My military ancestors and why I support the Poppy
I thought I would write a fairly brief article in time for Remembrance Day, an event very close to my heart. In this article, I've told the tales of four of my military ancestors who fought in the World Wars - both my grandfathers and two of my great-grandfathers.
My mother's paternal grandfather, Harry Collingwood Mitton, was born in 1888 in Mungrisdale, Cumberland, England and was a Private in the 8th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry during the First World War. He fought in the Battle of The Somme, and like the hundreds of thousands of other soldiers, he was killed in action. I haven't yet found out the exact circumstances, but he was killed on the 29th September 1916 in Flanders (now part of France & Belgium) at the age of 28. He sadly has no known grave, and consequently, his name appears on the Memorial of The Missing in Thiepval, France. Harry left a wife and three children behind, including my grandfather, John Mitton.
Harry's name is also on the war memorial in Chopwell, County Durham (where he and his family lived), and on a plaque inside the church in the village. Annoyingly, both were mispelt as “Mitten”. His name is also inside the church in Ainstable, Cumberland, the village where his mother's family was from and where he lived for part of his childhood. There was a story that his aunt commissioned a stone mason to carve Harry's name onto the church wall, but he instead carved “Henry Mitton”. Although Harry did occassionally use this name, the aunt was apparently furious and refused to pay the stonemason because of the mistake.
My grandfather John Lawrence “Jack” Mitton was born in 1913 in Chopwell, County Durham, England and was a Lance Corporal in the Welsh Guards. Stationed at Sandown Park in Esher, Surrey, he fought in the Second World War and was captured as a prisoner of war in May 1940 at Boulogne during the Battle of France. He was held at the Stalag VIII-B POW camp in Lamsdorf in Germany (now Łambinowice in Poland) for 5 years. During the winter of 1945, he was made to walk nearly 400 miles in the “Lamsdorf Death March” before being liberated and making his way back home just in time to see his sister before she sadly died due to cancer. He then married my grandmother on the 27th December 1945. Jack died aged 83 in 1997, when I was unfortunately too young to find out more about his life and family history.
My mother's maternal grandfather, Frank Vickery Bradford, was born in 1898 in Thames Ditton, Surrey, England. He worked in the post office as a young man before serving as an Wireless Operator in the RAF during the First World War. I only found out he served in WW1 upon obtaining his service records, as I already knew he served in the Second World War. Like his future son-in-law, my great-grandfather was also a prisoner of war for over 5 years. He was held at Stalag Luft III in Sagan in Germany (now Żagań, Poland), the same POW camp where the Great Escape took place. Frank was there at the time of the escape, but he wasn't directly involved as an escapee, as only 3 prisoners managed to escape alive. He was likely to have been affected by it though, as lots of prisoners were. Frank “wasn't the same man” when he came back, and died aged 62 in 1960.
My paternal grandfather also served in the Second World War. Thomas McMahon was born in 1913 in Miltown Malbay, County Clare, Ireland, and from what I have been told, that as an Irishman, he wasn't allowed to serve for the English Army so instead joined the Scottish Army, eventually becoming a Corporal in the Seaforth Highlanders. I am in the process of obtaining my grandfather's service records but I know from other family members that he served in both India and Burma. I have been told stories that at one point, a grenade landed in his unit's trench, and Thomas got up and threw it away, only for it to blow up just as he let go, consequently blowing apart several of his fingers that he later had wired back together. Another story tells how in Burma, he was made to queue up to be executed by Japanese soldiers, and with only a few men away from his turn, US pilots flew over just in time to scare off the Japanese.
The men I have talked about above are the reason I support wearing the poppy (or in my case, a poppy wristband). They are all very sad tales, especially of my great-grandfather who was killed at such a young age, but they make me proud to be descended from them, as well as interesting to research.
