Soldiers, evacuees and rationing… Wartime memories are revealed…
WARTIME recollections, including childhood memories of American GIs in Newcastle, rationing and evacuees staying in a local hotel, have been added to the vault of information already amassed on the Second World War, thanks to a community-orientated project.
Following an appeal in the Mourne Observer last month, made by The Northern Ireland War Memorial (NIWM), which is based at Talbot Street in Belfast, new information has been revealed, thanks to the contribution of a number of local residents who grew up in the 1940s.
From the US soldiers to the harsh realities of the rationing scheme, which was designed to ensure fair shares for all at a time of national shortage, and memories of those who fled the city during The Belfast Blitz to the ‘safety’ of the seaside, these recollections will further enhance the information collated by the museum as part of an oral history project.
The NIWM team have thanked those who took the time and effort to add to the information it already had, interviews which were recorded by Una Walls on behalf of NIWM and National Museums Northern Ireland in 2008.
Una, a retired lecturer, spoke to local people about their wartime memories and, after 15 years, the entire collection has been transcribed by museum volunteer Sorcha Clarke.
Michael Burns, Research Officer, explained that as a result of the coverage in the Mourne Observer he and his colleagues at the museum “were thrilled when a number of local residents came forward with interesting wartime memories”.
One gentleman, Jack from Newcastle, spoke about his father, who was employed by the Ministry of Defence for maintenance at Ballykinler Army Camp and other military camps in the area.
“When on the job, Jack was sometimes brought with his father for company and recalls visiting camps at Ballywillwill and Mountpanther.
“Jack lived on the Shimna Road opposite another camp and recalled many visits from American officers who would drop in with big tins of fruit and other treats for the family,” Michael outlined.
Speaking of treats, Jack got to know many of the soldiers and so he had the rare privilege of getting sweets in the American PX store on Newcastle Main Street, a site now occupied by Newcastle Library, much to the envy of his schoolmates who had to survive on sweets rations of only two ounces a week.
After the Belfast Blitz (the first German bombardment of the city occurred in early April 1941, and consisted of three German air raids on strategic targets in Belfast, causing high casualties), Jack recalls the evacuees who came to stay in the Slieve Donard Hotel, saying that they got on well with them but that “they were a different breed to country people!”
Butter smuggling in an artificial leg, a WWII bomber modified for a mission to rescue the Norwegian royal family after Nazi occupation, the exploits of a professional ballroom dancer and the wreckage of a German aircraft in the Mournes are just a handful of the stories told in Una’s important collection of interviews.
Carried out between April and October 2008, she conducted 28 interviews with residents of several care homes in the Kilkeel, Newcastle, and Belfast areas.
Crucially, many of the interviewees were teenagers or young adults during the Second World War, and their memories helped shed light on how life across Northern Ireland carried on against the backdrop of a major international conflict.
Uniformed American and British soldiers filled the streets, cinemas, and dance halls of Belfast, and towns across the country. Whilst many of the men remembered it fondly, as something of an adventure, they were trained up by the Home Guard in preparation for an invasion that never came.
A lively and innovative smuggling trade (which operated on both land and water) sprung up to circumvent rationing and provide in-demand items such as butter, sugar, and material for clothing.
Yet, within these broad themes are unique, personal memories and anecdotes which underscore the breadth and diversity of individual experience in Northern Ireland at this time. From a family who were evacuated to the Slieve Donard Hotel, to a girl who was introduced to fried chicken by her American GI boyfriend; this collection of interviews is a valuable and welcome addition to an important chapter of Northern Ireland’s history.
While the Una Walls collections featured in the Northern Ireland War Memorial’s Museum Gallery, they were an underutilised resource.
Sorcha Clarke, the Ulster University PhD student who transcribed the 2008 interviews, said the stories and memories that emerged were “fascinating”, adding that she is delighted they have “been brought to light and can be added to the museum’s existing collection”.
The Una Walls Collection has been added to the NIWM Oral History collection and is freely available to researchers, students and members of the public interested in hearing first-hand accounts of life in Northern Ireland during the Second World War.
The Una Walls Collection is also available to the public through the Sound Archive, National Museums NI at Cultra.
And, if you, like Jack, have memories of the Second World War in Northern Ireland and would like to share your story, get in touch with NIWM Research Officer, Michael Burns, by e-mailing projects@niwarmemorial.org or calling 07588 634847.
For more information on the museum’s ongoing oral history project, The War and Me, and to listen to clips from the interviews conducted by Una Walls, please visit the www.niwarmemorial.org website.