In the run-up to Victory Day on May 9, when Russia commemorates 70 years since the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, staff members at The Moscow Times describe the wartime experiences of their own families.
Today, copy editor Sarah Crowther tells the story of her grandfather.
During the war, my grandfather George Arnott drove a tank transporter in the Italian Campaign. He was discharged on Jan. 15, 1946, two weeks shy of his 30th birthday. After he returned to Toronto he almost never drove again, only getting a license in his 50s to visit my grandmother in the hospital. My mother says that he seemed very nervous driving, though he didn't mind being in the car with someone else — and offering backseat guidance. After my grandmother died, the car sat in the driveway a long time. My mother borrowed it often, but her father never drove it again.
