LIfe in London WW2

Today was an half-mile walk from school to my home in South-west London. ordinary day - I had my free bottle of milk at playtime and still had time to go out and play 'Spitfires and Messerschmidts' with my friends.  It wasn't a day when I had to line up for a spoonful of VIROL - a sticky extract of malt we have to swallow once a week which some of us like but which makes Billy Fletcher feel sick, but I think he's just a weedy type). As I walk past the fruit and vegetable barrows in the High Street, I check to see if there are any orange boxes hidden under the barrows. My Mum heard a rumour that a ship had arrived at Liverpool with a cargo of oranges. Because of my baby sister we've got a  Green Ration Book. This means we may get one or two, but there was no luck. Once home I tuck into my usual tea of bread-and-marge. Not like the margerine we have in 1997 though - this stuff has very little colour and tastes more like grease, and not at all like butter! I know there's some butter in the cupboard (ordinary people don't have a refrigerator, only Americans and rich people have those) but that's special. There's a pot of Parsnip Jam we got 'off-ration' but it isn't very nice and I prefer to eat what I've got. Bread isn't rationed so I eat about six slices. That will keep me going until 8, when I get a snack of cheese on toast with a cup of hot oxo.

On the whole we're OK. We don't live like the King and Queen and Princess Elizabeth in the Palace, but we're healthy and alive and maybe on Saturday I'll get an extra boiled egg! (one a week for grown-ups but two for a Green Ration Book).

Tom Holloway

'First enemy fire'

It was a baptism wasn't it? I mean, it was all new.

I mean, the muscles in your stomach are tight like a fist, like that, you know, your stomach muscles. But you can't stop.

You know you've gotta a job to, well, it isn't like ...that you know you've got a job to do, but your operation, you still keep going, you know, I mean. You can say that for the rest of any, anytime, you're glad to be there next morning, always.was a baptism wasn't it? I mean, it was all new.

Bob Littlar

To hear Bob Littlar click on http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/av/dday_littlar4.ram

Mr. E Purches was a medic in the Parachute Regiment, and landed by air on the east side of the main beach landings:
“ My unit was 225th Para Field Ambulance, 5th Para Brigade, 6th Airborne Division. We were at Keevil Camp for a week before the invasion, being briefed in detail for our drop near the River Orne. Take off was about 23.00 hours on 5th June. After running into tracer fire, which was returned by our rear gunner, as we crossed the French coast we dropped at about 01.00 hours near Ranville. We made our way to a pre-arranged rendezvous, thence to Ranville where villagers in the dark (approximately 03.50 hours) whispered ‘Bonjour’ [‘Hello’] from bedroom windows. We arrived at a chateau (picked previously from aerial photographs). Our second-in-command knocked and asked if there were any Germans inside. There were, and four or five surrendered and were made prisoners. We then entered and set up our various departments. I was in a surgical team, and we started operating about the time of the main seaborne landing, which was announced to us by a thunderous barrage from the Navy. We operated all day and had two hours sleep early on 7th June. We used a landing light from a glider for the surgeon to see by. Many lives were saved by plasma, the bottles slung from rigging lines cut from parachutes. We also had some of the first penicillin used for troops.”
[Warren Tute Collection,D-Day Museum] 

Mr R. G. Lloyd was also a member of 6th Airborne Division:
“I was in the 12th Parachute Regiment, 6th Airborne Division, and we took off in converted  Stirling bombers from airfields in various parts of southern England at about 21.30 hours on the 5th June 1944. Our flight across the Channel went off without incident, thanks to the supremacy of the Allied air forces. Incidentally our aircraft had a Canadian crew. In the very early hours of D-Day we were dropped a few miles inland behind the Normandy  beaches. As I left the aircraft I could see some light flak coming up, slowly it seemed, like long strings of flaming sausages.
After landing safely in open country, my first impression was not what I expected. It was very quiet. After releasing myself from my parachute and retrieving my kitbag which contained a small radio set, I commenced my stealthy walk towards what I thought should be our rendezvous. I found a crossroads and a few of my comrades. We discovered later that like many of our division, we had been scattered far and wide in the darkness, and so had not time to get to the rendezvous. We then made our way in a small party across open country to our objective, where about 100 of our unit were already in position. From now on, enemy opposition increased, and for a few hours we had a very hectic time. Shells passed overhead – this was H.M.S. Warspite firing her big guns at targets well inland. We could hear the noise of the beach invasion. Daylight came. Yes! This was D-Day and I was in Normandy .”
[Warren Tute Collection, D-Day Museum]