About George Albert Yapp



















Webmaster my Apercu.

George Yapp was my father and was killed in action in the Korean war on the 20th of May 1951. I was only five years old. So I have no active  memory of him or what he was like. I only have one recollection of him and that is of him coming to visit me and crouching down with his arms open in his army uniform which I can still visualize in my old age. Georges wife was having an affair with another man whom she married after Georges death., He did not want her child, so I became a war orphan this is the story of what I have discovered about my father George.



Early Years


I would like to sit here at the desktop and write many pages about George, his life and his ambitions, what he was really like. But I can't. because I didn't know my dad as mentioned I do have one treasured memory etched in my mind as a very young boy that's all.  He died too soon.

What I do know is that he was working as  a dry cleaner in civvy street but I think he had various jobs, I get the impression that he was unsettled in his life and not too happy with his lot. He found himself as a young man in London E.17 immediately towards the end of the second world war. London was in a labyrinthine of demolition from the bombing in the blitz and was still being targeted with doodlebugs and rockets. There was rumour in the city that the contemplation and preparation for the long process of the regeneration could take many years after the war ended.

This is a story of a young man frustrated with his lot, his mother had died, and his father had recently remarried not too long after the death of his mother and he felt a little like a gooseberry in the new relationship. He wanted to get away from the position that he found himself in frustrated that basic commodities were in very short supply and times were hard.  I am told that he wanted to be out and away from it all and he was convinced that the way out for him was the army, he had a brother William already serving in the army who had served in the North African campaign and was currently serving in Italy. George was very much in awe of his older brother that he respected and loved dearly, and I am sure that his adventures were a driving force in his decision. so it was on the March 15th 1945 6 months before the war ended  George enlisted in the Army for 7 years with the colours and 5 years with the reserves, rather that await his call-up papers for conscription.

George 1945 in training Scotland