in capturing a U Boat at sea. My dad died aged 72 at the start of 1987. He had been going to The British Legion Club at Hanworth Middlesex in the hope of meeting up with old comrades but although he never found anyone he served with, he did make a lot of new friends who had been DEMS during the war and they all helped to give him a good send off at his funeral. Unfortunately, the medals & letters were stolen by a lodger at my Mum's home. Somewhere there is a diary which Dad kept while at sea, some photos and his good conduct discharge papers from the 3rd Marine Regiment R.A. Graham Keene Add to this record.  Related Content: Royal East Surrey Regiment The Blitz 3rd Maritime Regiment, Royal Artillery 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.