Wartime Memories

There was a train headed for Buffalo, and Ted Whitney was bound to be aboard. He had given himself a choice between going to Buffalo or to bed. The latter would have meant waking to a another day like the one before: unfreezing the lock of his car door with his lighter after shoveling a path to pull the car out of the driveway. He’d done that; he’d had enough. In Buffalo he would train to become a Naval Officer. It was 1943 and it was the obvious alternative, join the Service, do something for the war effort.

By Jeff Durham

Apart from the cemeteries and memorials, to the trained eye there is little sign of where the front lines were. Occasionally though a shallow depression, a crater that has remained unfilled, fragments of metal, shrapnel or pieces of barbed wire are still reminders. Scenes that to this day remain vivid to the veterans who were there.

This is my dad, Ken Van Slyke, when he was Lt. Ken Van Slyke, Army Air Force, 99th Combat Bomb Wing.

By: David R. Van Slyke

By Bill Hawksford

Having completed his basic training at Kempston Barracks in Bedfordshire, Billy arrived at Houndstone and Lufton camp in Yeovil, Somerset, in January 1947 to commence his Royal Army Service Corp, (RASC) training as a Driver Mechanic. Before the training commenced Billy changed his mind and decided that he only wished to be a driver, because he couldn’t come to terms with being in dirty overalls all the time.