Book details:
Published Date - May 28 2024
ISBN - 9781068641817
Dimensions - 23.4 x 15.6 x 1.0 cm
Page Count - 140
Available at The Word £10 or online at:
South Shields Heroes of World War II – Their Finest Hour
Background:
The book started as an oral history project with Oxford University’s Their Finest Hour team. South Shields Local History Group recorded our members and the public with their wartime stories about their parents, grandparents, friends experiences in WW2. These have now been turned into a 140 page book consisting of over 50 stories. The stories here cover most of the main theatres of war: the Home Front, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, North Africa, the Far East and the Atlantic Ocean. They also cover the various branches of the armed forces: Army, Merchant Navy, Navy and RAF and civilians.
Reviews:
Hard as it is to believe, there will come a time when there is no-one left alive who remembers how the Second World War devastated our South Shields landscape and robbed it of the flower of a generation. It underlines the importance of this remarkable volume which records, for posterity, the memories of some of those local folk who were child evacuees or, while still barely teenagers, were catapulted into the horrors of conflict on land, sea and in the air. Elsewhere in its pages, it falls to children and grandchildren to ensure that the stories of family members’ endurance and bravery, in action and on the home front, go on being told. In that respect there is no mythologising of war, which emerges as cruel, terrifying, pointless, muddled, sometimes funny and too-often heart-breaking. Oh, and it’s also a lesson in one generation talking to another, before it’s too late…
Janis Blower
The history of South Shields at war in 50 memories. I couldn’t put it down. At home, living from day to day, rationed, bombed, making munitions, defending the town. In the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy on Arctic, Atlantic and Malta convoys, and with the ‘Wrens’ at Air Stations. With the RAF bombing Germany and on the ground in Africa. On the march with regiments in Normandy and Burma, and as Prisoners of War. Memories of fear and laughter, of death and camaraderie. Oral history at its best. Highly recommended.
Peter S. Chapman, author of A Tyneside Heritage
We will remember them, words spoken every November but as time goes on less and less remembered. This book brings together the real stories of the real people of South Shields in their own words. Not just the military stories, but the impact on women and children. A fantastic initiative by South Shields Local History Group has ensured that, we will remember them.
Ann Clouston, Colonel (Retired) OBE ARRC TD DL VR
I love this book. South Shields Heroes of World War II gives us 50 stories told by relatives with loads of photos. They did everything in all theatres of the war – as Churchill put it, at sea, on land and in the air – and of course there were those who kept the home fires burning, and the coal and the ships coming. This book makes me proud to be a Shieldsman.
Robert Colls, Professor Emeritus of History, author of various books on North East history including Geordies. Roots of Regionalism.
Full marks to everyone who contributed to this important book. It astonishes that, almost eighty years since the ending of the Second World War, we now have this valuable record of the remarkable stories of some of the women and men of South Shields who fought, or simply endured life at home, during such a momentous time.
Al Newham, Chair of South Shields Local History Group
This gem of a book is an amazing collection of wartime stories as remembered by those who lived through the war or as told to their relatives. What they experienced is very moving and the stories will leave you feeling quite humbled. They are written in the style in which they were narrated without editing which adds poignancy to the whole theme of the book. You will find it hard to put this book down.
Les Snaith, Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy
The 50 memories contained in this superb volume are a true testament to the ordinary people of South Shields who like so many others answered the call of their country. The sacrifices of those in the Merchant Navy are particularly poignant given that South Shields lost more Merchant Navy personnel than any other town in the United Kingdom whilst serving on convoys ranging from the Arctic to Pacific. Throughout the book is the common theme of ‘after the war they never talked about it’ which is understandable given what some had gone through. However as time passes and those that experienced the war are no longer with us, those stories are now lost to time never to be recounted, which I am pleased to say this book goes a small way to addressing. Perhaps if that generation of ordinary heroes had told their stories we as a nation may have learnt from them the futility of war and moved on to a better place.
Keith Trotter ex Second Mate Merchant Navy
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