Alan Johnson served in the Royal Navy from 1943 to 1947. The son of a professional Manchester city footballer he was enlisted as an Able Seaman on the Minesweeper HMS Onyx. In his expansive interview he talks in detail about his life onboard and the work he was involved in. He describes the mine clearing procedure in depth and the particular threats the ship faced day and night. The Onyx operated both in the Balkan seas on the Russian convoys and in the English Channel during the Normandy invasion. Alan shares entertaining memories from them all.

John shares with us his memories of training as a Commando, including learning to swim, and specialising as an assault engineer. He was sent to Japan where he had to retrain on American equipment and weapons supplied by the US Marines. John would take part in raiding parties setting off explosives. John recalls the contrasting environments of desolate Hiroshima and beautiful Mount Fuji. His next objective is to get to the Chosin River Reservoir but they come under heavy fire from the Chinese in freezing conditions and with ammunition running low, so the decision is made to surrender. John admits that while he was mentally prepared to be killed or wounded, he had never thought about becoming a prisoner of war until he was one. He describes the terrible three week journey crossing the mountains, being made to march at night and in freezing conditions. Once at Camp 10 the men were subjected to indoctrination about the evils of capitalism. They were forced to march again, this time they believed to their freedom but, cruelly, only some POWs were handed over and the others, including John, had to march on to a different camp where the conditions were worse. John recalls day to day conditions in the camp and the punishments meted out, especially on those who tried to escape. John is finally released to Freedom Village at the end of the war. He recalls it was all a bit of a blur and that returning home took some adjustment as it felt like no one in authority cared.

Colette Cook tells of her work at Bletchley Park operating the Bombe machines whose function was to find the daily key settings of the Enigma machines used by the Germans during WWII to transmit encrypted messages. Colette joined the WRNS (Wrens) as soon as she was able, and following a period of basic training, applied for a mysterious posting ‘P5’. It transpired that this was shorthand for HMS Pembroke V, a cover term for WRNS being posted to Eastcote (an outstation of Bletchley) to train as Bombe operators. In this engaging interview, Colette explains how, after signing the Official Secrets Act, she learned to load the bombe with the coloured wheels and then set about the difficult job of plugging up the back as directed by a ‘menu’. She describes the work as monotonous, physically demanding, and very noisy, but her and her colleagues ‘just grinded away’. She tells of a sense of urgency, but stresses it was not panic, and a realisation that what they were doing was important. Reflecting on her time at Bletchley, Colette says that whilst ‘it all seems like a dream now’, she has an overarching feeling of pride in the part she played to crack the German cypher.