D-Day veteran, 100, 'overwhelmed' at Arnhem tribute

[natinnam]

No disrespect but that is a ‘honking’ thing to speculate
All major wars are usually over nothing and avoidable but still they happen
Do you not think Boer War veterans and their contemporaries believed that à new generation would step up..they did for WW1 and ditto WW2
It is the working class who provide the vast majority of the sacrifice in any conflict and have done so for centuries
To infer that the current generation lack courage, principles etc of those back in WW2 is a crock

Was just a thought, you think they would, I think it would be something in between. They would be initial numbers, but probably conscription would be needed, mainly as lifestyles and attitudes have changed, plus we don’t have to resources of an empire to call upon. Hope we never get to putting it the test.

 

[Lord Potts]

Doesnt detract from the fact of the demographics of those who signed up and served. Then as now it is the poor, young who do the hard yards regardless of the generation

I am not suggesting that it did. The point was that in 1900 the dreadful physical condition and health of the working class which was entirely due to poverty made large numbers of them unfit of military service. This caused such consternation within the British Government that it felt compelled to improve the the conditions of the mass of the population through a variety of social reforms so there would be enough working class males fit enough to be conscripted.

By early 1915 we can see that the the British authorities had completely turned the situation around with the introduction of some very basic welfare reforms (e.g Lloyd Georges' People's Budget of 1909).

I should have thought that this demonstrated the the lengths to which the British establishment will go to ensure that it is those from with the mass of the working class who are always available to fill the lower ranks of the services. The Boer War had come as a shock to them as those who were meant to fill thoes ranks weren't up to it.

 

[contrarian]

Most were conscripted?

Volunteering was the go up to WW1 and heavy pressure was put on young men to volunteer
There was a lot more reporting in WW1 ( eg Rupert Murdoch father was a renowned front line reporter ) and a lot of PTSD which resulted in a lot of reticence come WW2 and hence conscription
My dad was exempt for service due to working as a welder in shipyards but still volunteered in WW2 as did many more

 

[englishman abroad]

Most were conscripted?

Me dad was an apprentice coach builder and volunteered in 1942 aged 18
I had an uncle who had gone to London looking for work in 1940, the only way he get a rail ticket to get home to County Durham, was to join up, the army recruiter gave him a travel warrant to travel home and join the DLI

Regarding this thread, I have nothing but respect for Mr Walton and anyone else from that generation who joined up either as a volunteer or were conscripted

You might want to check out a flick from 1944; David Niven's "The Way Ahead" tells the story of a group of conscripts from the call up papers to seeing action in Tunisia