Recollections of WW2

By Stephen Andrews

Tom King

'When I was in the air force in Berlin, I was courting there. I missed the last bus back to camp and I was walking back. This big lorry pulled up and two Russian drivers were in it, it was divided into nationality sectors at that point. They give me a lift in the back with a load of tomatoes and I had to sit in them all.'

Trevor Povey

Up the Mile Oak Road, a woman got blasted to bits during the war. She was seeing two Canadian service men at the same time, a private and a sergeant. She was with the sergeant and the private turned up and shot them both with the machine gun from Portslade brewery. Pierrepoint hung him after that'.

Rod Patterson

'I was in the army by La Linea near Gibraltar, and I met a Spanish girl. She didn't speak any English and I didn't speak Spanish. We spent six months together and her sister, mother and auntie chaperoning her each time. Then Franco closed the border with Gibraltar and I didn't get to see her again. I was never invited home to hers though.'

Wally Kersey

'I was in the Royal Sussex regiment up in Yorkshire. When we got there, no one would talk to us, because when the Royal Sussex were there before, they left about 100 girls pregnant!'