Neither of my Grandfahers fought in WWII.
On my father's side of the family my grandfather was declaired unfit for service, he didn't have a very healthy heart probably due to a very poor childhood (he almost died of malnutrition when he was 4 and had been pretty ill too). Anyway he worked in forestry as a foreman during the war; was in charge of some Italian POW's. He told them on the first day that if they wanted to try escape he wouldn't try to stop them, none of them did; they were all sick of the war and were just happy that they weren't being shelled or bombed anymore!
My mother's father was too old to fight so he served in the Home Guard instead. He was mostly involved in 'Fire Watching' i.e. keeping watch over important sites like factories incase they caught fire during air raids.
My Great Uncle (my dads mother's brother) was involved in the Norwegen campaign. The transport he was on was bombed and sunk and he spent a while freezing in a lifeboat which was washed up on a beach with many other survivors. He was then straffed and bombed by the Luftwaffe pretty heavily until finally another transport came to pick them up; which was then sunk by a U Boat; so back in the water he went. When he got back to Britain he was very traumatised (he was always highly strung and later suffered from manic depression) so he was transfered to light duties on base in the UK. Later he was discharged for medical reasons after he was involved in an accident.
Both my Great Grandfathers on my dads side fought in WWI one on the Western front and the Balkans and the other in Mesopotamia and the middle east. Both survived.
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