Sharing copies of WWII Documents

View attachment 797

(sorry about the multiple posts, can only attach 5 at a time, if any passing mod would like to merge them, please do.)

Cheers,
Adam.

 

that's a great picture!! they look so happy!!

 

Dear Adam:

Thanks for share these documents. Are very curious!!

One method: Merge all the documents in a unique zip archive, then upload it.


Jan.

 

Tried that Jan, but the Zip upload kept failing.
Cheers anyway,
Adam.

 

Well here's a try at posting the D-Day Letter from General Eisenhower to the troops: View attachment 1082

 

Yeah - it worked....some more:

 

Bravo, Michelle!, you take good the lessons !.

And ¿"Monty"? is so very pretty


Jan.

 

More correspondence: Note in these and other posts the Lloyd, Gnr C.L. Cochrane is my father and Olive is my Mum.

 

I'm not even going to try the zip file, so I hope you don't mind my multiple posts! I have a few docs that will still have to go on my website. I hope to have it ready by tomorrow sometime.

 

This is the diary entry my mother made June 6 1944 - closed the diary is 2"w x 3"Tall, and the letter she wrote to my father after hearing about the invasion of Normandy. Dad had visited her "out of bounds" for a few hours between th 3rd & 4th, she notes that they rowed - probably because he was AWOL, but she has already noted her regret and written him on the 4th. To me it makes her hearing of the invasion and not knowing whether she will see him again, all the more poignant in reading her letter. The day he died in 1996, the letter was found sliced into the lining of Dad's Soldier's Service & Pay Book - which unknown to us - he kept in his bedside drawer. He kept it near him all his life, from the day he received it in 1944 and the next 52 years. Michelle

 

The only letter I've found from my Dad during WWII. Michelle

 

Thank you so much for sharing these very personal mementos with us! What a great letters!!

 

Michelle

Well done! and, as others have said, thanks for sharing these precious mementos with the rest of us on this site.

At the risk of teaching you how to suck eggs, may I make a suggestion ?

If you havn't already considered it, why not make a Blog specifically to contain all the images you have already scanned so that your family can have a permanent record of these fascinating documents.

If you look at:
Ron Goldstein's Army Album
this might give you some ideas as to how it could be laid out.

With all best wishes whatever you decide to do

Ron

 

Thanks Jeff and Scott. I thought some of you would appreciate the "relationship" aspect of the war. So often, when those of us in the next generation(s) analyse and look at the war, we forget the other levels of its impact on relationships. My friend's father was in the artillery in Italy and she remembers reading the letters and how the man who came back from there was so very different from the Daddy that went away in late 1939.

Thank you for sharing the link Ron. I have added it to my favourites and look forward to reading it through. The cards from the Middle East Forces were from Tom Nunn in 307 Arty Coy W/Shops RASC, he was apparently a long time friend of Mum's. I have letters from him on Military Alegraphs (?), but am not certain whetehr I have the right to share his correspondence, although none is intimate but indicates a censored degree of life in N.Africa.

I do have a website that I have not updated for some time, and will be adding these and other documents there - I just have to remind myself how I did it before!

The letter my Mum wrote Dad is the background of a War Bride exhibit on the new Queen Mary 2 (28ft wide & 8ft high). Someday I hope I will get to see it in person.

Michelle

 

IT's a longer answer than you are probably expecting ....

My Dad was 17 in the Militia (only child whose Mom died when he was 4) when war was declared by Canada on Sept 10, 1939. He lied and said his birthday was Dec 1922, not 1921, when he signed up into the Artillery. My mother was a Londoner who worked for the British "War Department" - a mystery still as to where and what exactly she always said lifetime secrecy oaths. Anyhow, her sweetheart was killed in the Battle of Britain. To my best estimates, they met between Aug 41 & Feb 42 when Dad's LAA battery was providing Anti-Aircraft protection at Gatwick & Redhill, and my Mum was convinced by her brother to attend a dance at the Lyceum Theatre. He proposed 6 weeks later (fast work for a guy whose only girlfriend sent him a Dear John letter before he left Canada!). Despite all the reasons not to, she said yes.

It took them until May 43 to get married, as first he had to confess being under 21 and they had to get his Dad's permission (he was working on the Alaska Highway) in addition to the military's. My Mum forgave him for turnign out to be nearly 4 months her junior. They were to marry spring 42, but Dad as a dispatch rider on a Norton was injured when a parachute bomb exploded where he and a steam roller were at the same intersection. It turned out to be a blessing - although he always had survivor guilt - as his battery was one of those decimated at Dieppe. He did fully recover, however following plastic surgery etc and learned to walk/run again. The Canadians didn't have men for replacements, so if you recovered you returned to your unit, which he did. Mum then had an emergency appendectomy prior to the next wedding date. Finally, they married.

Dad served in NW Europe with the 3LAA as a gunner, signaller, DNR, and then as bodyguard & driver to the Commander 2nd Division Royal Canadian Artillery. Following the war, Dad was demobbed back to Canada in Aug 45, and Mum followed with my brother (b late 44) on the Queen Mary in June of 46. She left an entire close-knit family to be on her own with Dad and eventually their children, as my Dad was the only child born of his generation on his Dad's side, and would not meet his Mother's family until he was about 65. He rejoined the military in Sep 46, joining the RCAF as an adminstrative Non-Com, and they lived in various places in Canada and Europe, where he was part of the 4thATAF....then became a civilian in Saskatchewan at his last posting in the early 60s.

I feel they were courageous, but I can't imagine what it was like for those who said goodbye to their husband in North America to then not see them for nearly 6 years, and in so many cases, never again.

Michelle

 

Thanks, Otto. I feel honoured that you pinned this thread. I look forward to seeing the documents that others are willing to share.

Michelle

 

Some more documents, perhaps not as significant, but still interesting.