263478 Cpl. George Humphreys Bennett Royal Marines from:Widnes, Lancs My dad, GeorgeBennett, joined the Royal Marines at Portsmouth aged 25 on 15th Feb 1940, as a volunteer ‘for the period of the present emergency’.
Dad's service record is extremely sketchy due, I assume, to the exigencies of war.
His record notes a wound to his right leg received in action in May 1941 and a period of hospitalisation from 27tg of October 1942 to 12th of January 1943. He was discharged from service aged 29 on 7th of April 1944 as Physically Unfit for Royal Marine Service.
During his wartime service, dad took part in operations at Crete sometime between 10th of March 1941 and 31st of May 1941 for which he received the 1939/43 Star. He also served in the Middle East and Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
As a child I recall trying on numerous occasions to coax dad, mostly unsuccessfully, to tell me about his wartime experiences.
All I ever learned was that he was wounded on Crete, after being strafed from the air which was during the fighting that ensued from the German parachute invasion of the island. He was subsequently evacuated from Souda Bay.
I have a couple of photographs of dad in Ceylon and a small album of photos of him in Palestine with members of his unit. I was told by a relative recently that he thought dad had also served in the Western desert during the war, however there doesn't appear to be any evidence of his active service there in his record. He passed away in Plymouth in 1990 aged 75.
|