ROLE OF ORAL HISTORY

LESSON PLAN 5

As we have seen, many of the veterans were told that their work was of the utmost secrecy. They weren’t even allowed to talk about it among their colleagues. It was only with the publication of several books in the 1970s that the secrets of the War were finally revealed. Since then, there have been many books, documentaries and films produced.

Douglas Hassall - Interviewed by Legasee in Feb, 2011

ROLE OF ORAL HISTORY IN UNDERSTANDING THE SECRET WARThere are still secrets of the Second World War to be unearthed. Some of the files

remain locked. However these new stories add important detail to the historic

narrative. Many of the veterans only knew about the area of work they were involved

in. Together their stories can provide a detailed picture of the relevant period of war.

However some veterans still think that they can’t talk about their wartime role and

there is a danger that their stories may be lost.

FALLIBILITY OF MEMORYOne of the problems of individuals not

talking about their wartime work for 30

years or more is the reliability of memory.

Many decades of not talking or thinking

about the past, can make accurate

recollection difficult. However, sometimes

the opposite can also be true. One of the

problems of oral histories, is that the stories

can be told so many times, that the story is honed over time and can be influenced

by books they have read or films they have seen since the war.

ADDING TO THE RECORDOne of the main roles of oral history is understanding more about the context of

an historical event and how the ordinary men and women experienced some of the

major events of the war. This allows historians to build a bigger picture of an event.

DISCUSSION POINT

1. What can oral history tell us

about events from the past

that other sources can’t?

2. Discuss the advantage and

disadvantages

of relying on oral history

testimonies.

ACTIVITY1. Get a book from the library or watch

a documentary on a part of the

Secret War that most interests you.

Summarise it and tell your classmates

or write a short report on why this

interests you and how the book or

film has added to your knowledge.

2. Think of a past event, something that

happened over five years ago, write

down everything you can remember,

ask someone who was also there and

get them to do the same, see how

the different accounts compare.

Demobilisation 1945 © IWM (D25688)

EYE WITNESS

Kay WingateATS member of the Y Service

Stanley DavidDispatcher with the RAF’s 624 (Special duties) Squadron

“Well, they didn’t ask us then they didn’t know, I think a lot of the people wondered what all these girls were doing walking around because they didn’t realise that we were on shift work and doing odd hours anyway and that and we didn’t know what we were doing so we couldn’t say anything, we couldn’t tell them what we were doing. And my son now says, “Oh, my mother couldn’t say anything because it was always it was all top secret, she couldn’t tell you.” So when, when the book – in 1976 the book came out – I said, “Oh, that’s what…that’s what we used to do, we were never told, we had to sign a secrets act, you know, we were told not to say anything, how did they get about it? And so that’s how it all came to light, which was very good because nobody really knew what we were doing.”

“We didn’t know anything, we didn’t know anything and until 1996 we couldn’t say a word about what we were doing. We didn’t even know until 1996 that we were with SOE, all we knew we were on a special duty squadron doing a highly secretive job, only the navigator knew where we were going, even the pilot didn’t know where we were going on ops, only the navigator knew. We couldn’t keep any records of what we were doing, nothing like that, and consequently a lot of boys when they wrote books when they were on ops from England, they were allowed to keep copies, you know keep a record but we weren’t, it was too secretive.”

“But it was just a job and you just got used to not talking about it. Which is why later on, people ask for your memories, because you hadn’t talked about them, or discussed them, they hadn’t got reinforced over time so, it’s very easy to get your memories wrong. If you see what I mean. because you just, might. I remember, I heard my brother before he died recently, that my father was upset that he never knew what I did during the war. He knew I was in the WRENS but that was all- he never knew what I did and that upset him apparently. You just, you know, it was just one of those things. It couldn’t happen now but in those days, you just did not talk”

Joy AylardBombe Operator - Bletchley Park and Eastcote

FACTS

The role of

Bletchley Park was

only known in

SOE was disbanded on

people worked for the Government Code and Cipher School by the end

of the war

Over