When I was a kid in San Diego in the 1950's the party talk I was privy to was always built around "so what did you do in the war?" Everybody had a multiple stories. My fav was the neighbor who flew Corsairs off a carrier in the Pacific. His motor quit one night about 300 feet off the deck. Crashed upside down in the dark, got run over by the carrier, & picked up by the rescue crew after he surfaced. Was back flying the next day. These stories of day by day living during the war were fascinating for an eight year old.

My late father was a Cromwell tank commander who went ashore June 6th.Wounded at the Falaise Gap, after recovering was sent to Berlin to round up Nazis at the end of the war.( He was born in Berlin ,and escaped from there to England in 1938 aged 16 )