大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Newby of Hull City Libraries on behalf of Ronald Martin and has been added to the site with his permission.

I was born in Sunderland in 1935, one of 16 children. My memories of Sunderland during the war were of the air raids, when men tried to reach the shelters ahead of the children, even though the men were needed to help the wardens. Every night at about 10pm the flares and sirens would go off to tell everyone to get to the shelters, where they stayed for the night. Dad didn't go to the shelter with us - helped the wardens.
2 young German pilots were shot down over Sunderland, they came down in Tatham St - we never knew their names.
My brother James was in the navy. His ship was torpedoed going up to Denmark and he was captured and posted missing, presumed dead. 18 months later he arrived home - surprising the whole family! He had been held prisoner in Greenland all that time.

In 1973 I went to work in Germany as a welder in the shipyards and heard their stories of the war. I also ran some football teams of German and Yugoslav young men. I lived with a German family, and they asked where I would like to visit, and when I said Belsen, they arranged to take me there. A Danish tourist started to hit me with his walking stick, thinking I was german! He was surprised and very friendly when he realised I was English.
I worked in the submarine pens in Hamburg and Kiel, and heard their stories too. They told of the air raids, especially the one night when 23,000 were killed in Kiel, when 1000 bombers came over.
The bombing raids carried on 24 hours a day, with Russian, British and American bombers.

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