The BBC WW2 People's War Archives, as seen by Ron

My first foray into print was in a family book that was first privately published in 1988 under the title of “And then there were eleven”.
The title referred to the fact that my father and mother had borne eleven children and the book, edited by my oldest sister, was an effort to place on record individual stories of the surviving eight children up to the outbreak of WW2.
BBC - WW2 People's War - One family, Five Sons, All Serving in H.M.Forces

For my portion of this epic I wrote mostly about my wartime experiences as that period was freshest in my mind and this was to form the basis of most of my subsequent wartime stories.

My original source book was the eponymous “Army Album” (now held in the Imperial War Museum)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/67/a2612567.shtml

I’m sure that I was not alone in starting an Army Album at the end of the war. Mine was created in 1946 whilst I was stationed at Opicina just outside Trieste.

Here I found myself with lots of spare time and plenty of memorabilia that I had accumulated over the preceding 4 years so, presto, I had an album.

Ron Goldstein's Actual Army Album

There were of course lots of snaps and postcards, there were the inevitable Army passes to visit such exotic places as Sienna, Florence and Rome. There were propaganda leaflets, currency, and handbills for the local ENSA show, route cards and maps.

Here was an arm band of the Afrika Corps, there was an Order of the Day, issued by Field Marshal Alexander, expressing his gratitude to his troops for clearing Italy of the last Nazi aggressor.

Here was a page full of programmes of shows I saw on my first leave back in England, and there was an Italian song sheet.

Here was a picture taken after the war of my Sgt.Major, Busty Thomas M.M. in his role as Beefeater at the Tower of London, I took my wife and children to meet him and we were given a private tour of the Tower.
There is five years of memories pasted into this book and it’s already been re-bound once.

There were two years of diaries to stick in, although I stupidly selected the ones that seemed to capture the mood of the time and pasted them (yes, I said stupidly) into the album so that I could not read the underside!

Whilst on the point of diaries, originally I had four, starting in 1942 on my call-up. Due to the many moves I was to make over the years, the years ’42 and ’43 were lost forever and I had to rely on my memory and friend’s diaries for salient dates. I transcribed as many readable pages of my 1944 and 1945 diaries as I could and set about getting my dates “right”.

Once I got involved in computing I was able to locate the Regimental Diaries of both of the units in which I had served, namely the 49th Light Ack Ack Rgt, RA and the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars.

In October 2003 I started posting articles on to the BBC WW2 website and until the site closed for further postings in February 2006 had managed to post one hundred stories which included some that I had posted on behalf of others.

My final source of reference are my Army Records
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/00/a2098000.shtml
This proved to be an Alladin’s Cave of undisputed accuracy and a wonderful way of checking dates and locations.

And that, my friends, is how I manage to remember things in detail

A full "interactive" index of the BBC WW2 stories is now given below.

An asterisk (*) denotes that the story is about, or was posted on behalf of someone else, other than Ron.

Day Leave in Rome
Not My Worst Night, By Any Means: A Young Soldier in North Africa
Diary Entries 11th April 1945
One family, Five Sons, All Serving in H.M.Forces
The War Ends in Italy, 2nd May 1945
Running a Staging Camp in Germany, August 1945
Training To Be A Driver/Wireless Operator
Danke Herr Mix!
My Welcome Home
A Driver/Op in Light Ack Ack
Getting your Army Records
Ron's Grand Tour
Trieste, October 1945 to January 1947
Early Army Days, October 1942
Two Weeks in Dock in Naples and Not a Wound to Show for it!
Monte Cassino, March to May 1944
German Propaganda Leaflets
What did you eat in the War, Daddy?
Joining the 4th Queen's Own Hussars
VE Day, As Seen from a Field near Venice
The Day My Brother Mick Nearly Killed Me
Sicily, Then On To Italy
Not My Worst Night, by Any Means - a Young Soldier in North Africa
Waiting to be called up
Keeping a Diary in Wartime: 4th Queen's Own Hussars in Italy and the 49th LAA in Egypt
The Day I Should Have Died: 4th Queen's Own Hussars in Italy
The 78th Div Goes to Egypt to Re-Train and Re-Form
Life in Wartime Austria: 4th Queen's Own Hussars July to August 1945
Day Leave in Rome
Transformation from Gunner to Trooper
Army Transport
Stick it in your Army.....Album!
The First Post-War New Years Eve, December 31, 1946
* Jack Nissenthall- The VC Hero Who Never Was: Part 2
* No.3 (Jewish) Troop, No.10 Commando
* Two Jewish Heroines of the SOE Part 1
* Two Jewish Heroines of the SOE Part 2
* Two Jewish Heroines of the SOE Part 3
* Two Jewish Heroines of the SOE Part 4
* A Jewish Hero in the SOE Part 1
* A Jewish Hero in the SOE Part 2
* Jack Nissenthall - The VC Hero Who Never Was (Part 1a)
* Jack Nissenthall - The VC Hero Who Never Was (Part 1b)
1939-1947, an ‘interesting’ experience and my 15 minutes of fame.
Riots in Trieste, circa October 1945
Day Leave in Alexandria
Charlie 4 Is Not Answering My Signals
Getting the facts right
Dive Bombing in Italy - A Memory Confirmed
Collapsible beds
Keeping Clean on Active Service
New Years Day 1944, Snowed in at Carovilli
Images of Wartime, 1939-1946, Ron Goldstein's personal collection
Ice cold…. But NOT in Alex !
Gunner Burnard and the Brigadier
Return to Cassino
German ‘Tip and Run Raiders’ over Hove in 1943
Cambridge and Bethnal Green Boy's Club, The club that produced heroes
Lt.Whitfield's directing debut
Ron Goldstein’s War — A month at a time
* Jack Goulden and the prayer book that saved his back
Commemoration Parade July 10th 2005
The St.John's Ambulance Brigade in WW2
Lt.Whitfield and the butterfly spring
Trieste had its funny moments
* Field Marshal Keitel's surrender
Sweating on being released
Churchill and Ron enjoy a meal together
Victory Celebrations, 8th June 1946
A tribute to Edward Arthur Patman, known as ‘Pat’
Shows running in London during 1945
Keeping Pets in the Forces
The correct height of Tank Drivers and the use of KRRS
Childhood
Commandeering billets in Italy
Army Ration Allowance
* Bernard Jaffa's Record of Service
The infamous Demob Suit
Dale Carnegie’s “Pursuit of Happiness”, courtesy of Stalag XVIII
* Evacuated to Stoke Hammond
Looking back to 1939 from the relative safety of 2005
* The day a V2 Rocket hit Tottenham Grammar School
An Army Convoy On The Move in Italy
Civil Police in Trieste during the unrest
A postcard from Sicily, 3rd September 1943
Algiers, April 1943, Our first sight of Africa
Sgt.Major Mick Goldstein, Royal Fusiliers and Jewish Brigade
An unlikely Post War meeting
A letter to an unknown researcher of the year 2056
More on German Propaganda leaflets
* Henry Kaye, Flying Instructor
The last page in my Army Album
Trooper Tom Canning, a photo at last!
Sgt.Jack Goldstein, RAF Bomber Command
The infamous Burger Brau Keller in Munich
Dining out in Guelma, North Africa, 1943
WW2 RESEARCH AND FORUMS AFTER THIS SITE CLOSES
The photo in a serviceman's wallet
* I'll never forget that day
* The night our house was sliced in half

ps
In October 2009 I created a Photo Album of all my individual Army Record sheets and this can be found on ww2talk.com by clicking on my avatar name, selecting "View Public Profile" and finally "Ron's Army Records"

 

If the previous example gets you interested in the People's War site then be aware that the search box has been removed

Fortunately one of the ww2talk forum members has provided the following advice:

 

Thanks for reminding us of this wonderful source of testimonies, the fact that your campaigns are on it makes it even better.

 

Possibly the removal of the search box was a tacit admission of the inadequacy of categorisation of the entries. There was a wide range of categories to which the site admnstrators allocated entries, allowing multiple categorisation where appropriate.

However, categorisation seemed to be somewhat randomly applied. For example, the category "Conscientious objection" included a number of entries which had nothing whatsoever to do with the topic, whilst there were other enries forming the memoir of a conscientious objecor (sometimes with that phrase incorporated in the title), which were not so categorised. I wrote to the BBC about this and did not even receive the courtesy of a reply, which necessarily raises a question as to the seriousness of the BBC in organising the site.

 

Hi Coder

You may well be right for the reason behind the BBC's crass decision to literally remove the search box although I vaguely remember that in a discussion about the promblem on the BBC's Message Board the lack of funding to maintain the site was also mentioned.

I am particularly annoyed about the whole situation because at one time I was invited to White City to offer my opinion on the layout of the archives(once they were "sealed" and closed for further postings) and one of the points I raised and received re-assurance on was the continuation of the search facilities !.

The pic below was taken at the time of my visit and at that time I was still smiling !

Ron