大象传媒

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My name is Jimmy Connor. I was born in 1927 my memories of the war are as follows.

I was at home with my mother and sister on Easter Tuesday night when the Blitz began the noise was terrible bombs and anti aircraft fire people shouting and screaming it seemed to go on all night after a long time there was a very loud explosion the house shook and the ceiling started to fall on top of us

I managed to get us all outside to the street the sky was pink and red from burning buildings. We made our way through the rubble to the local school which was our Rest Centre, there were a number of people already in there and we learned that some people had been killed. We stayed there until it was all clear then made our way back home our house was wrecked. The bedrooms had collapsed. We went back to the centre where we were taken to my aunt鈥檚 house. We stayed with her for month. There was another heavy raid on May 4th but we were lucky nothing happened to us.

My Mother found us a house where we had lived before. It was not badly damaged so we moved in pretty quickly. The windows were covered with felt for some time after we moved in. The schools were closed so my chums and I had a great time playing in and around the bombed houses.
These activities went on all summer. But all good things come to an end, so after a few months schools re opened and things started getting back to normal.

The war still going on, and all the problems that it presented for my mother. Food and clothing were rationed and everyone had ration books. These were taken to the shops for clothes and food. If you did not have your ration book, you couldn鈥檛 get any books, food or clothes. There were air raid alerts during the summer nights and when the siren sounded everyone went to the fields beyond the houses and lay down to wait for the all clear.

Life went on and we listened each night to the 大象传媒 News about the war, the fighting in the desert and North Africa, air raids in England, much worse than we had at here at home. The entry of America into the war certainly changed things a great deal. There were American soldiers everywhere in Belfast, and the girls had a great time.

Russia was attacked by Germany; a bad mistake on their part. At first, it seemed that it was going to be easy for the Germans to overrun them, but they were stopped at Stalingrad, the invasion of France in June of 1944 and the Russian advance into Germany hastened the end for them and they gave up in May 1945.

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