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Large numbers of casualties from one family were more common in the first world war, when men were encouraged for a few years to join with mates and relations, the Pals Battalions. Join up together, train together, go over the top together and very often die together. Overall one in twelve British and Commonwealth enlistees was killed. In the second it was lower , more like one in twenty, so with attempts to prevent family members serving in the same unit, it would have been quite rare to have multiple fatalities in a single family. My father and his 3 brothers and brothers in law served in many parts of the world without a scratch between them.

When the war ended, the German troops were desperate to travel to the west to surrender to the Allies. They knew that if they were captured by the Red Army their lives wouldn't be worth living.

That being the case, I've never understood why they continued to put up such a fight in the west. Collapse in Western Europe when it was obvious it was all over would have allowed us to get to Berlin first and to beat Stalin to the prize.

More people worldwide died in the influenza pandemic in 1919 than died in the war that had just finished. It would not have been uncommon for several members of a family living in close proximity to have died, sadly thinking they had been spared the worst.

Yes Magoo, quite a few people who were actually in the war (British and Aussies) have told me that, as an ordinary canon fodder soldier, you got treated far better by the Germans than the Japanese who seemed to enjoy cruelty as a sport.

Interesting how the Germans are made to appologise over and over again for what they did, while the Japanese are allowed to teach in their schools that they never mistreated anyone. I had an uncle who was a POW in Singapore under the Japs and was clinically insane ever after.

Go to the library and read a few books!