大象传媒

I was born in Glasgow in 1968 and like many boys in the 1970's was fed a diet of war films on TV like the Great Escape, The Dambusters and 633 Squadron. I knew my grandad had been in the army but I liked the RAF, he told me that his two younger brothers had been killed in the war and I was fascinated about this. My grandad died in 1976 so I didn't learn much more until the last few years when I bought a pc and started using the internet. I visited the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site and traced the brother's details.They had both been killed within 2 weeks of each other! Bernard on 29.1.43 and James 13.2.43,armed with their service number,rank etc I started my research which has lasted over three years, Bernard was a Navigator and his Wellington Bomber was lost attacking the U-Boat base at Lorient,France and James was the Pilot of a Lancaster Bomber which crashed on return to base after attacking the same target, all on board both aircraft died. My family told me two stories firstly they were told Bernard survived the crash but died of his injuries at the scene despite treatment from a German medic, the second story was that James' Lancaster was damaged and some of his crew wounded, he could have bailed out but tried to land his plane at nearer airfields and was refused, the plane carried on but crashed while circling to land, sadly none of these stories can be verified from copies of various reports that I have collected from Ministry of Defence records that are available.
One thing I did manage was contact with some people in France who are interested in similar research, they had a story printed in the local papers about the brothers and sent me pictures of Bernard's grave in the War Cemetery in Guidel, near Lorient.
Why have I titled the story 'a price too high'?
Well this is about the human cost of war, you see just before the brothers died my mum was born, she was the first grandchild for the Martin family who lived in Knightswood, Glasgow, and the family where delighted. Tragically Bernard was reported missing and then the family received a telegram the day of my mum's christening, expecting news on Bernard they were told James was killed in action, in July 1943 my great gran's young brother was killed in the landings at Sicily.
So she had gone from celebrating her first grandchild to losing two sons and a brother within 6 months, her nephew was also a POW for 4 years after being shot down over Holland in 1941.God only knows how she managed to deal with such grief and pain.
The next time you watch the film 'Saving Private Ryan' remember things like this really did happen to ordinary peoplem, my story pays testimony to that.

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