Wartime Reminscences - written by those who were there!

A selection of personal accounts taken from various editions

Operation Overload - The first airborne assault on the Caen Canal 5/6 June 1944

 

151 Wing to Murmansk - The story of Operation Dervish - the first arctic convoy to give aid to Russia

 

The Sinking of the Royal Oak - a transcript of Gunther Prien's log - U-boat ace and Captain of U-47

 

Guards Repel Panzers at Shiba Valley - by John Elliot - Battles don't get any more graphic than this!

 

Coming of Age at Walcheren - by Bob Harding - A 'ratings' story of the importance of taking Walcheren

 

Typhoons over Normandy - by Ken Trott - A pilots story taking on ME109s during the invasion

 

Wingate's Men hold Indaw - by John Richardson - A Chinditz story and their hard life in the jungle

 

The Tragedy of Slapton Sands - by Reg Hannaford - the dreadful catastrophe of a USA exercise in Devon in which the Americans lost many men through a German E-Boat attack

 

Victory off the River Plate - by the late George Deacon - HMS Ajax helps to outwit the Graf Spee

 

My Road to Freedom - by Jack Batt - A powerful PoW story in Gaschwitz south of Leipzig

 

Learning to Fly at Fairoaks by Joe King - A pilot's story of the training pre-Battle of Britain

 

Odyssey in Reverse by Lawrence Wheatley - A bomb armourer's story working with Blenheims

 

U515 Claims the Hecla - by Harry Cliffe - The account of a naval supply ship torpedoed en-route to Freetown

 

Fighting the Blitz - by the late Manny Gold - The Editor's father as a fireman in the London Blitz and the horrors of the bombings

 

Escape from the Lancastria by Frank Richards - The tragic account of the sinking of the cruise ship off the French Coast near St Nazaire

 

My Long Walk Home by Fred Gilbert - The trauma of a PoW in 1944 when some 49,500 PoWs had to walk to freedom

 

With Churchill to the Quebec Conference by Louis Pengelly-Phillips - The epic conference with Stalin, Roosevelt & Churchill

 

V-Weapons on Antwerp by Greg Hayward - a bombardment of V2s from Hitler to prevent the Allies gaining control of this port

 

Raid on Dresden - Bomber Command by the late Peter Twinn DFC.

 

Aftermath - The Dambusters - Precis of a speech given by Dr Koenig

 

Breach of the Mohne Dam - by Sqn Ldr Tom Bennett DFM, 49 and 617 Squadron

 

Operation Chastise - by Robert M Owen, Official Historian of the 617 Squadron Association

 

WOMEN AT WAR

 

Scampton - The Dam Busters - by Morfydd J Brooks from Bridgend - A 617 Squadron WAAF 

 

Fetching the Collars - by Jean Patterson - her account of the night she went to the laundry and it rained bombs

 

A WAAFs High Life by Knowler Edmunds - A WAAFs account of her work on Chain Home towers

 

Fetching the Collars - by Jean Patterson - A doodlebug experience whilst out collecting the laundry

 

Broken Nights with Bombs - by Margaret Smithers - a childs story of the London bombings and her relocation to Ramsgate

 

A Newly Hatched Wren - by Pamela Leworthy - the secret life of a Wren at Bletchley Park working in the French Department

 

Lighting the Sky - by Mrs P E Longland nee Baxter ATS - the only Searchlight Regiment, manned by women, in WWII

No account may be copied or reproduced without written approval from the Editor of Wartime News. ©