Description
Object description
Memoir of his call-up from university into the British Army in February 1943, training as a teleprinter/telephone operator with the Royal Corps of Signals, allocation to the newly-formed 13th Air Formation Signals at Hendon and subsequently at Oxford attached to HQ 84 Group RAF, preparations in southern England early in 1944 for the Normandy landings, forming their forward base at Goodwood near Chichester, crossing to Arromanches in the first week of August 1944, his impressions of Normandy at that time and the unit's advance in the 21st Army Group sector across northern France, including an inspection of the German V-weapon site at Wizernes, move into Belgium in September and temporary quarters at Ghent and Antwerp before entering the Netherlands (Breda, Tilburg, Grave and Delden), crossing the Rhine into Germany in early June 1945 and describing his impressions of civilian conditions in various parts of northern Germany (his unit was initially based at Celle), posting to No. 5 Public Relations Service at Nuremberg in December 1945 to provide media communications for the International Military Tribunal (war crimes trials) sitting there, detailed impressions of the 'Palace of Justice' and attending some sessions of the Tribunal, his own unit quarters at nearby Zirndorf and recreational tours into southern Germany, concluding with the end of the IMT in October 1946, his return to the UK and demobilisation; the collection also comprises a substantial quantity of personal correspondence from August 1944 – November 1946, pocket diaries and journal notebooks for the same period, official passes, identity documents etc issued for the IMT Nuremberg, concert programmes, guides and other publications acquired during the course of his service in NW Europe.
Content description
Memoir of his call-up from university into the British Army in February 1943, training as a teleprinter/telephone operator with the Royal Corps of Signals, allocation to the newly-formed 13th Air Formation Signals at Hendon and subsequently at Oxford attached to HQ 84 Group RAF, preparations in southern England early in 1944 for the Normandy landings, forming their forward base at Goodwood near Chichester, crossing to Arromanches in the first week of August 1944, his impressions of Normandy at that time and the unit's advance in the 21st Army Group sector across northern France, including an inspection of the German V-weapon site at Wizernes, move into Belgium in September and temporary quarters at Ghent and Antwerp before entering the Netherlands (Breda, Tilburg, Grave and Delden), crossing the Rhine into Germany in early June 1945 and describing his impressions of civilian conditions in various parts of northern Germany (his unit was initially based at Celle), posting to No. 5 Public Relations Service at Nuremberg in December 1945 to provide media communications for the International Military Tribunal (war crimes trials) sitting there, detailed impressions of the 'Palace of Justice' and attending some sessions of the Tribunal, his own unit quarters at nearby Zirndorf and recreational tours into southern Germany, concluding with the end of the IMT in October 1946, his return to the UK and demobilisation; the collection also comprises a substantial quantity of personal correspondence from August 1944 – November 1946, pocket diaries and journal notebooks for the same period, official passes, identity documents etc issued for the IMT Nuremberg, concert programmes, guides and other publications acquired during the course of his service in NW Europe.
History note
Cataloguer SWW