tracking down granddad's ww2
Posted: 2014-11-22 05:08am
Inspired to do this by the recent Turing film and a memory of my grandad cracking Simple supetition ciphers in a few seconds.
This is what I've been told so far:
James Leonard Brown, known as Len left school at fourteen. at the start of the war he worked in Morgan's precision engineering in Wandsworth battersea.
He volunteered with the RAf and was trained in bicester and Blackpool. I know he was a radio guy because I remember him showing me how to write Morse in the shape of letters for easy parsing.
I think the first posting was to the orkney islands.
other postings followed to Egypt, Madagascar and Tanzania ( then tanganiki).
At some point he has the rank leading wireless operator.
He turns up again at the fall of Berlin, allegedly looting Hitler's study. He stays on as part of control commission (bcu). This is later moved to klausheider where he met and married my grandmother. At this point he had a driver, so must have had some rank.
They stayed in Germany for some years more, with one of my uncles born at the army camp in lingen in 1948 and another elsewhere in 1950.
Bit Of a story. Guess the next step is figure out his service number and try and find out if the cousins know anything.
This is what I've been told so far:
James Leonard Brown, known as Len left school at fourteen. at the start of the war he worked in Morgan's precision engineering in Wandsworth battersea.
He volunteered with the RAf and was trained in bicester and Blackpool. I know he was a radio guy because I remember him showing me how to write Morse in the shape of letters for easy parsing.
I think the first posting was to the orkney islands.
other postings followed to Egypt, Madagascar and Tanzania ( then tanganiki).
At some point he has the rank leading wireless operator.
He turns up again at the fall of Berlin, allegedly looting Hitler's study. He stays on as part of control commission (bcu). This is later moved to klausheider where he met and married my grandmother. At this point he had a driver, so must have had some rank.
They stayed in Germany for some years more, with one of my uncles born at the army camp in lingen in 1948 and another elsewhere in 1950.
Bit Of a story. Guess the next step is figure out his service number and try and find out if the cousins know anything.