Stories from our Families

MY WW2 Story

My great great granny used to speak to German soldiers who were being held in a prisoner of war camp in Brahan, near Dingwall. She became friends with one of the German soldiers called Herbert, who had the same name as her son (my great great uncle) . When the war ended she became pen pals with him. When she died her son Herbert wrote to tell him she had died. He continued writing to him and they even visited each other on holiday.

By Cian P4

Tom Polson’s Story – World War II

This is a story about my great-granny's brother (he was really her cousin but was brought up as her brother, but that’s another story). He was called Tom Polson and he was born and brought up in Helmsdale in Sutherland.
When war broke out he joined the Royal Air Force and did some training. The British Government was very keen to find out what the German Forces were up to. They wanted to spy on them and one of the ways to do that was to listen in to their radio messages.

Soon they found that the messages didn’t make sense and it was because the Germans were using code to hide what they were saying to each other. The British set up a special decoding unit of very clever people to try to break the codes based in Bletchley Park in England. In order to find people to help, they asked University Maths Departments to tell them who had been studying Maths before the war. Well, Tom Polson had been at Edinburgh University studying Maths so he was asked to an interview to see if he was suitable to help with the decoding.

They asked which school Tom had gone to and he said Helmsdale Public school which was it’s name at the time. Public schools are usually attended by people who are very rich so they thought that Tom was one of them. But actually he was from a very ordinary family in Helmsdale! Nevertheless, he was sent to Bletchley Park to learn all about decoding. He used a special machine that was developed there to break Germany’s secret code. It was very clever indeed and was able to unravel the most difficult codes so that the generals could read what was happening in Germany and so make better plans to fight the Germans.

When Tom was trained, he set off to decode for the famous general, General Montgomery. He went to Gibraltar, North Africa and Italy following the first line of attack, decoding important messages both from the Germans and the British. The Germans didn’t know at first that the British could read their messages so it was a great help to the war effort.

Tom remained decoding until after the end of the war when it was just British messages that he was reading. One day he was working on a message and he realised that it said that Tom Polson could be demobbed! That meant that at last he was allowed to go home.

My Great Grandad – Sonny Miller

My great grandad was born on 1st November 1913. When war broke out he joined the Royal Air Force and was in 201 Squadron. His first posting was Shetland, then Invergordon and next Ireland.

In 1943 he was sent to Palestine and finally Alexandria. He flew in Short Sunderland aeroplanes.
While he was in Egypt he was the captain of the R.A.F football team. He never talked about the war so we don’t really know what he did, other than play football.

By India P4

Gordon Gordon – World War II

Gordon Gordon was my great granny’s brother. He didn’t talk about the war until he was almost 80 years old. For his birthday, he wanted to go to Germany to see where his aeroplane had been shot down. So, in 2005 his family took him there.

Gordon was only 14 when war broke out but as soon as he could, he joined the Royal Air Force. He became a member of the crew of a bomber aircraft. The rest of the crew were Australian. One day they were scrambled to their plane quickly to go on a mission over Germany. Gordon was in the shower at the time so forgot to put on his dog tags (identification tags that everyone wore). The plane was soon over Germany but they met enemy fire and the plane was hit and started to fall. There was a strict order for bailing out of planes but the other crew insisted Gordon jump out first because he was the youngest. Gordon managed to put on his parachute and get out of the plane. His parachute opened and he glided to the ground, into a forest. He actually landed in a tree! He was the only one to get out of the plane alive.

He eventually managed to get himself out of the tree and hid in the forest for a couple of days until he was found by a German gamekeeper who had a gun. He was taken at gunpoint to the nearest village and put in jail. He was questioned and asked where he came from but he told them nothing, as he had been trained to do. Because he had no dog tags to say who he was, the Germans thought he was a spy! So, he was moved to another jail for more questioning. The German soldiers were very rough with Gordon, asking over and over who he was and where he came from. They took him out into the court yard and told him he would face a firing squad. The armed soldiers walked around him a few times but then he was taken back inside for more questioning. Eventually a nice German Officer questioned Gordon and this time he thought that if he told them he was Gordon Gordon from Helmsdale they wouldn’t know where that was anyway. So he told them his name and that he was from Helmsdale. There was a pause and the Officer said ‘Is the Bridge Hotel still there?’ It turns out that the Officer did indeed know Helmsdale as he had been there fishing with the German Ambassador before the war started and had stayed in the Bridge Hotel. He wanted to check that Gordon was really from Helmsdale so asked more questions to confirm it! They then realised that Gordon was not a spy so he was sent to a Prisoner-of-war camp where he stayed until the war was over when he was released and sent home.

Gordons story doesn't end there. On the trip to Germany in 2005, Gordon and his family visited the jail where he had been kept in the village next to the forest where he was shot down. When they arrived, they told someone in the street his story and it turned out that this person had heard of Gordon’s story and took him to visit a man who was a small boy at the time. This same little boy had been able to speak some English and had brought Gordon food and befriended him when he was in the jail! They were so pleased to meet each other again and Gordon was so glad to be able to say thank you after almost 60 years.

By Ava P7

World War 2 Stories

I spoke to my Great Auntie Fiona (mum’s auntie) about her side of the family during the war.

This is what she said:
Her Grandad, my Great Great Grandad, was killed during the war in St Valery, France in 1940. He was 32 at the time and left behind a wife and 4 children
He was a dispatch rider and hit a land mine
He was taken in and looked after by a French family but he died from his injuries.
None of the family knew what had happened to my Great Great Grandad until one day a French family visited his home near Brora and told his story to his family.

This makes me feel sad because someone in my family died in the war but it was nice that the French family took him in and looked after him.

I also spoke to my Nana (Great Granny) and asked her if she had any stories from World War 2, this is what she told me:

Nana was five when the war began
There were two Prisoner of War camps in Watten. One of them was where her house is.
She had to walk one mile to school with her best friend Netty
Nana and Netty would sometimes get lifts to school by the lorries taking the prisoners to work on the farms
They all had gas masks and had to test them at school every Thursday
Nana’s family would have picnics by the loch and paddle in the water. One day her sister Jenny got in trouble swimming in the loch and she was rescued by a German prisoner who was then freed for doing this.
The prisoners in the camps had concerts at the weekends and Nana’s mum would take her and her brothers and sisters to the concerts on a Sunday
None of Nana’s family had to go to war as all the men old enough were farmers
Nana remembers that there was bombing in Wick
Nana’s mum who would have been my Great Great Granny took some of the nicer prisoners in for tea and scones/pancakes. She also said that there were bad prisoners who had a spotlight kept on them
One Polish prisoner, Mr Jackson, came back to visit after the war for holidays
Nana’s mum’s neighbours didn’t think it was a good idea that she was taking the prisoners in for tea and she told them that “they are all someone’s bairns”.

It was nice listening to her stories and I feel happier because nobody died. It was nice to hear stories about the prisoners, some of them were very kind and saved my Nana’s sister.

By Emily P4