Worlds Apart

The Second World War has brought many stories of heroism both on the active front and at home, but there are the harrowing tales of death and injury from enemy action and also the emotional hardships that many experienced due to deprivation and shortages. However my simple tale involves the circumstances of my birth as an example of the relationships formed during conflict and the ensuing results.
It is 1943 and on the outskirts of the little market town of Bridgend is Island Farm Camp, it is now part of the build up to the second front and is occupied by the US Army.
As with most garrisons there is inevitably an intergration with the local population and this is how my father met my mother.
As a result of this liaison mum found herself pregnant early in 1944 and shortly afterwards my father was shipped off to mainland Europe and the horrors of war.
Destiny has a sense of justice and it was not long into the summer that dad was involved in an action which earned him the Bronze Star but also got him quite severely wounded and the award of the Purple Heart. Having been shipped back to Wales for medical attention it was decided that he and mother would get married, and the ceremony took place in Swansea in November 1944. Several days later the authorities duly repatriated my father back to good old US of A.
On her own once again, mum eventually gave birth to a bouncing baby boy some 20 days later. My father was one of nine children, brought up in a log cabin 24 feet by 15 feet in the Adirondak mountians of upper New York
State, and my maternal grandparents did not consider this appropriate for their daughter so my parents never reunited. It was many years later in my life that this story came to light and through my interest in genealogy I was able to trace much information about my father's family who are descended from Dutch settlers of 1660. Thanks to the US authorities I am now the proud owner of all my dad's medals and awards. Nevertheless we were never to meet and he died in 1986. My mother who had gone into domestic service and left me to be brought up by my grandparents, has never wished to mention this part of her past, but I am happy to share just one more of the strange tales that emerged from the war years.

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