Interview with Eddy Smythe. Two
Title
Interview with Eddy Smythe. Two
Description
Eddy Smythe reminisces about his father, John Henry Smythe, who was from Sierra Leone and served in Bomber Command during the Second World War. John flew as a navigator until his aircraft was shot down in November 1943. He became a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft 1 until 1945. After his release John went to London and trained as a barrister. Upon completion of his professional training, he returned to Freetown, Sierra Leone and set up a legal practice. He rose to be Sierra Leone’s Attorney General. One evening, he met the German Ambassador at a reception. They realised they were aircrew on opposing sides, and the Ambassador shot down an aircraft on the same date and time and in the same location that John’s aircraft had been shot down. This prompted the two men to hug each other and to note that the conditions of war meant that such aggressive acts were not personal. Eddy adds final remarks on the value of remembrance and reconciliation.
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Creator
Date
2017-08-02
Language
Type
Format
00:04:04 video recording
Conforms To
Publisher
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
PSmytheE1701
Collection
Citation
Heather Hughes, “Interview with Eddy Smythe. Two,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed January 27, 2023, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/8776.
Item Relations
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