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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…
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 Benito Colonna
Benito Colonna reminisces about the bombings of Rimini and other wartime experiences. Benito was with his mother when he witnessed the 1 November 1943 bombing: he saw aircraft approaching and bombing the town, concentrating the attack on the railway…
Interview with Gavino Pala
Gavino Pala reminisces about his childhood in Sardinia, describing schooling and paramilitary training. Recollects the 17 May 1943 Alghero bombing, explaining how part of the population had left the city the day before and slept among olive trees,…
Interview with Kenneth Angus
Kenneth Angus lived in Hull, and was 12 when war was declared. He discusses life on a farm after being evacuated, the bombing of Hull and his brother Harry Angus, who was killed flying as a wireless operator / air gunner with 44 Squadron from RAF…
Interview with Royston Clarke and Diane Clarke
Warrant Officer Robert Royston Clarke joined the Royal Air Force in 1940 and flew in Lancasters.
He joined Bomber Command after seeing the bombing of Coventry.
Robert tells about bailing out and being manhandled by the local inhabitants before…
He joined Bomber Command after seeing the bombing of Coventry.
Robert tells about bailing out and being manhandled by the local inhabitants before…
Interview with Roy Eric Davidson
Roy was born in Lincoln in 1933 and was six years old when war broke out.
He left school at the age of 15 and went to work for Lincoln City Council in the Pension department and was called up for National Service in 1951, doing basic training at RAF…
He left school at the age of 15 and went to work for Lincoln City Council in the Pension department and was called up for National Service in 1951, doing basic training at RAF…
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…
Interview with Rosemary Lapham
Rosemary Lapham is the daughter of Roy Chadwick CBE, the designer of the Manchester and Lancaster aircraft. She tells her father’s story. Her father was born in 1893 and when he left school at the age of fourteen he became a draughtsman at…
Interview with Mary Stuart
Mary Stuart, nee Atkins, was the youngest of nine children who, during the Second World War, lived on the island of Malta. She tells of her love of aviation and how she spent time on the roof of her house when Spitfires flew over. Mary recollects…
Interview with Sybil Green
Sybil was born in Bracebridge near Lincoln, she went to Bracebridge School then left at fourteen to work first at a Co-op store and then at and electric shop. Sybil talks about civilian life in wartime, her family working at Foster Quinns, fire…
Interview with Helga Wynne
Helga Wynne was born into a family of twelve in 1926 in Kiel, Germany. She describes her childhood and her father working as a shipbuilder in the dockyards. She left school at 14 and went to work on a farm. She fell through the hayloft opening,…
Interview with Stuart Stephenson MBE
Stuart was five when war broke out and recounts some of his early memories.
In the early 1970s the Lancaster PA474 was flown to RAF Waddington from RAF Henlow ostensibly to be a gate guardian. In 1973 the Lincolnshire Echo announced that it was to…
In the early 1970s the Lancaster PA474 was flown to RAF Waddington from RAF Henlow ostensibly to be a gate guardian. In 1973 the Lincolnshire Echo announced that it was to…
Interview with Roy Monk
Roy Monk remembers days spent in the air raid shelters as a schoolboy during the war. After the war he wanted to be a policeman before he was called to National Service. After training to be a mechanic he was posted to RAF Upwood. Then he was posted…
Interview with Thomas Peter Payne. One
Thomas was born in Hemel Hempstead in 1925, one of four children and lived in a row of terraced houses with very basic sanitation. The end property was a public house with no gas or electricity, with only paraffin lamps and candles. His first…
Interview with Barry Smith
Barry passed the RAF’s apprentice entrance examination in February 1945, aged 15, and went to RAF Halton to become an electrician. He discusses the three training which resulted in the First Ordinary National Certificate.
In 1948, Barry was…
In 1948, Barry was…
Interview with Jutta Petenati
Jutta Petenati recollects her wartime life in Berlin while she was a young girl. She recounts various episodes: the black market; removing incendiary bombs from her house; seeking shelter in an underground train station instead of her house basement,…
Interview with Harold Harvey
Harold Harvey was a child in Washingborough during the Second World War. He witnessed the construction of airfields around his home and could hear and observe the aircraft departing on operations. One November evening he and his mother and sister…
Interview with Ray Hooley
Ray Hooley was at school in 1939 when war broke out and was evacuated to Mansfield. When the boys were returned to their school in Nottingham their shelter was in the basement and they were horrified to find when they went down for the practice that…
Interview with Peter Swallow
Peter Swallow was born in Sheffield in 1929, one of three children. He recalls hearing Mr Chamberlain’s declaration of war broadcast as a schoolchild. His father, a plumber, volunteered as a member of the Local Defence Volunteers, eventually…
Interview with Colin Atkinson and Jean McEwan
Colin Atkinson was 12 at the outbreak of war and grew up in Lincolnshire. His father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the army. He worked as a trainee reporter for the local paper and served as a messenger for civil defence; his post was on the Castle…
Interview with Gordon Atkinson
Gordon Atkinson lived in Flixborough, Lincolnshire. As a young boy he recalls seeing aircraft gathering over the River Humber in the evenings, ready to fly out on bombing operations. In the morning he watched them come back, some with bits dropping…
Interview with Brian and Jenny Bailey
Brian and Jenny Bailey were children during the war and witnessed the bombing of Cleethorpes and Grimsby. Standing on a local bridge, they could also see Hull in flames. Jenny recalled walking with her mother on the day war was declared and seeing a…
Interview with Ron Harrison
As a child, Ron Harrison witnessed the bombing of Hull. He describes what it was like to be a child exploring the bombed out areas of the city with his young friends. His father was a fireman and while he was attending fires in the dock area their…