• Liberation of Bergen Belsen

    American Field Service

      Shortly after liberation, a contingent of around seventy* American Field Service (AFS) ambulance drivers from C and D Platoons of the 567 Company (Coy) was called in to assist in what became a seven-week mission offering aid to the survivors of the camp. Ambulance drivers from the D Platoon under the command of Lieutenant Murray drove to Lübeck on the Baltic to retrieve 130 German nurses to assist with the evacuation of the camp. A section of the C Platoon under the command of W.J. Bell volunteered to assist with stretcher-bearing details and distribution of meals to the survivors. *(76) Ref. AFS deeply honors the seventy AFS Ambulance Drivers…

  • Michael Lyne

    Michael Lyne joined the fire service in Bodmin when he was just 15 years old in 1942. He says: “Cornwall was a massively busy place. They did a lot of the bombing of the U-Boats pens in France from St Eval. “There were heaps of Canadians Air Force Crews. The Americans were coming and going all the time. “We had eight operational air forces in Cornwall during the war. People seemed to think that nothing happened down here. “We had a training anti-aircraft establishment at Bude, then we came down the operations airfield at Davidstow, then St Merryn, the St Eval, St Mawgan, Perranporth, Nancekuke, and then Predannick on the…

  • E W Blackbell (113th LAA)

    Blackbell, E W (Capt.) (113 LAA) Birth 17 Aug 1912 Sunderland, Durham, England Death 1981 Sunderland, Durham, England  8,562 total views

  • Alexander Michie (Lt Col)

    Dr Alexander Michie, from Durris on Deeside, was the first British medical officer to enter the infamous camp in April 1945 and the scenes of squalor, death and degradation he witnessed rendered him mute on what he saw there for many years.  9,915 total views

  • Walter Stott

    Huddersfield soldier Walter Stott was one of the first soldiers to enter Belsen Concentration Camp. His testimony was part of an act of commemoration in Dewsbury on April 15th, 2005 – 60 years after the camp was surrendered to the British.  9,464 total views

  • Thomas Gibson – Medical Student

    During early April a notice appeared in the Medical Schools of the London hospitals asking for twelve volunteers from each to make up a party of a hundred students, whose object would be to treat starvation cases in Holland under the auspices of the Red Cross.  10,308 total views