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Introduction

It is the sheer scale of the Second World War that most of us, however keen to grasp its course in outline and the interrelation of its geographically and sometimes time-separated parts, find daunting. In terms of its time-span, its land masses and oceans that were the scene of prolonged conflict, its nations, races and peoples committed to or drawn into the conflict, its human and material cost, the statistics of the Second World War challenge the capacity to comprehend.

At one and the same time, the link between the Eastern Front and its Stalingrad, North Africa and its El Alamein, the Arctic, Atlantic and Mediterranean with their sea-lines, the aerial bombing offensives, Home Front war materials production and civilian morale, is clear, and yet it is only retained in a collective sense by the most self-disciplined mind. As we write this we can almost hear the protests of readers, ‘Have they not heard of the Pacific War too?’ To which we make response that indeed we have, and this book will certainly not fail by under-representation in that respect.

While the editors of this book have no grand ambition to succeed where few have attempted and success is rare – achievement in conveying a worldwide vista of warfare – they believe that in reducing the unmanageable scale to one of individual participants recalling the part they played in key events, general or special circumstances, major campaigns or battles, they bring the reader as near as he may wish to be to living through the challenge of World War from September 1939 to August 1945.

This book had its roots in the first meeting of the editors in Leeds in 1993. The rescue of the evidence of wartime experience was the main subject on the agenda. Retired New Zealand doctor and public health specialist Richard Campbell Begg, a naval officer in the Second World War, had responded to a New Zealand newspaper appeal by British historian Peter Liddle, keen to draw attention to his work in rescuing the evidence of wartime experience. At that stage Peter was the Keeper of the Liddle Collection, a world-renowned archive of personal experience in the First World War, based at Leeds University. Over some years he has been turning his attention to the Second World War, and has already achieved a substantial collection of material of personal involvement in that war, so much so that since the original meeting with Richard it has been necessary to set up a separate collection, which is also housed in the city of Leeds as a Second World War Experience Centre with charitable status and its own Trustees, staff, Patrons and Association of Friends. Peter has left the University and feels highly privileged to have been appointed the Director of the Centre, which continues to grow and flourish.

The New Zealand doctor had travelled to Leeds, his recollections had been recorded on tape by interview and, with personal accord quickly established, the possibility of association in the rescue work was discussed. It was not long before Richard, in his responsibilities growing younger by the day, was recording men and women resident in New Zealand. The friendship between Richard and Peter developed, with the doctor travelling not only through much of New Zealand in the work but returning to Leeds on three further occasions fuelled by an increasing awareness of the importance, urgency and fascination of the work. He had found that there were few areas of British and New Zealand service experience in the war not covered by one or more of the people he was meeting. So graphic were many of the tapes, and so wide their representation of air, sea and land service, that it was clear the material invited being shared with a wider audience than that of researchers in an archive.

This book grew as a result of a decision to draw together, as appropriate, the most striking of the testimony. It contains extended recall of the experiences of 53 men and one woman. Most theatres of war are represented from beginning to end of the conflict. This is the story of the war by those who were in it, given spontaneously without rehearsal 53 or so years after the event. For most, it was the first time anyone had asked them to relate their experience and had then been prepared to sit and listen, sometimes for hours on end. With remarkable lucidity and recall, with humour, sometimes with emotion, even distress, thoughts and descriptions of events long ago were vividly expressed.

With most theatres of war covered, and with the three Services and the Merchant Navy represented in many ranks, from those quite senior to those very junior, it has been possible to present a chronological story but also one from differing perspectives. In the book, as the war progresses, we sometimes meet for a second time those whose story in a different theatre and from a more junior rank has already been presented, and this may bring the reader to a still closer identification with the memories of some of those whose story is told here.

Each chapter has a contextual introduction so that the wider scene from which the particular vignette is chosen is properly made clear. The book is largely the written expression of oral testimony. As such there has been a little editing to clear away ambiguity, any lack of clarity through imprecision in the words as spoken. In the main, grammar has been left as expressed.

In the first chapter, what the ‘Phoney War’ was like for the ordinary soldier is made clear, and just as clear, the drama, confusion and swirling events from the German attack that would leave him evacuated from Dunkirk or St Nazaire or captured. Naval operations in the North Sea, including the first battle between battlecruisers, when HMS Renown engaged the German ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are next in line for recall. For the Battle of Britain and related developments there is graphic record; vivid descriptions of London burning, Coventry blitzed, aerial dogfights, crash landings and parachute descents, and a wealth of detail including men recalling their treatment after serious burns.

The story now moves to North Africa and the great campaigns fought there. There are two chapters devoted to this, separated by those dealing with the operations in Greece and Crete, both ending in defeat and evacuation. The parachute and aerial landings in Crete, in which the Germans suffered heavy losses, are dramatically recalled. We then move to the Italian campaign, with the first successful Allied landings on the Continent, at Sicily, documented by many men who were present on land, at sea and in the air, then the dearly bought and narrowly achieved landings at Salerno and Anzio and the battles around Cassino, the hard slog to the north and eventual victory. Events in the Mediterranean, including the epic convoy ‘Operation Pedestal’, are covered, as are other naval engagements, bombardments and action by British forces operating from the island of Vis in support of Marshal Tito’s partisans and, not least, the valiant defence of Malta and air and sea operations from that island.

With Japan entering the war, there is experience of the military defeats in Malaya to relate, the surrender at Singapore and, not least, a vivid account by a destroyer officer of the sinking of the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse by Japanese air attack. That officer’s ship was sunk shortly afterwards at the second battle of the Java Sea. There follows a remarkable account of the brave determination of a nurse escaping from Singapore as the Japanese entered the city. She experienced the bombing, then the sinking of her ship. She swam to an island, caring for wounded there, then, one step ahead of the Japanese, she travelled all the way across Sumatra, where the Japanese finally caught up with her. There is coverage of subsequent events in South East Asia at sea and in the air, and eventually the recapture of Burma, including a graphic account of Chindit operations in that country.

Meanwhile, in the Arctic, there were the Russian convoys, including the disastrous PQ17, with which three of the contributors were involved, and later the sinking of the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst. There is material on naval events in the English Channel and the Atlantic and the increasing air attacks on German-occupied Europe. D-Day itself, then the advance through Northern France into Belgium, Holland and across the Rhine into Germany, have many contributions from all three services.

Returning to the war in Asia, where the tide was running against the Japanese and the British Pacific fleet was in action, there are accounts of this and what it was like having a kamikaze aircraft attack and crash on your flight deck. The New Zealand Air Force was now in action in force in the South Pacific and there is an interesting story to tell here.

Finally the prisoners of war, both in the Japanese theatre and in Europe, tell of their experiences in captivity, hardships and lighter moments. The sinking by an American submarine of a Japanese freighter with 800 prisoners under the hatches, and the frightful ‘death march’ back into Germany from Poland, provide sombre reading. Those in Japanese hands were perhaps saved from imminent execution by the dropping of the atom bombs. The comment of one of these men, ‘forgive but never forget’, provides a fitting finale to this chapter and a book written with respect for all the men and the woman mentioned, and the generation which they represent.

Richard Campbell BeggNelson, New Zealand

Peter H. LiddleThe Second World War Experience Centre,Leeds, UK