Like many veterans returning from the war, especially like my grandfather who served in North Africa, Italy and Burma, information after the war was sparse. There were stories about an office who liked to carry a mortar on his hip, having to swap out the barrels of Sterling machine guns when they overheated, and collecting coffee cans to fill with paraffin to put your bed legs in to stop you being eaten alive in your sleep by bugs. Sadly nothing more concrete. So now that it is too late to ask my grandfather directly, I am looking to find out what I can about his service and what made him the man i knew. The first thing that gets me is I cannot see the gentle, quiet man I knew as a Warrant Officer - shouting and square bashing are the last things I imaging him doing - yet I have a photo of him in Africa(?) in uniform carrying a pace stick. I am writing this as a start to my journey to know more about my ancestor - the man after whom I named my son. WO2 Stanley Arkwright from Wigan. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi and welcome to the forum Tim, good luck with your research. Just a thought have you applied for his service records or do you already have them? David
Hi Tim & good luck with your research. As above - you really need those service records, it will be worth the wait. While you are waiting did your GF have a middle name / names? Also regarding the Sterling story - I would suggest more likely a Sten or even a Bren gun. The Sterling was only trialed late in the war and wasn't on general issue until the 1950s (apparently).
So the records have arrived! He served between April 1940 and June 1946 and spent 3 or so years in Africa with the 2/1 Kings African Rifles and the 12th Army. Then off to Ceylon for a few months then to India but oddly his record makes no mention of Burma - though apparently you could get the Burma Star if you served in India - "Bengal and Assam, east of the Brahmaputra and Dihang Rivers, from 1 January 1941 to 2 September 1945." I think the next point of research will be the Kings African Rifles then the 12th army. Any information about Signals with either outfit would be appreciated
just had a look at the patch on Granddads uniform can anyone help? - see https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/afterthemouse/20442928820/ is it me or might that be the 14th army patch? http://miliblog.co.uk/?cat=226
So, I have had a chat with family and there are a couple of more things that have come out; Stan came home with several extra languages, Swahili and Punjabi for a start. He also got his ticket home via operation Python thanks to a chat with Montgomery's aid - more on that later. He had Sikh NCOs who were running a similar system to the American Navaho wind talkers More later