Just a few generations back, most of our grandparents had to witness such death and carnage. Here are two British soldiers removing the corpse of an enemy soldier from his tank in North Africa 1942. To know that one must do this kind of thing to someone else or it may be done to you? To clear up the terrible carnage afterwards is something I would never want to do. I'm sure the soldiers in the photo never wanted to either. As kids we would ask the older generation if they killed anyone in the war. Some often said probably and did not want to dwell on such things. I worked in the GPO/Royal Mail from the late seventies into the early eighties. All the Postal workers from mid fifties to retirement age had lived through and took part in WWII. They came from all theaters of the war - land, sea, and air.
One old veteran that I knew in the Post Office, named Joe Lewis said he was in a Sherman tank. They were nicknamed 'Tommy Cookers' by the enemy. Joe said he witnessed soldiers in other Sherman tanks jumping out as human torches, while he was terrified that his tank would be next. Most soldiers on all sides were scarred by some of the horrendous things that happened around them.
An old seaman spoke of leaving a ship in Alexandria and being posted to another vessel. Then he heard the one that he left was sunk in battle. Many of his old mates were all gone.
My grandfather was in the docks of London and he told me he had to remove dead personnel from ships when they came into dock, plus the bombing of the docks during the Blitz and clearing up the carnage afterwards.
Of course this was going on all over the world and in many countries. Whole generations that witnessed such terror of the world at war.
