Interview with Donald Charles Harris Rose

British private served with 5th Bn King's Regt (Liverpool) 165th Infantry Bde, 55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Div and 163rd Infantry Div, 54th (East Anglian) Infantry Div in GB, 10/1939-12/1943; served with 5th Bn King's Regt (Liverpool), No 5 Beach Group, Headquarters Line of Communications, 21st Army Group on Sword Beach, Normandy, France, 6/1944; served with 5th Bn King's Regt (Liverpool), Headquarters Line of Communications, 21st Army Group in North West Europe, 6/1944-5/1945

REEL 1 Background in Stone, GB, 1921-1939: family; education; membership of Territorial Army, 1938-1939. Recollections of period as private with 5th Bn King's Regt (Liverpool), 165th Infantry Bde, 55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Div and 163rd Infantry Div, 54th (East Anglian) Infantry Div in GB, 10/1939-12/1943: enlistment in British Army, 1939; conditions in Seaforth Barracks, Liverpool, 1939; Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb thrown through gym window at Seaforth Barracks, Liverpool, 1939; relations between soldiers and civilians in Bootle; reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939; posting to battalion after basic training at Huyton, 10/1939; relations between Regular Army and Territorial Army personnel; moves of unit in GB; shooting down of German Air Force aircraft at Felixstowe; coastal defence duties at Pevensey Bay, 6/1940-8/1940; belief that Germans would invade, 1940; effect of German Air Force bombing of Liverpool on battalion morale, 1941; opinion of officers and NCOs. REEL 2 Continues: opinion of military rations. Aspects of operations as private with 5th Bn King's Regt (Liverpool), No 5 Beach Group, Headquarters Line of Communications, 21st Army Group on Sword Beach, Normandy, France, D-Day, 6/6/1944: question of inadequacy of training in preparations for landings in Normandy; embarkation at Havant, GB. crossing English Channel; landing of Sword Beach; reaction to beach landing; role of unit on D-Day; hunting snipers. Aspects of operations as private with A Coy, 5th Bn King's Regt, Headquarters Line of Communications, 21st Army Group in Normandy, France, 6/1944-8/1944: reaction to bombing of Caen; advance to Bénouville Bridge; nature of German forces encountered; battalion casualties; German 'ratchet' mine; patrolling; relations with French civilians. Recollections of operations as private with A Coy, 5th Bn King's Regt (Liverpool), Headquarters Line of Communications, 21st Army Group in North West Europe, 1944-1945: surrounding of Dunkirk. France; relations with Belgian civilians. REEL 3 Continues: crossing River Rhine on Bailey Bridge, Germany, 3/1945; behaviour and treatment of German civilians, 3/1945; discovery of female Soviet forced labourers in barn; treatment of Wernher von Braun; memories of local German dignitaries assisting inmates of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp; reasons for turning down promotion; arrival at Goslar, 5/1945. Aspects of period as private with 5th Bn King's Regt (Liverpool), Headquarters Line of Communications, 21st Army Group at Goslar, Germany, 1945-1946: relations with German civilians; attitude towards Germans during and after campaign; attitude to having served during Second World War. REEL 4 Continues: organisation of special task force to rescue members of German royal family from Soviet forces, 1945.