大象传媒

My family has a military and associated blacksmith background (Great Grandfather). My Grandfather started the tradition by joining the Royal Navy in 1880 and he served on the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert. My other Grandfather on the female side was in the HMS Kent in the WW1 engagement with the German fleet at the Falkland Isles. Father was a professional soldier joining as a boy in the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) and served on the Somme WW1 gaining an MM as a Bombardier. He then served in Eygpt, India NW Frontier to 1929 and was RSM at Woolwich (Royal Regiment of Artillery). Commissioned 1938 as QM of 6th HAA Regt. at Deepcut where I lived with him at West Frith Lodge. He was with the BEF in WW2 and returned from Dunkirk where he was awarded an MBE for services with the wounded. He later served in Far East and was a POW in Japan at Fukuoka Camp No.1(located on Kyushu island at Kashii, Mushiroda airfield and Hakozaki known as Pine tree camp). I served with the RAF during the 1950s and have spent most of my life in the defence industry in a professional support role. Great Uncle was the last of the family of blacksmiths being a boilermaker in Glasgow to about 1879 where he was recruited by the Japanese Imperial Navy as a marine engineer also working on their early railways and died in 1917 in Yokohama where he is buried and where his grandchildren still live.