During the war Alec would serve in the Royal Tank regiment and see service first in the Palestine. By then he had in 1939 married local girl, Hazel Ellis, but was destined to spend little time with her until the end of the conflict. In 1942 he would be captured in North Africa, from there taken to spend three years in a German POW camp and on his return was so weak that it was thought his playing days were over. However, he recovered and, although now well into his thirties, he was a first team player until 1948, taking the field that day on the right of the attack inside a certain Stanley Matthews in losing the Cup Final.  Indeed, his boots were only officially hung up two years later, albeit by then he was mainly coaching. 

Alex Munro would try to remain in football by becoming a manager but it never happened for him. Instead he ran a Blackpool hotel and remained in the town until Hazel's death, aged just sixty, in 1978 and his own passing eight years later at seventy-four, to be cremated at the Lytham Park Cemetery by Lytham St. Annes.