A new book, World War Two: Voices from Wales, is giving voice to the wartime experiences of people across Wales, just in time for the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Among the contributors is celebrated actress Dame Siân Phillips, who writes in the foreword of her childhood memory of watching Swansea burn during the ‘Three Night Blitz’ – a haunting sight that stayed with her for life.
“It was a horrible and confusing sight. My mother could read her newspaper by the light of the flames, although Swansea was nine miles away. My father was the village policeman, and he received training in how to defuse bombs and shoot a rifle. Everyone feared that the Nazis would cross the English Channel and come up the valley. Even the God-fearing chapel deacon was ready to fight.
“I have often wondered about the other stories from Wales. About the people who were in the heart of the bombing of Swansea and Cardiff. About young people who, unlike me, did not have a safe home, but perhaps found refuge in Wales. And about the many men and women from Wales who risked – and often gave – their lives in all corners of the world in this global war.”
It was because of the book’s commitment to veterans’ stories that the celebrated Welsh actress backed the project.
World War Two: Voices from Wales
Compiled by long-time oral historians Hugh Morgan and G J Lewis, the book features interviews gathered over the past 30 years from soldiers, airmen, sailors, and civilians – many of whom hailed from or found refuge in Ceredigion. The authors’ mission: to preserve the personal, often untold, accounts of those who lived through the global conflict.
One such voice is that of Iori Lewis from Aberystwyth. A member of the famed 7th Armoured Division, Lewis was stationed in northern Germany when the announcement came that the war had ended. “Didn’t expect it,” he recalled. “Flummoxed – you know, it just didn’t sink in… I looked at the gun and said, ‘I don’t need that anymore.’”
Pauline Penrose of Llechryd, who served as a WAAF plotter at North Weald airfield, remembered the gut-wrenching routine of watching planes take off – and waiting to see which would return. “We had our mess right on the edge of the airfield [North Weald] and we could see the planes going off and very often we could stay there and try and count them as they came back. It was very upsetting because you got to know them, some of the pilots… and so often they didn’t all come back.”
Acts of resistance and survival abroad
George Duffee from Aberaeron shared an extraordinary story of survival and gratitude to the French resistance fighters who risked everything to protect him after his aircraft was shot down. “They were ordinary people, but extraordinary in their behaviour,” he said, praising their bravery and sacrifice in the face of brutal Nazi reprisals. “It’s very difficult to appreciate, but resistance is something you hang on to if someone tries to take freedom away from you.”
The book also recounts the experiences of John and Adelaide Martin, who met during the war and later married. John, an RAF wireless operator, survived the bombing of his Lancaster over Berlin thanks to a stroke of luck with a parachute. Captured and held as a prisoner of war, his tale is one of resilience amid chaos. Adelaide was a WAAF flight mechanic at RAF Little Rissington, servicing Airspeed Oxfords.
John’s Lancaster was shot down on a bombing raid on Berlin. He told the authors:
“I tried the dingy hatch but that wouldn’t move, and just thought to myself, ‘well, that’s my lot’. The next thing I heard was this enormous explosion, and I was knocked unconscious.
“I half came to outside of the aircraft, and saw this huge piece of Lancaster sail very closely past me and then my parachute jerked me into consciousness. I don’t remember pulling the ripcord at all and what I imagine happened was that the ripcord got tangled up by the wreckage of the aircraft and was snagged by that. So I was extremely lucky.”
John was picked up, interrogated for several days, and then spent the rest of the war as a POW.
Women of Wales: behind the scenes of history
Jean McKay from Aberporth served in Whitehall during the Blitz, delivering messages directly to Winston Churchill. “If anything had been bombed the night before, they would send it through on a teleprompter and we’d have to take it down to Mr Churchill in the War Rooms. And if anything needed repairing, he’d arrange for it to be repaired. He was very nice. “He just said, ‘Good morning,’ when I handed him the information, that was all,” she recalled – a quiet brush with history at just 17 years old.
Mary Bott MBE, who later became a primary schoolteacher in Ceredigion, remembered her time in the Land Army with pride. “I landed up in Llangeitho for a couple of months, [then] I went to Llanarth and I worked there for nearly a year, and then I moved to a place outside Aberystwyth. I learnt to milk cows and then I had to clean out the stables and help out with the hay. I used to get up at half past five in the morning and I wouldn’t finish until half past six at night. I had fun,” she said, highlighting the essential but often overlooked role women played in keeping the country running.
A tribute to the ordinary made extraordinary
Morgan and Lewis interviewed more than 50 individuals, including members of the Land Army, the Wrens, the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, and special forces operatives. These were everyday people drawn into the chaos of global war – and whose stories now live on in print.
“As a child growing up during the mid-50s and swinging 60s, I was accustomed to living in a society of men and women, including several close relatives still only in their early 40s, who had been through the hell of WW2 just 20 years earlier,” said Morgan.
“Sadly, the veterans I knew back then are now almost all gone. But the joy and immense privilege of interviewing so many over the years has always stayed with me, their jaw-dropping memories so vivid and powerful.”
Dame Siân Phillips added, “This book brings us the words of people who were at the places and battles which have gone down in history… The Battle of Britain. Dunkirk. El Alamein. D-Day. Arnhem. Nagasaki.
“The power of their words allow us to look afresh at these momentous events and to reconsider them from the point of view of the ordinary person thrown into extraordinary circumstances.”
World War Two: Voices from Wales by Hugh Morgan & G J Lewis (£12.99, Y Lolfa) is available from 8 May.
Article based on press release
