Browse Items (389 total)
- Temporal Coverage is exactly "1940"
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Interview with Rita Chapman
Rita Chapman lived in London during the Blitz. She witnessed the sight of the burning docks from her garden. Her family sheltered in their Anderson shelter but twice got buried and had to be dug out. The rescue crews asked them to keep singing until…
Interview with Alan Coburn
Alan Coburn’s father was killed in the First World War when he was one year old and his brother was not yet born. He attended a prep school in London and then Rugby before gaining a degree at Oxford University. The insurance brokerage associated…
Interview with Thea Coleman
Thea Coleman was born in 1933 in Holland. She experienced the invasion of her country and the increasing restrictions. When walking once with her father they were forced to stand and wait while prisoners were brought out of prison and executed while…
Interview with Bernard Walter Culpin
Bob Culpin worked for the civil service before joining the RAF in 1941. He was posted to Alabama for pilot training but was remustered and instead, completed a navigation course in Miami. When he returned to Great Britain, Culpin formed a…
Interview with Ronald Davies
In spring 1940, Ronald Davies joined the RAF to train as a pilot. Following initial training, he was posted to America but was dismissed after crashing a Cessna. Following Pearl Harbour, he trained as a navigator in Port Albert, Canada, but upon…
Interview with Ronald Davis
Ronald Davis grew up in the East End and worked in London as a solicitor’s office boy. He joined the RAF and trained as a fitter airframe. He was saddened when the pilot of the aircraft he services did not return from operation because they had got…
Interview with Margaret Helen Day
As her father was in the Royal Navy, Margaret attended school in Gibraltar, Portsmouth, and (after her mother’s death) Malta, before returning to Gosport in the UK when she was eleven. In 1939, she was fifteen and working for a company making soft…
Interview with Frank Dell
Frank Dell’s father was a member of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War and so it was perhaps inevitable that Frank would share the fascination with aviation and a desire to fly. As a teenager Frank witnessed the aerial battles of the…
Interview with Philip Freeman
Philip Freeman was a young child in Gainsborough during the Second World War. His brother Desmond left Gainsborough to work for Lord Londonderry in London. From there he volunteered for the RAF and trained as a pilot. He was a fighter pilot but was…
Interview with Margaret Givens
Margaret Givens grew up in Coventry and witnessed the bombing of the city. She and other children sat on the bricks of the destroyed cathedral to attend a service. Her house was bombed and while she and her brother was staying with her grandmother…
Interview with Raymond George Goss
Raymond Goss lived on the family farm at Westcott before, during and after the construction and occupation of RAF Westcott as 11 Operational Training Unit. One evening a Lancaster collided with a Wellington on the field and both exploded. The Goss…
Interview with Harry Basil Grant
Harry Grant grew up in Kent but when his sister was widowed after her husband died at Dunkirk he went to Nottingham to be company for her in her grief. While there he took a job in the Post Office. When he was of age he volunteered for the RAF and…
Douglas Hudson's navigator course log book
Flying note book for number 130, B squad, course A2, covering the period from 17 November 1939 to 2 February 1940. Detailing his training as a navigator. He was stationed at Prestwick. Aircraft flown were, Fokker F22, F36 and Anson.
Supplementary train ticket North Africa
Train ticket in French dated sometime in 1940. Destination, tarif and class are handwritten and indecipherable. Explanatory note from donor included.
James Douglas Hudson missing
Newspaper cuttings announcing that James Douglas Hudson is missing
Interview with Henry Harris
Please note: The veracity of this interview has been called into question. We advise that corroborative research is undertaken to establish the accuracy of some of the details mentioned and events witnessed.
Interview with Harry Harris
Harry ‘Sam’ Harris grew up in Scotland and volunteered for the Air Force. He trained as a navigator in South Africa. On the penultimate day of his training he flew over a multitude of lifeboats bearing the survivors of a torpedoed ship. The next…
Interview with Eric Haynes
Eric Haynes and his friends volunteered for the RAF together days after the declaration of war. He wanted to enlist as a photographer but was encouraged instead towards the role of RAF police. Later he saw a notice inviting recruits to remuster to…
Interview with Ken Hayton
Ken Hayton’s father, George Stanley Hayton (Stan), worked worked for Lloyds Bank. In 1940 Stan left his post to join the Royal Air Force; Ken recalled going to Durham station to see his father off, travelling to start basic training at RAF Padgate.…
Interview with Johanna Heslam
Johanna Heslam was a young child when Holland was occupied. The family had to move on several occasions because their area was being used for military purposes. Johanna experienced increasing loss as shortages began of clothing and then food. Even…
Interview with George Hextell
George Hextell joined the RAF as a flight engineer and flew operations with 51 Squadron on Halifaxes. After being shot down over Holland, he became a prisoner of war. Gives a detailed account of how his capture, imprisonment and liberation. Describes…
Interview with Pauline Holloway
Pauline Holloway grew up in Harrow and turned eighteen one month before the end of the Second World War. She recollects listening to Churchill’s speeches on the radio, sheltering during air attacks in a purpose-built extension to her house, and…
Interview with Janet Hughes, One
Janet Hughes’ father, Reginald Charles Wilson, volunteered for the RAF in August 1941. In January 1942, he was posted to America under the Arnold training scheme and was later re-mustered to train as a navigator in Canada. After forming a crew at…
Interview with Harry Hughes
Harry Hughes volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1940 and trained in America, where he was washed out as a pilot and then retrained as a navigator in Canada, flying Ansons and Wellingtons. In 1942, he converted to Halifaxes and flew operations…
Interview with Andrzej Jeziorski
Andrzej Jeziorski was born in Poland and, when war broke out, fled to Britain, where he flew as a pilot with 304 Squadron. Remembers the 1st of September 1939. Talks about his father, a Navy officer who served in the First World War. Mentions his…