VE Day and family history

So VE came and went yesterday depsite the Lockdown and a ban on street parties.  Some of the neighbours nearby had half-hearted attempts to organise socially distant singalongs and at least one  road had a very not socially distant evening dance in the street.  We didn't join in... I find the enforced celebration a bit much: the local Facebook page was alive with complaining about people not joining in but I don't think we were named and shamed!

Like a lot of people the focus on the end of the war made me think about family members who took part in various ways...

My parents were both children during the war... born in '34 and '35 but both had very vivid memories of air raids in Glasgow

My Grampa (on my mum's side) would have been in his 30s when war broke out.  He was a steelworker so was in a reserved occupation but served in the Home Guard, patrolling the main railway line out of Glasgow to London

My Uncle Archie had landed on D Day with the Black Watch and promptly been shot in the neck by a sniper, survived this and eventually rejoining and ending the war in Palestine.

My wife's Grandfather was in the Navy on various ships.  The only one we of for sure is HMS Fowey, a sloop which served on convoy protection.  He was also on at least a couple of Arctic Convoys

HMS Fowey

Neither of these men, like so many,  ever talked much about their experiences in the war

My Grandad (on my Dad's side) was a career soldier who had joined up pre-war and ended up serving through to the 50s.  We recently discovered that his older brother managed to pull off the very sensible trick of joining up not long after WW1 ended and leaving the army a year or 2 before the outbreak of WW2.. perfect timing!

He was in North Africa (at El Alamein) and after various postings  in the Middle East, at the end of the war made it to Berlin.   This is a picture of him in action... RSM Alex McNicol

Among family papers I found various snaps that he'd taken in post-war Berlin.  

The first one is interesting as it shows a Mk V tank from WW1.  Doing a bit of digging on this it seems that there were 2 of these which had originally fought in the Russian Civil War.  Looking at the markings I think this is tank #9146... this had originally fought in France, was damaged and then repaired and shipped off to help the Whites in the RCW.  It was captured by the Red Army in South Russia and ended up as a monument in Smolensk.  When the Germans captured Smolensk in WW2 it was sent back to Berlin as a trophy.

There seems to be some speculation online that these might have been pressed into service in the Battle for Berlin in 1945 but there doesn't seem to be any evidence for this and it sounds a bit far fetched.  Makes for a nice tourist photo though...

The other photos show a pretty bleak looking Berlin and some kind of sports event, I guess at the Olympic Stadium

After the war my Grandad signed back up and was posted to various places in the Middle East and Africa.  He seems to have one assignment looking after Emperor Haile Selassie's polo ponies but less glamorously was serving in Kenya at the time of the Mau Mau uprising... not the British Armies finest hour.  He eventually left the army and joined the Corps of Commissionaires until his retirement