´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Learning Centre on behalf of Sam Augustus with his permission.
The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born in Manchester, Jamaica in 1930. I remember the war started when Germany invaded Poland when I was at school at the age of nine.

Where I was living I could seen all the planes landing at the American base and going out at night and I remember lots of our Jamaican lads were recruited to the war effort. But when the war finished I was just gone 15 so I was too young to join up — I escaped.

I was at school during the war but we heard a lot about what was going on. There wasn’t telly in those days but we had a wireless in our house and we sat up at night and heard all that was going on.

We felt protected by the Americans that had a base on the island but when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and America came into the war that brought it a lot closer to home.

I wasn’t scared at first but when I heard that Japs were fighting America we knew they fought hard and we thought if they beat America they will come to Jamaica next.

The war affected us just as it did the people in Britain because there were lots of shortages of things and everything was rationed, including petrol.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.