Level: Category
Sound Archive
Level: Fonds
BBC ESSEX
Scope and Content:
Title: An American Soldier at Willingale Airfield
Speaker: Ken Arnold
Date of recording: 1990
Length of tape: 17 minutes
Depositor: BBC Essex
Restrictions: BBC Essex
Synopsis of tape: Experiences of US Engineering Battalion soldier constructing Willingale airfield in 1942; training in the USA; description of construction and runways; social life in Brentwood, Ongar, Chelmsford - friendliness of local people, occasional incident with British soldiers; visit of American entertainers to airfield; initial strangeness of English villages, houses, buses, food; account of meeting English wife in Forces canteen in Epping (unedited interview for Essex Airfields at War).
Dates of Creation:
1990
Publication Notes:
Extracts from this recording were used for the book 'The Occupied Coast: Living in the Shadow of the Atlantic Wall' by Aline Sax, Hannelore Vandebroek, Jonas Raats and Maarten Mahieu, researchers from the Geheugen Collectief, commissioned by the Province of West Flanders (Hannibal Publishing, 2014) ISBN: 978 94 9137 686 3

Key terms

TypeKey termsDescription
Subjects Second World War An American Soldier at Willingale Airfield 1990
Document Types Sound recording An American Soldier at Willingale Airfield 1990