This is the 10th book in the ‘Once Upon a Wartime’ series which tells men’s and women’s experiences during wartime.  They are suitable for school work and fit into the national curriculum.  From a Royal Artillery gunner, aged just 17 and was sent overseas within the year. Aboard the Monviso spent days in the hold with nothing but dried biscuits to eat.  The first water they were given was out of petrol cans that hadn’t been washed out properly. 

Then there was Prisoner of War, Joe Cavanagh, who joined the TA aged 18 and worked in the searchlight section, who was posted in Gainsborough.  He very quickly learned to identify the German planes by the sound of their engines but was soon sent off to join the Durham Light Infantry, landing in Arromanches on 10th June and found himself captured very soon after this.  Kept in appalling conditions, always hungry and cold but somehow managed to keep up his spirit and within a week of release and returning to England married his sweetheart.

Readers will certainly find they have a better idea of the conditions real people endured during the war years and beyond after they have read this book.

 

• Paperback ISBN: 1 903172 14 4Our Price: £5.99