Tag: WW2
Padraic Fiacc
Poet Padraic Fiacc was born Patrick Joseph (Joe) O Connor in Belfast on Elizabeth Street in 1923. The First World War had ended and Padraic remembers that “everybody went half mad when the war was over, and my moth...
Billy Dunlop
After a pleasant childhood spent in Delaware Street on the Ravenhill Road in east Belfast, Billy entered the world of work in the post office as a telegraph messenger at a tender age, “I started at the age of 14 years...
Kate O Hanlon
The eldest of five children, Kate O Hanlon was born in the Markets area of Belfast in 1930. Her father worked in the Market, “That was a fruit market, where the Waterfront is today, that was all fish markets and the b...
Albert Fry
Albert was born during the Second World War and grew up in a family of five in North Queen Street, close to Belfast City Centre. “My main memory is soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. Another main memory is prisoners from G...
Shankill War Memories
Residents of the Shankill area of Belfast talk to Mary Ann Quigley about their memories of serving in the army at home and abroad. Robert Hoy talks to us about his experiences in serving in the Royal Engineers in Nor...
Surviving the Holocaust
A conversation with Dr. Hajo G. Meyer, a German Dutch physicist. Born in 1924 in Bielefeld, Germany, he fled to the Netherlands, alone in 1938. In 1944, after a year in the underground, he was caught and subsequently ...
Margaret McDevitt
As a child Margaret lived on Ulrika Street now Ulrika Terrace on the Donegall Road with her older sister and brother. “There were no nurseries and you didn’t get to school until you were seven years old” Margar...
HMS Caroline
A tour of the ship with Commander Martin Quinn and reflections on its history by those who served on her. HMS Caroline is a decommissioned C-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. Caroline was launched and commiss...
Northern Ireland War Memorial
"The authorities in Belfast were disgracefully complacent about the possibility of air raids in Belfast... they argued that Belfast was the furthest place from Germany.. the bombers will not get here... well they were...
War Stories – The Bomb Aimer
The story of a Halifax bomb aimer who was shot down over the French-Belgian border.
War Stories – Minesweeper
Local veteran, Gerry Isherwood, served on various ocean-going minesweepers throughout the war and was part of a force that cleared mines off Omaha Beach prior to the Allied invasion of June 6th, 1944. Gerry also wi...
War Stories – The Death Railway Survivor
During WW2, Mossley man Jim McCall was a Royal Navy wireless telegraphist who served aboard HMS Prince of Wales during its legendary engagement with the German battleship Bismarck. Attacked by Japanese torpedo plan...