PQ17 Arctic Convoy Tonight 9.30 BBC2

[SootySport]

Watched this last week and is more interesting than the title suggests.

[John Williams (Panda) - Joint Manchester AO]

saw it on on iplayer... was worth a watch

[Rab (bombero) Reid]

+1 Great viewing of a little known arm of WWII and long overdue recognition .. those young men really suffered!

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Must try and catch this. My dad, briefly, did some of the Arctic Convoys, as a young radio operator in the merchant marine.

[SootySport]

Your dad was a lucky man then to have survived those conditions.   My Grandad was a Merchant seaman in the 1st. world war, landed the Aussies at Gallipoli under machine gun fire, made six trips in his row boat from the ship to the beach with a few Aussies each time

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

He was indeed. 

 

Sailed lots of different routes all round the world, over the course of the war. To this day I still use a old wooden hanger form some laundry service in Singapore for which ever is my favourite shirt at the time!

 

One of his favourite times, was when their convoy was a little too late attempting to leave the Hudson Bay in Canada one year; they got frozen in for months.

 

Dad did a few years on oilers. I was fifteen and his health was in real decline before he actually talked to me about those particular days.

[SootySport]

Like most of our fathers and grandfathers, the bad experiences of being involved in wars prevented them from telling us offspring of there careers. I didn't find out much from my grandad at all and now too late as I can't ask him now.  I suppose it's possible there are records of Merchant Seaman somewhere.

[pistonbroke]

I had an uncle who served with the Chindits

 

As a lad he used to take me fishing, he always seemed to be a really cheerful happy go lucky type but he never would talk about or even mention his experiences during WW2

 

I suppose they just wanted to forget all about the past and look forward , the memories of all those absent friends and the horrors of war must have been too terrible to bear thinking about .