大象传媒

This story is taken from an interview with Sammy Pollock at the Ballymena Servicemen鈥檚 Association, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was David Reid, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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I was at the Model School until I was 14. I left in June 1944.
The only blitz I remember would have been the Raids in Belfast in the Easter of 1942, I think it was. Either 1941 or 42. But I was, and of course the airport at Newtownards was one of the targets. It did [get hit] 鈥� not seriously, but it was one of the main targets. But there was nothing of any great consequence. All that was there was a few old lysanders and 1 or 2 nightfighters. It wasn鈥檛 very big, it was a grass field. There wasn鈥檛 a proper, there was no tarmac runways or anything, it was all grass. But I remember the people from Belfast who had to leave the city for safety, moving out into the country and sleeping rough around north Down, Co Down, around Scrabo Hill and places like that.
Just, they would have moved out in the early afternoon, and if Belfast was targeted that night then they wouldn鈥檛 have been targets themselves. Because it was the Shipyard and industrial parts of Belfast.

But all I would remember is, my mother had 2 sons then serving in the war. Both serving in the Irish Guards. And she was always very concerned to read the latest casualty lists in the local newspapers and the Belfast Telegraph. And then her first son was wounded in North Africa in 1941. He lost a leg, and he ended up in hospital in Italy. And was posted as 鈥渕issing believed killed鈥�. And then she got another telegram in 1944, to confirm that her other son had been killed in action with the Irish Guards at Anzio on the 8th Feb 1944. so that was, as far as she was concerned that was 2 sons that she鈥檇 lost in the space of a year. But Robert turned up in hosp in Italy, and was casevaced back home to the UVF hospital in Belfast. And then was finally discharged in 1945.

It was nearly a year before she got word that Robert had turned up. I remember the first action my eldest brother got involved in was Naarvik in 1941 in Norway. And he was missing for a couple of days then, believed killed. And I remember going to school the day the telegram was delivered. And I wasn鈥檛 able to write. Every time I bent down the tears were coming down. But he turned up, and he survived all right. He was captured, and was released at the end of the war.

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