Browse Items (629 total)
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Letter from Ron Witty to Norman
Catches up with news of Norman's activities. Mentions hearing on the radio of air attack on Hull and hopes family are safe and well. Mentions the importance of having good friends.
Tags: aircrew; bombing; home front; navigator; training
Letter from Ron Witty to his mother, father and siblings
Part 1. Catches up with family news and comments on time mail takes to reach him. mentions he had heard of heavy air attack on Hull and hopes that they are all OK. Catches up with other news and gossip. Mentions bomb site scroungers and that he is…
Tags: aircrew; bombing; home front; navigator; training
My Maternal Grandparents
A document written as a Summer Project whilst Aidan was at school. She discusses their early years after her grandparents got married in London. During the war the family moved to Wales for safety.
After the war John, possibly her brother, became a…
After the war John, possibly her brother, became a…
Letter from Alan Green to his Family
Alan writes during his training at Torquay. He had just heard about the bombing of Coventry, where his family lived. He has arranged leave to visit his family. His course has finished and he has been made Guard Commander.
Tags: aircrew; bombing; home front; observer; RAF Torquay; training
My recollections of the War
Reminisces about pre-war and early war days as a schoolboy in Lewisham. Recalls events at the beginning of the war. Includes photographs of aircraft and naval ships. Continues with history of events through the war's early years including…
Interview with Alberto Dini
Alberto Dini reminisces his wartime life in Trieste starting from the declaration of war until the end of the conflict. Describes life under the bombs, stressing disruption of utilities, devastated streets and chequered schooling history. Describes…
Interview with Angelo Bencina
Angelo Bencina recalls wartime memories in Monfalcone: a cave being modified as a shelter; the descent of bright red and white target indicators at night; a bomb which nearly missed him and didn’t explode; Window radio counter-measures being…
Interview with Paolo Vivoda
Paolo Vivoda remembers a bombing attack which started moments before the show of the stage magician Delfo, his mother barely made to the shelter and was injured, others died. Paolo lost contact with his parents, only for them to reappear two days…
Interview with Alberto Buvoli
Alberto Buvoli recollects his wartime childhood in Udine, when he lived in the railway station area. Describes how furniture was moved to a safer place at the onset of the war and explains air raid precautions, such as leaving the windows open and…
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 Nino Tenca Montini
Nino Tenca Montini reminisces about his wartime experiences in Udine and in the Friuli region. Describes the family shelter as a concrete reinforced basement, sparsely furnished with wooden benches. Recalls the urge to escape the vigilance of adults…
Interview with an eye-witness of Milan bombings
The informant describes two bombings he eye-witnessed in the Sesto San Giovanni and Niguarda area. During the first, he was in a basement adapted as underground shelter: he recollects women reciting the rosary and a queasy sensation in the stomach…
Interview with Guido Toccacieli
Guido Toccaceri remembers his wartime experiences as a schoolboy in Milan: the day war broke out, food shortages, his father working at an airfield near Bergamo, train strafing, basements used as makeshift shelters, being evacuated outside Milan with…
Interview with Lidia Vendramin
Lidia Vendramin reminisces her childhood in Sacile including details on her primary schooling, family, and town life. Contrasts the public manifestations of joy the day the war was declared, with the shock and dismay of her parents, whose lives had…
How to Cook in War-Time
A war time cook book.
This item is available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
This item is available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
Tags: home front
Interview with Ronald Roffey
Ronald was born in Charlton, south-east London. He went to Charlton Junior School and was nine when war was declared. He remembered being fitted for a gas mask at his school. His aunt who lived in Torquay found a private billet for him and his mother…
Tags: bombing; childhood in wartime; evacuation; home front; shelter; V-1; V-2; V-weapon
Enrico da Ronca persuades the partisan 'Romano' to stop the violence
In a town square, a figure in priest's clothes approaches a partisan who is brandishing a sub-machine gun. Two other figures in uniform are featured on the right hand side. Three Italian flags are visible on a bell tower with a clock.
Label reads…
Label reads…
Tags: arts and crafts; home front; Resistance
Interview with David Brewster
David Brewster grew up in Alford, and has memories of watching the Luftwaffe bombing convoys at sea, a dog fight and watching bombers take off from RAF Strubby and RAF East Kirkby.
Interview with Margaret Ottaway
Margaret Ottaway lived in Louth, the sixth of seven children, and tells of her childhood there. Tells of an air raid shelter they had in the house. Witnessed, as a seven year old, an enemy air raid on 19 February 1941, which caused damage and…
Interview with Elsie Davis
Elsie Davis was raised in Balham by her mother after her father died when she was a child. She worked in a factory and then at the start of the war she went to work on the buses as a conductress because it was a Reserved Occupation. She witnessed…
Tags: bombing; home front
Interview with Susan Jones
Sue Jones was born in Manchester. When the mill where she worked closed at the beginning of the war, she went to work for Avro. She worked on Ansons, Manchesters and then Lancasters. She describes the camaraderie on the factory floor. She also found…
Tags: Anson; bombing; civil defence; firefighting; home front; Lancaster; Manchester; shelter
Interview with Edith Taylor
Edith Taylor (née Tate) grew up in Manchester and experienced the bombing of Manchester. She also describes life as a young evacuee.
Interview with Joan Ray
Joan Ray was born in Doncaster on the 11th March 1925.
Joan suffered problems with her eyes in her early life and tells of the impact it had on her life, including problems with reading and writing.
She spent time in domestic service, working at…
Joan suffered problems with her eyes in her early life and tells of the impact it had on her life, including problems with reading and writing.
She spent time in domestic service, working at…
Interview with Olive Crowther
Olive had two brothers and a sister. One of her brothers joined the army and the other was an air gunner on Lancasters. She left school at fourteen and went to work as a mender at Albion Mills. She then worked on Lancaster navigation panels in the…
Tags: bombing; entertainment; home front; Lancaster
1943 Diary
Mentions anniversary of death of Uncle George December 1942. Daily activities for January and some of February and sporadic entries after that. Writes of going to pictures and walks. Contains some telephone numbers and addresses of friends.
Tags: bombing; entertainment; home front