Browse Items (273 total)
- Tags: shelter
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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 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…
Tags: bombing; civil defence; evacuation; home front; Home Guard; shelter
Interview with Marco Pederielli
Marco Pederielli describes his father’s career as a Regia Aeronautica officer, providing details of his service in North Africa. Describes his personal situation after the fall of the Fascist regime, when he reluctantly joined the Aeronautica…
Interview with Livio Ponte
Livio Ponte remembers his wartime life in Monfalcone. He describes the frightening moments when the alarm sounded, usually at night and people rushed to the shelters for safety. He mentions different attitudes: his parents going to a shelter whereas…
Tags: bombing; childhood in wartime; civil defence; evacuation; fear; home front; Pippo; shelter; shot down
Interview with Liliana Kucic Podda
Liliana Kucic Podda recalls her early years in Fiume, stressing a serene childhood playing with her friends. Reminisces a severe bombing that hit the Whitehead torpedo factory and the ROMSA refinery - the latter burning for days - and mentions the…
Tags: bombing; childhood in wartime; fear; home front; shelter; target indicator
Interview with Leontina Giovanetti
Leontina Giovanetti (b. 1913) reminisces about her early life with three sisters, her father who was a typographer and photographer and her mother a house-wife. Describes musical training at the Milan conservatory, stressing the demanding attitude of…
Interview with Laurie Richardson
Laurie lived at 31 Buckingham Street, Hull, before being bombed. Laurie, then nearly three, and his mother went to stay with distant relatives at Talbot Farm, Bassingham Fen. There were a lot of Land Girls working at the farms in the area.…
Interview with Kenneth Lindley
Kenneth Lindley was born in Hillsborough, Sheffield in 1926. Before joining the RAF Kenneth was an engineer’s apprentice, and often helped the Air Raid Warden by acting as a messenger. He reminisces joining the Air Training Corps as a teenager.…
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 Joyce Victoria Clayton
Joyce Clayton was born in Lincoln and served with the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, where she was first assigned to barrage balloons before becoming an equipment officer at various stations. Whilst based at RAF Sutton-on-Hull she witnessed the bombing…
Interview with Joy Joy. One
Joy Joy was evacuated from Hull at the start of the war. She returned home for Christmas. She was again evacuated as the bombings began. She took responsibility for her younger sister although she was only six years old herself and she says that from…
Interview with Joy Colbeck
Joy Colbeck was born in Maidstone, Kent and served within the Women’s Royal Naval Service during the war. Her brother, John, joined the RAF on the 28 of April 1943, qualified at as an air gunner in April 1944, before being transferred to an…
Interview with Joan Rosemary Macklin
Joan’s maiden name was Fellows. She speaks of her school days up to leaving at 16 and a half when she took up an apprenticeship with a dressmaking shop in Hastings. When war was declared the dressmaking business suffered, so she went to Islington…
Tags: bombing; home front; love and romance; prisoner of war; shelter; the long march; V-1; V-weapon
Interview with Joan Raettig
Joan Raettig (nee McGuire) was born in Hull and at the age of fourteen was evacuated to Scarborough, the day before war broke out. She experienced the bombing of Hull and spent nearly two years sleeping in an air raid shelter because they were fed…
Tags: bombing; civil defence; evacuation; home front; love and romance; shelter
Interview with Jack and Jean Howes
Jack Howes was born in 1933 in Nottingham. His father was a machine engineer and by the start of the war they were living in Lincoln where he worked for Ruston-Bucyrus. His father was then transferred to Grantham where he lived during the week. His…
Tags: bombing; childhood in wartime; home front; shelter
Interview with Jörg Funfoff
Jörg Funfoff (b. 1942) recounts the experience of being a young boy at Heiligensee, a Berlin suburb; on the flying path of approaching bombers. Narrates how he was the first to hear the bombers approaching before they are in sight (a fact he was…
Interview with Itala Coriddi
Itala Coriddi (b. 1928) recalls wartime hardships in the Rome countryside where she lived in a straw hut. Mentions a railway tunnel used as shelter, describes the Anzio landing and recalls looking for shell cases to be used for hiding food. Remembers…
Interview with Ingrid Dennull
Ingrid Dennull reminisces about her wartime experiences in Berlin and then as an evacuee and teacher in East Prussia. She recounts various episodes related to the Dresden attack and its aftermath: seeing from a distance the target indicators, dubbed…
Interview with Inge Nicolis
Inge Nicolis, the daughter of a Swedish engineer and an Italian woman, reminisces about her wartime experiences in Milan. She stresses the sense of having been thrown into a tragedy and the anguish of not being able to evacuate Milan on the grounds…
Interview with Hubert Draegert
Hubert Draegert remembers his wartime experiences, first in Berlin and then as an evacuee at his uncle’s farm near Wroclaw. He mentions the bombing of the Berlin State Opera and the repeated efforts made to rebuild the gutted building. He remembers…
Interview with Helmut Köhler
Helmut Köhler (b. 1928) recalls his wartime experience as Luftwaffenhelfer. He provides a first-hand account of two attacks on Kassel, the first on the 22 October 1943 and the second in March 1944. He describes his time spent inside the air-raid…
Interview with Helga Cent-Velden
Helga Cent-Velden (b. 1926) recounts her life in Berlin under constant threat of bombing. Describes how her father tried to locate a suitable air raid shelter for the family and especially how he ruled out the Shell House because of a canal running…
Tags: animal; bombing; civil defence; home front; shelter
Interview with Heather Hindley
Heather Hindley was a young girl living in Nottingham and attending private school when war was declared. She discusses air raids, sleeping in her grandparents’ shelter and rationing. She talks about the experience of moving to the countryside at…
Tags: bombing; childhood in wartime; evacuation; home front; shelter
Interview with Hans-Walter Bendzko
Hans-Walter Bendzko reminisces about his wartime experiences as a young boy in Berlin, before being evacuated. Describes his time at Wannsee, being properly looked after while surviving one of the Berlin bombings. Mentions incendiaries falling into a…
Interview with Gwendoline Thickett
Gwendoline Thickett grew up in Rotherham and was a young girl at school when the Second World War began. She was in Sunday School at her local church when the news of the declaration of war was announced. Her parents had already begun to prepare for…
Tags: bombing; childhood in wartime; home front; shelter