Personal Stories

These personal stories all relate to the the experience of Americans in Bristol during the Second World War. Tales from both the military personnel themselves and the Bristolians who welcomed to the city are included. They have come from personal interviews, recorded archives, local history books, shared stories and other websites. If you have your own memories or family memoirs or know of any other stories, please email them to YanksinBristol@gmail.com

Stories from Bristol citizens in the Second World War. Accounts from American GIs, soldiers, army, military, US Armed Forces

Stories from Bristolians

Megan Liddiatt and Captain John Reddy – A schoolgirl in Fishponds and the U.S.. Army Captain who stayed at their house

Delphine Rowden – Young woman working for Imperial Tobacco

John Tarling – A schoolboy in Fishponds

Terry Barton – A schoolboy living next to Shirehampton Golf Course

Doreen May – A young woman from Knowle West who dated a GI.

Tom Fletcher – A schoolboy in Filton

Hilary Brock – A schoolgirl who witnessed D-Day preparations on the Downs

Schoolgirls from ‘The West at War’ – The experiences of four schoolgirls that were featured in an HTV series from 1990

Brian Gearing – A schoolboy in Sea Mills

David Woodman – A boy growing up near a U.S. Army base in Kingswood


Stories from Americans

Richard Taylor – A filmmaking D-Day hero who stayed in Chipping Sodbury

Mystery brick carvings in Westbury-on-Trym – Our successful investigation into tracing American place names carved into Bristol bricks

Lionel G. Hanley – An orthopaedic photographer at Frenchay who took unique pictures of wartime Bristol

Merle Hagerman and Winifred Weeks – A successful Anglo-American relationship forged in Patchway

Otis F. Wollenberg – A New Yorker with the 32nd Machine Records Unit

Ruth Hamilton Prengle – A senior nurse on the plastic surgery ward at Frenchay

Elijah Glenn Ward, Louis Edmead and Walter Haynes – African American soldiers featured in a BBC West documentary

 Eugene S Norton – An anglophile G.I. who found a new home in Brislington

Kenneth Long – Ohio soldier who worked at U.S. First Army Headquarters

Alva Walt Leeper – Oklahoma pilot killed in a P-51B at Gaunt’s Earthcott.

Laures Champlin – How did a US Army Corporal’s dog-tags end up in the Bristol School of Art’s grounds? (external)

 Norma Raley – A nurse with the 298th General Hospital at Frenchay who met and married a US airman

Americans at Frenchay Hospital – Short biographies of Americans who worked there with photos (external)

Tom Burand and Doris Mitchell – A rare Anglo-American marriage who settled in Bristol

General Omar Bradley – Officer Commanding First United States Army


Unit Histories

77th Evacuation Hospital – Selected extracts from the history of a unit at Frenchay Hospital

519th Port Battalion – Some of the men who worked at Avonmouth Docks

 

We’d love to hear your own stories. Please get in touch with us by emailing YanksinBristol@gmail.com

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