my father in law fought in WW11, he never talked about it, but was in the RAF and a radar technician, he ended up in Burma and nearly starved, thats about all I know, he never took his medals out of the postage box they were sent in, stuillsealed, he did not even look at them. I now own them, he did about 18 months service.
My own father was in RAF bomber command ending as Flt/Lft and survived five years, with only a broken ankle to contend with, but one horrendous bomber crash on take off, he was pilot and decided to ditch, with a full bomb load and full fuel load, one engine died at the critical point, it killed the whole crew except himself, he had to live with that for the next 50 years, when it was still deeply troubling him and even on his death bed he was questioining religion because of it, after 103 missions, peace was declared and many years later, he gave me his peaked cap (in those days genuine gold braid) and number 2 jacket, plus medals to play with, as a five year old, he was not at all concerned that I lost the medals one by one, and the cap and then (before it was too late) re-claimed the jacket which he used for about 20 years while tending the gardens and fruit and veg production. I have treid to get replacement medals from the RAF, but they are only replaced as genuine new and inscripted medals if they have been stolen, so I can only get "same type" from a medal dealer, which just oesnt seem right
CLEM
