This week’s post comes during the Victory in Europe celebrations that are happening in the United Kingdom and some European countries. The anniversary falls on the 8th May 2025, commemorating 80 years since the end of the Second World War.
I have no personal connection to the war because I was born two years after the ending. I am sure it affected my childhood as my parents and older siblings got to grips with new ways of recovering and living their lives.
I don’t recall anyone in the family talking about the war and the impact it had. It is only in recent that my older sister has been telling me about being evacuated from Croydon to Wales with her sister and not enjoying the experience at all. Separation in childhood and lodging in someone else’s house miles away from your parents we know is an ultra stressful time. My father never told me about his role in the army and so I grew up not fully understanding what my family members did, those who served in the forces, that is.
During the past ten years I have been researching all sorts of records regarding the family members on all sides of my own and my wife’s family involvement in the war. So, this week I am retelling some of those stories to illustrate the courage and commitment to protecting the UK from invasion.
John McKie, MN
John, my father-in-law, never spoke about his past in the war in my company. Not that I even asked him. John became an apprentice marine engineer when he left school and worked in the ship building yards at Ardrossan, Ayrshire, where he and his family had lived all his life. I recall only one story of his time in the yards and that was in connection with the end of shift wash up at a communal tank of hot water. It was a hierarchal system with the apprentices being the last to wash. By the time that John got there, it was a tank of lukewarm, black oily froth.
John was conscripted at the outset of the Second World War, to the Tank Regiment. When the conscription officers discovered that he had completed his apprenticeship, they allowed him to remain with his shipping line because all British shipping was commandeered to become the Merchant Navy.
John served in the Merchant Navy for eight years. His service only ended after the 1948 Palestine conflict. He would have been serving as an engineer on ships that were taking coal and other essential war time materials to places where they were needed, and returning with whatever food and products that the home nations required.
John McKie, 1970’s (from the McKie family archive)
The Merchant Navy experienced a higher casualty rate than any of the other armed services during the war. The ships would travel in convoys protected by Royal Navy ships. This made easy pickings for enemy submarines that would be able to pick one or more of the convoys ships off. I cannot imagine a more dangerous and nerve-wracking occupation that that of John McKie, below decks for much of the time, ensuring the smooth operation of the engines and other equipment. The fact that he survived all his service seems like a lottery to me, and yet he never once discussed it in my company and his daughters cannot recall him talking about it. He was a remarkably modest man.
John was awarded medals for his service:
1939-45 Star
Atlantic Star
Burma Star
Italy Star
War Medal
Naval General Service Medal with Clasp: Palestine 1945-1948
The 1939 – 45 Star was awarded to all personnel serving abroad during the war. The Atlantic Star was awarded for all personnel serving in the Battle of the Atlantic. This would have included Merchant Navy personnel sailing on the Atlantic, North Russia Seas and South Atlantic. The Burma Star was awarded for those serving during the Battle of Burma which lasted from 1941 to 1945. This was the battle that British personnel defended against the Japanese invasion. The Italy Star was for those who served on land and on sea in the campaign in Italy during 1943 – 1945.
All recipients of the Stars also received the War Medal.
John then served in the Merchant Navy during the Israeli/Palestinian civil war until 1948 when the British Army withdrew after partition.
It is an extraordinary history of service during conflict, and I am pleased that I knew him for a short time in the last few years of his life.
Kenneth Ralph Carver, R.A.S.C.
I remember my Uncle Ken very well when I was a child. We seemed to have lost touch after about 1960. I remember a family reunion at my sister’s house in Godstone in the 1980’s, not long before he died. As with my own father, I never knew his past during the war. Recent research has now given me a small insight into his military career.
Uncle Ken had signed up, or had been conscripted to, the Royal Army Service Corps. As described, they serviced the army. Ken was a driver with the RASC and he would have been responsible for the delivery of everything that was needed to service those at the front of action during the war. That did not make him any less a combatant than his comrades.
Ken served in Africa and Italy during the war.
Ken Carver, in his Africa campaign kit. (From the author’s collection)
He received the Africa and Italy Stars for his service between 1939 and 1945. He had not received his medals when this photos was taken with his father (my grandfather) Clarence Carver.
Ken Carver, with his father. This was probably a studio photograph for the benefit of his family at the point of leaving for Africa. (From the author’s collection)
Ken also received the Defence medal which was awarded to military and civilians with responsible defence positions in the homeland during the war.
After the war he joined his father in the newly created London Transport. He was a bus driver and his father was an Inspector. When I started work in a Croydon office, I frequently saw him driving by and we would wave to one another.
G.H.Carver
My father, Bill Carver, was working as the manager of a branch of Thresher’s wine stores in South Croydon at the outbreak of war. He was the father of two children at this stage and he was conscripted into a company responsible for the searchlights on the Suffolk coastline. He found a cottage to rent there where my mother joined him. That was where one of my sisters was born.
Bill Carver . Probably a studio picture at the point of conscription. (From the author’s collection)
My father may not have seen active service but he served his country during the war in a role that was vital in defending London from the bombing raids.
After a long absence between the brothers, Bill and Ken were reunited at my sister’s house in Godstone, Surrey.
Ken and Bill Carver, 1980’s. (From the author’s collection)
Henry and Rosina Spillett
My cousin wrote a post about her grandfather, my great uncle Henry, and his wife, two weeks ago. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to repost a picture of them when they were Air Raid Wardens for the village of Oxted.
Henry and Rosina, Air Raid Wardens, Oxted, Surrey. (From the collection of Sue Toms).
There may be other family members whose past military records I know nothing of now. I’m sure that when I do discover them, there will always be an opportunity to write about them and remember them in the future.
I’ll not be having a street party or listening to Vera Lynn, but writing this short post gives me the satisfaction that these four men and one woman played an enormous part in defending us from a terrible invasion.
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