The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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249112 Pte George William Chapple British Army 91st Field Bakery Royal Army Service Corps from:Blyth, Northumberland George Chapple was my grandfather, he was born 23rd February 1918, he was a master baker at Charlton’s Bakery in Blyth and was a keen footballer. George was married to Hannah Ainsley on 23rd of July 1939, he was planning to change his occupation and go down the pit as a miner but as this was a protected occupation he was advised it would look better if he joined up first. He enlisted on 23rd of January 1941 his trade is Baker class 1, Corps R.A.S.C No.9 training Btn (D). On 23rd May 1941 he was transferred to 38 Field Bakery (mobile). On 24th June 1942 he transferred to 72 Field Btn( mobile). He then transferred on 3rd November 1943 to 91st Field Bakery (mobile) and he embarked into the field on 14th of July 1944 with the 21st Army Group. He would have arrived in Normandy, France and traveled through Belgium and Germany. He embarked back to the UK on 10th July 1946. Testimonial on his papers states "An excellent baker, Reliable and trustworthy a first class man in every way". According to my mum he spoke little about the war, she remembers a few stories. He had a friend, a Welsh man, even though my grandad was only 5ft 3" himself he called him short. He couldn’t reach the pedals on the truck and had to have blocks put on them so he could drive, sadly one day on the road he hit a land mine and was blown up and killed instantly, my grandad was directly behind him and he said there were Germans all over. He turned his truck quickly off the road and across the field to get away. He smashed his head on the steering wheel and slit both of his eyebrows. Another occasion he said they were exhausted and fell asleep in a cemetery, in the morning when they woke up they were not alone and a group of German soldiers were also waking up. Luckily the Germans put up their hands and became prisoners of war, he said they were hungry and ready to give up. I am looking forward to finding out more about his time in the army. Karen Elizabeth Bateman Add to this record.  Related Content: Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.