Armoured Reconnaissance

[43rdRecceReg]

We're wearing poppies again, and I'd just like to pay tribute to those who have gone before us, and for us. When I was a boy, evidence of WW2 was everywhere: doorsteps, and foundations, where streets had been; people with bits missing- hands, fingers, eyes, arms and legs...etc. Some from my Grandfather's war (WW1), some from my Dad's (WW2). Indeed, two of my junior school teachers had been wounded.One, a former spitfire pilot, had a glass eye. Another, the science teacher had three fingers missing. The wounds were weirdly fascinating to us kids, as was the war. The inner wounds, we never saw, but often felt the consequences of it. Grandfather refused to discuss the trenches. We know why now. Dad and his brothers had more of the derring-do, and a few yarns.For me ..there was rationing: real hunger. Anyway, my family fought in armoured/ panzer units in WW2, so here are photos of people who were much more resilient than I could ever be, and who would, no doubt, be bewildered, by the evolution of the culture they sought to defend. In fact, they would turn in the urn. Anyway, they were the spearhead of the British army, and with the 43rd Wessex division fought in France (Caen and Hill 112); Belgium; Holland (Arnhem); Reichswald Forest (Kleve, Germany) and Bremen.
My dad survived the war, only to be killed in a car crash in Largs, Scotland in 1991. Uncle George served from 1941-1946, and lived to be 86. He transferred his skills at aiming mortars to operating a theodolite in civvy street, surveying roads.