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- Contributor is exactly "Sue Smith"
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Henry Wagner's life story. Part two
Hand written by Henry, Part 2 picks up his story, post war teaching at a grammar school near Wokingham, married, two children and having just bought their house. He continues to cover his life in great detail through into retirement, the last entry…
Herbert O'Hara diary and account of Atlantic crossing in 1941
Lambeth notebook with daily diary covering 25 to 30 June 1941 during journey from Iceland towards Canada on HMS Ranpura. Followed by account crossing from Greenock, Scotland to Iceland on ship Royal Ulsterman, stopover in Iceland, journey on HMS…
Heroes of the Air War (No. 39) Captain Swales
A newspaper cutting with cartoons of Captain Swales, German fighters, Lancasters under attack and airmen baling out. It is annotated 7hs 40 Trip No 33.
Homberg, Edward King's 27th op of his tour
A brief description of the op to a synthetic oil plant, reports being attacked by Me 109 and two Ju 88's, his navigation plot, a print of what the H2S return of the target should look like and a page, partly newspaper cuttings and partly a report of…
I saved my baby from the Nazis
Newspaper page from Daily Sketch with account of a father who went to Normandy in France to rescue his wife and one year old son. Describes bombing of Le Havre and German advance. Goes on to mention aircraft machine gunning refugee columns.
Images of the years of occupation Boxtel 1940-1944
Details effect of bombing war on the Netherlands. While many overflights on the way to Germany some Netherlands targets were hit. This included the Phiips factory in Eindhoven. Includes account of events in Boxtel while the Eindhoven attack in…
Interpretation Report, Le Havre, provisional statement of damage
Describes damage to E-boat pens mentioning some direct hits and definite damage to north-west corner. Mentions other hits and heavy damage to small craft, a floating dock, jetties and basins. Limited damage outside dock area.
Interview with Albert Smith
Albert was born in Aberdeenshire. Before the war he worked as an apprentice in an engineering firm. In 1943 he volunteered for the Royal Air Force, trained at London, Bridlington and Newquay before going for mechanical and engineering training. …
Interview with Alfred James Walker
Alfred lived near RAF Upwood when he was a young child. Alfred’s father was in the army and worked on the Burmese railway. Alfred remembered aircraft going over his grandmother’s house and landing on the runway nearby. One morning an aircraft…
Interview with Andrew Barron. One
Andrew was born in Chichester in 1923. The family moved to Wolverhampton when he was about two years old and then to Dulwich just before the war. When he was 13 or 14 his mother enrolled him at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, where he spent…
Interview with Andrew Barron. Three
Andrew said that during leisure time the crew drank, sang silly songs but didn’t really socialise much. He recalled an occasion when the Germans sent in about 200 night fighters infiltrating the main force on its ways home. They shot down a B-17…
Interview with Andrew Barron. Two
Andrew hitchhiked from Edmonton to Calgary and then on to Mountain View by train. Gunnery training was in a Bolingbroke which had a mid-upper turret; bombing training was done in an Anson. Andrew was then posted to navigation school in Quebec for…
Interview with Archie Weir
Archie was born in Ayreshire. He was about 17 when he joined, then went to South Africa to train as a bomb aimer. In February 1943 Archie worked on Halifax Mk 2 before being transferred to Lancaster finishing school at RAF Syerston. In November…
Interview with Bessie Thomas
Bessie Thomas left school at the age of fourteen and worked at the Consett Iron Company working as a typist. At the age of eighteen at the time of Dunkirk she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force where she wanted to be a radio operator but there…
Interview with Bettie Bain
Bettie was born in Wakefield. The family moved to Doncaster when she was eleven and at 21 she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service. While in Doncaster she helped at the YMCA café as part of the war effort and that is where she met and married…
Interview with Betty May Pearson
Her brother-in-law William Mollison Walton, after training to be a pilot in Canada, was based at RAF Swinderby with 97 Squadron. In 1944 his aircraft was attacked and he baled out. He spent two days on a small island where he buried his parachute,…
Interview with Betty Repton
Betty (nee Jackson) worked in a library in Macclesfield before the war. When the war broke out, she went to Manchester to volunteer for the Air Force and trained as a telephonist. She did a course at Sheffield General Post Office before being…
Interview with Bill Leckie. One
Bill would spend his school holidays with his grandmother in Scotland. He went to St Edward Island in Canada to do a reconnaissance course, after which he went to Harrogate to await posting. He did another course on Chipmunks before being posted to…
Interview with Dennis Brett
Dennis was born in 1924 and joined the Royal Air Force in November 1942. He trained as a flight mechanic airframe at RAF Locking and was responsible for the whole of the aircraft, apart from the engines and the guns. Dennis explained the emergency…
Interview with Dennis Swains
In 1936, Dennis went to Dr Challoner’s Grammar School in Amersham, where an Air Training Corps was formed. At seventeen, he got a job with the North British and Mercantile Insurance company. He visited Halton with the Air Training Corps each…
Interview with Don Sutherland. One
Don’s father was a Scot and his mother came from the west coast of England. They moved to Coventry, where Don was born. When he was eight, they moved to Newcastle-on-Tyne where his father worked in armaments. Don left school at 15 and half and…
Interview with Don Sutherland. Two
Don was brought up in Newcastle, where he worked for a number of years. He attended a meeting a year before the war began, about alternatives to war and that war didn’t have to be accepted as inevitable. Don joined a community which organised…
Interview with Donald Raymond Harris
Donald was born in Acton, London. He stayed at school until he was fourteen and then worked as a tea boy/general help for O. C. Summers, a firm that laid gas mains in Slough. When that job ended, he worked for another ganger in Shepherds Bush. …
Interview with Eddie Edmunds
Eddie Edmunds was born in Walthamstow and was educated at a grammar school, then joined an oil company. He eventually moved to the Electric Supply Company and became an accountant. Eddie had always wanted to fly so he initially joined the reserve and…
Interview with Edgar Meredith
Edgar Meredith applied to join the RAF when he was eighteen years of age, and was interviewed in London and trained as an air gunner. During training he flew on Whitley aircraft and felt those training days were more dangerous than actual operations.…