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Interview with Annamaria De Manzano Vici
Annamaria De Manzano Vici recalls her wartime childhood in Trieste. Describes the struggle of her women-only family, coping with fear, hunger, and difficulties in finding food supplies. Remembers the run to the public shelter and the terror felt…
Interview with Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe
![SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v020002.MP3](/omeka/application/views/scripts/images/fallback-audio.png "SHarriganD[Ser#-DoB]v020002.MP3")
Anne Morgan Rose Harcombe was born in London in 1938 and was evacuated with her mother at the start of the war to live with her mother’s family in South Wales
Interview with Annunciata Buffadossi
Annunciata Buffadossi recollects her wartime life in Milan. Annunciata stresses poor-quality housing in a low-class neighbourhood close to potential targets; emphasises how much she feared Germans and Fascists; and speaks with affection of her old…
Interview with Anthony Edward Mason
Anthony Mason grew up in the area around RAF Waddington and recalls some of the activity there during the war.
Interview with Arthur Hydes
Arthur Hydes grew up in Ingham and his family were closely involved with the life of the RAF camp during the war, watching the airfield being built and operations from there. He talks about the village before, during and after the war, including…
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 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 Bernard Bell
Bernard Bell was a child in Scunthorpe during the war.
Interview with Bernard Sterry and Cecilia Pearson
Bernard Sterry and Cecilia Pearson, both born in Hull, talk about their lives as evacuees during the war. Bernard, who was 10 years old when war broke out, was evacuated from Hull to North Lincolnshire until September 1944, when he came back home at…
Interview with Beryl Pickwell
Beryl Pickwell lived in Lincoln during the war. The youngest in a family with three brothers and two sisters, she remembers the day war was declared. Her father and two brothers worked in war factories, Clarke’s Crank and Ruston and Hornsby. She…
Interview with Betty Hedges
Betty Hedges grew up in South London in the final years before the war and she recalls a happy childhood. She describes a close family and community life where the children played unworried in the streets and she talks about the games they played and…
Interview with Brian and Jenny Bailey
Brian and Jenny Bailey were children during the war and witnessed the bombing of Cleethorpes and Grimsby. They could also stand on a local bridge and see Hull in flames. Jenny recalled walking with her mother on the day war was declared and seeing a…
Interview with Brian Hutson
Brian Hutson was a child during the war. He remembers his father, who worked on building airfields and delivering air raid shelters. He remembers his childhood, sleeping in a shelter and listening to aircraft, air raids, blackouts, playing with…
Interview with Brigitte Terboven
Brigitte Terboven (b. 1930) recalls the bombing of Essen and the dropping of an air mine by a British bomber which was trying to evade a German night fighter. The bomb hit the ground about 20 meters from her home which collapsed like a house of…
Interview with Carla Griva
Carla Griva (b. 1935) describes different attitudes and various coping strategies of people inside a shelter in Turin: reciting the rosary, putting their hands over their ears to avoid listening, storytelling, and asking children to practice…
Interview with Carlo Gasparini
Carlo Gasparini (b. 1930) talks about his memories of the bombing raids on Milan. He provides an account of a night bombing with many flares that illuminated the sky as if it were day. He also describes the rush to safety during another bombing, and…
Interview with Carluccio Intropido
Carluccio Intropido recalls his early life as an orphan studying in Pavia at the Artigianelli, a boarding school providing technical training. He recalls that children used to watch aircraft en route to Milan, until Pavia was bombed owing to the…
Interview with Celestino Chiesa
Celestino Chiesa remembers his wartime memories as a schoolboy in Pavia, while he was attending the Artigianelli boarding school: food shortages; rationing; Pippo bombing at night; machine-gun nests along the Ticino river; a friend joining the…
Interview with Celsa Agosto
Celsa Agosto reminisces about her wartime experiences and talks about a relatively quiet existence until her father was enlisted. Her neighbourhood was then bombed, and a day after a reprisal stormed the town. After that Celsa never came back until…
Interview with Charly Pfeifer
Charly Pfeifer recounts his experiences of the bombing of Betzdorf an der Sieg, a small town not far from the Ruhr. He explains the strategic importance of the city, due to the presence of locomotive works. He recounts taking shelter from the bombs…
Interview with Christoph Wagner Brausewetter
Christoph Wagner Brausewetter (b. 1929) recounts the hardships civilians endured inside a shelter, the risks involved and the fact they spent there more time there than at home. Maintains that the worst year was 1943, when aircraft were no longer…
Interview with Christopher Francis Allison
Interview in two parts.
Part one.
Chris Allison served as a flight engineer. He answers questions from school children about what it was like to fly in a Lancaster.
Also taking part in this interview was Tony Bradley who was a child in Hull…
Part one.
Chris Allison served as a flight engineer. He answers questions from school children about what it was like to fly in a Lancaster.
Also taking part in this interview was Tony Bradley who was a child in Hull…
Interview with Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith
Cliff Thorpe and Roy Smith grew up in the village of Elsham while RAF Elsham Wolds was operational.
Interview with Coby Van Riel
Coby Van Riel was a child of about six when the Germans invaded Holland. She lived in a fishing port area of The Hague where her father had a number of jobs to make ends meet in the difficult days before the war and her mother ran a chemist shop. She…