George describes his WWII childhood in Cornwall, leaving school at 14 and working as an apprentice for the General Post Office (GPO). Conscripted into the army’s Royal Corps of Signals aged 19, he remembers training camp instructors’ hostility and his lasting camaraderie with trainees from all backgrounds. He recalls seeing other countries and nationalities for the first time during his 28-day journey to Korea, becoming emotional while reflecting upon his arrival in Pusan, where he saw refugees facing extreme poverty and the ravages of war. As a wireless operator, George drove reconnaissance vehicles around the Imjin River. At night, he scraped sleeping holes into hillsides or slept under the stars, always missing home but never frightened. He conveys the stench of war, the whistling of shell fire overhead, the suffocating heat of the dusty summer and the sometimes-fatal blistering winter cold. He reminisces fondly about the Korean nation and the feeling of returning home to Penzance. George’s depiction of wartime smells, sights and sounds show the enduring intensity of veterans’ memories even decades later. His interview highlights how, for some, deployment was the adventure of a lifetime that took them to otherwise inaccessible corners of the world.

At only seventeen years of age Pat joined the WRAC and was soon posted to Shoeburyness as an Experimental Assistant in Gunnery. Pat discusses the high level of classification she experienced whilst working as an EAG and how on her arrival she had to be cleared with the secret atomic at the highest grade of security. She goes on to further describe how all aspects of her life had to be investigated in order for her, and other soldiers, to engage in the top secret work at this posting. Pat reflects fondly on this time period and speaks passionately about her role as an optical measurer. After a few years Pat married and was forced to leave the army as there were no opportunities for marital couples to be posted together. When asked to reflect on her time with the WRAC Pat was grateful for the skills and experiences she was able to take with her from her time in the military, however, struggles to view herself as a veteran due to the glass ceiling that restricted opportunities for women in the army.

George Reynolds tells the story of his military career, where each memory is as engrossing as the next. Following in his father’s footsteps, George enlisted in the army in 1937. Not long after, in 1939, he was off to India, where he had become both a stand out signaller and a skilled equestrian.   By 1941, his regiment found themselves embroiled in battle against the invading Japanese army. Troubling times followed; the Japanese succeeded in their occupation, George among the 80,000 taken as POW.   He was first put to work in a Singapore prison, where he detailed his starved but tanned condition, a result of outdoor work. After being shipped off to Taiwan in 1942, George recalls his torturous experience in a copper mine, where he faced the threat of beatings, malnutrition, and sickly skin, all at a level he had never seen before.  I’m sure you’ve gone through a roller coaster of emotions engaging with George’s story, but he closes on a powerful note. Following his liberation by the American Navy in 1945, George was plunged into a moral dilemma – how was he supposed to feel about the people who had hurt him?   To hate them, he says, was akin to a “cancer eating away at him”. At once, there and then, he decided to “forgive but not forget”. This ultimately underlines the hardiness and determination of a soldier, who, after seven long years away from home, was favoured to live to tell the tale.