大象传媒

鈥淚 came from a naval family. I am the youngest of six boys all but one was in the navy. My brothers were in South-East Asia. I was not in the armed forces. Although when I was a young man we had military training 鈥� drill, learning, how to present fire arms for preparation for drafting and enlisting. By the end of the war I was too young to enlist, I had four years training at High School.

I went to a Roman Catholic High School. There was another academy that always had military training; they had cavalry whenever we had public parades. The Christian Academy cavalry were in front of us. The horses would poop and we had to walk through it. When I was very young, before the war I remember the convertibles with civil war veterans both north and south southern soldiers were in grey. They were probably 100 years old

I was based in Washington during the Second World War as a schoolmaster for the Department of Defence. I taught children whose parents were in the air force. I moved to England in 1959.

During the Second World War a lot of people from England didn鈥檛 and don鈥檛 realise we had severe rationing in America including butter, sugar and meat. We had ration books for these things.

At Christmas time we could not drape the tree with tinsel and Ladies were deprived of nylon stockings because of rationing. We had a very difficult time with rationing 鈥� it was a hardship in the United States. Everything was going to the armed forces overseas and 鈥楤undles for Britain鈥�. This was part of the martial plan set up by President Roosevelt then President Truman. Truman sanctioned the bombing of Japan.鈥�

Recorded by Karl Mansfield

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