Southern Africa

War Time Experiences

October is not a good time for landlovers to be at sea even the size of the Capetown Castle, the small...

Dungannon Boy goes to War - Chapter 2

The next night Herbie Rowan, Harry Murphy and myself, found ourselves free in Cape Town. In our four day...

My RAF Life: Chapter 2

We arrived in Bulawayo, and as there was only limited number of places at the elementary flying training...

From a North Central School to Bomber Pilot

We then heard that Hitler was making a vast collection of barges and boats in France and Belgium ports and...

Tweedale's War Part 2

The Japanese Navy Zero fighter completely outclassed our Brewster Buffalo fighter which was slow, limited...

Tom Clifford - The War Years

Another episode at Hams Hall was during a guard duty on the river bank near to the cable bridge, dad was...

What Did You Do In The War Daddy? -Part 5 (Chapter 7)

And if this sounds tight which it certainly was, the officers were very well housed indeed compared to...

64th (7th London) Field Regiment Royal Artillery 5

I must also explain here that before leaving Cape Town the Regiment was split into two sections with some...

Memiors of a Gunner - Chapter 1a - Harry Wood

Whilst clearing up, I emptied everything into one dish and Johnny was bent down washing the plates in a...

HMS Barham: Repairs at Durban

HMS Barham — Repairs in Durban....

A Journey to the Unknown

When night came we could see lights from towns on the South African shore, first at Port Elizabeth and the...

Tweedale's War: Part 2, Pages 12 to 17

Eventually, however, we put into Freetown. Perhaps ‘put into’ is misleading as the harbour...

Cape Town to the U.K. in 1943

We travelled from my home in Malawi to Cape Town in September 1943, a journey which took five days by...

With the RASC from Capetown and Onward: To Sicily and Italy

A most vivid memory of leaving Capetown by boat was that on the quayside as we pulled away a young woman...

HMS Barham: Durban, 1941

Note: The Barham must have arrived at Durban having put in at either Mombasa or Dar-es-Salaam. Notes: (1)...

Doing My Bit in WW11: With the RAF

Another lucky occasion was when we returned from a mission on a night when it was below freezing even at...

Seven Years of War - Part 6, a continuation of story A4278260: After Dover; Honiton, Redcar, and South Africa.

Seven Years of War - Part 6, a continuation of story A4278260: After Dover; Honiton, Redcar, and South...

The Story of William Ewins [W.Ewins : Part 2]

It was a joy to run out from our tents into the warm sea naked, a beautiful sandy beach, palm trees all...

War Service Abroad as a Wireless Operator

We sailed north past Scotland and onto Canada, landed some troops at Belize then towards Africa, we were...

Personal Memories of WW2 by Ronald Marson Chapter 1

So the day Arthur went to join the RAF we slipped away to join the army, Hobby into the Royal Engineers and...

Jack Blane's War

No 7266456, Pte J Blane Royal Army Medical Corps No 3 Casualty Clearing Station. I spent Christmas 1942 at...

Airman in Spitfire

Joining the RAF in 1942,at the age of 20 years I went into Initial Training Wing Paignton, Devon to train...

Life on HMS Dragon

Every other day we would go ashore and catch the train from Simonstown to Cape Town and we would meet up...

Around the Cape and back through the Med

Leaving Freetown, we passed the Isle of St. Helena, and after some time we arrived in Cape Town, seeing the...

Winged Chariots -Part 14: The Widow Maker

I arrived to Egypt for training via the Air Crew Receiving Centre, London, in April 1943; Initial Training...

South to Africa: John Side 5

On July 2nd I caught a train at midnight from Euston railway station in London; this took me to Dewsbury...