For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II - Tapa dura

The oral history of the British and Commonwealth forces 1939-45.

Fascinating, moving, frightening, sometimes comic, this selection of eyewitness accounts has been edited into chronological order to form a magnificent oral history of the British and Commonwealth forces at war.

We follow some 60 interviewees from the Army, RAF and Navy from 1939 to the Battle of Britain, the Desert War, the fall of Singapore, the Italian campaign, D-Day, to the occupation of Germany and the war in Burma. We hear from fighter pilots, nurses, gunners, commandos, Chindits and paratroopers. Their experiences on land, sea, in the air...and in some cases as prisoners of the Germans or Japanese are unique testimony from some remarkable men and women.

Fascinating, moving, frightening and sometimes comic, this selection of eyewitness accounts forms a magnificent oral history of the British and Commonwealth forces at war. Veterans from the Army, RAF and Navy reveal what it was like 'at the sharp end' from 1939 to the Battle of Britain, the Desert War, that fall of Singapore, the Italian Campaign, D-Day, to the occupation of Germany and war in Burma. They include fighter pilots, nurses, gunners, tank crew, a destroyer captain, bomber crew, commandos, Chindits and paratroopers. Their experiences on land, sea, in the air – and in some cases as prisoners of the Germans or Japanese – forma uniquely personal history of the greatest conflict of the 2oth century.

'For the general reader with an interest in the Second World War, I can think of no better starting point from which to grasp the huge scale of the war and yet its dimension in terms of the individual. For the specialist reader, there are countless personal insights.'
VINCENT ORANGE, BA, PhD D, MRAe.S, 'Reader in History, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.'