Pages tagged with: oral history

Hear former merchant seaman Jim Blundell describe VJ Day celebrations

'A lot of English people, I think, were not accepted as well as they might have been because they themselves tended to think anything that was in New Zealand that was different to what they had been used to was by definition worse...'

Hear John Montgomery describe how he got a job on the Aquitania.

Hear Reg Minter discussing his experiences at Faenza during the Italian campaign of the Second World War

Hear Dan Bashall reflect on some of his wartime experiences

Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Wright was a doctor in the Medical Corps. At Gerawla he helped set up the hospital, but was also sports officer, responsible for making a rugby field as he describes here

Hear Joseph Bacos speaking about his time at Orsogna during the Italian campaign of the Second World War

O'Brien Reeve travelled from New Zealand to England as a volunteer for the Royal Navy.

Jim Barclay fought with the 27 Machine Gun Battalion all through the North African campaign. Here he recalls going to the pictures at the infamous Shafto's cinema at Maadi Camp.

Able Seaman Joseph Pedersen, RNZN 2337, joined the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy in 1940. In 1942 he was posted to the destroyer, HMS Lookout on which he served in the Mediterranean and in the Allied invasion of Sicily in September 1943 as he describes here.

Hear Les Watson talk about the food and accommodation aboard the Raranga.

Private Reg Minter's first real time in action was at Cassino in March 1944. Here he remembers that time

Hear Jim Blundell recall the German air attack on his convoy

Hear Reg Minter discussing his experiences at Trieste during the Second World War

Hear Allan Wyllie recall the sinking of the Limerick in 1943

Eleanor Fraser served in the Women's War Service Auxiliary as a Tui in the New Zealand Forces Club in Cairo. She left for Egypt in September 1941 with 29 other young women with whom she would work in the club, behind one of the counters supplying refreshments to the troops on leave. Here she describes the routine of the club

Hear George Mackay discussing his experiences at Cairo during the Second World War

Hear Eric Osboldstone discussing his experiences in Japanses POW camps

Lance Corporal Allan Robinson describes a German attack on a hospital and how patients and staff were taken prisoner and then were made to act as human shields between the Germans and the Allied troops, with tragic consequences

2nd Lieutenant Peter Wildey of 7 Field Company describes shooting at German gliders and killing and taking equipment from paratroopers. He also describes several other incidents during the retreat to Sfakia.