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This is one of the stories collected on the 25th October 2003 at the CSV's Make a Difference Day held at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Manchester. The story was typed and entered on to the site by a CSV volunteer with kind permission of Alf O'Neil.

Alf joined the Navy primarily because he was interested in travelling to America, as his brother had been and had many interesting stories to tell.
He joined in October and his first post was in Boston in January. While he was there he got involved with Kennedy, which didn’t mean much to him, until after the war when Kennedy became the next President. He also travelled to New Jersey, where he discovered that the previous owner of his hotel had had the same surname as his, O’Neil.

Alf also served at Morecombe in the Special Naval Unit, where he got to see service in Germany on the Rhine. He got to learn about aspects of Army life that he hadn’t been exposed to whilst in the Navy. Surprisingly he got to meet people in other units that he had gone to school with.

Alf can recall the witnessing the allied invasion of Germany, and recalls the sky being ‘black with aircraft’.

Alf sees these experiences of war as positive ones, as he has been able to experience things and meet people that he wouldn’t have done otherwise.

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