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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[The Americans]
All I remember is, what used to be an Italian restaurant in the Square in Newtownards eventually became an American PX. It鈥檚 the same as a British Army NAAFI. Post Exchange, it stands for. That鈥檚 where they would have done their shopping. You know, for the various things they would have needed. Cosmetics, and stuff like that. Anything that the British would have got from the NAAFI, the Americans would have got the same thing from the PX. And the family were Cafolots, they were Italians but they hadn鈥檛 taken out British nationality and they were interned during the war. Them and the other Italian family in Newtownards had a chip shop down the High Street, and they were all locked up. I think it was in 1942 or 43. Because they were living in NI and they hadn鈥檛 taken out British nationality. And they were counted as aliens and were interned for the duration of the war.

Well, it was within the UK. There wasn鈥檛 any central place in NI that I鈥檓 aware of.

But the Americans had the same problem with their Japanese element. Because whenever Japan declared war in 1941 and bombed Pearl Harbour, all the Japanese Americans who hadn鈥檛 taken naturalisation papers were interned.

Well, I mean, it had to be done, because of the danger to security. And it was generally for security reasons that these people were interned. It wasn鈥檛 for any other reason.

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