London Boyhood Memories of World War II from a Crystal Lake Resident – 2

Crystal Lake resident John Kinsley, born in London in 1928, shared his memories of World War II with the United Methodist Men of the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake on Saturday morning.

He was aged 10-16 during the war.

John Kinsley

 Down London Memory Lane with John Kinsley

Rationing was started; first it was gasoline, didn’t bother us as we did not have a car and any way it was only available to essential services.

Next came food, I got a jar of jam once a month, one egg each week and other essentials which I don’t remember.

I do remember seeing pictures of a banana but did not actually get to eat one until after the war.

Finally clothing. I learned to darn holes in my socks using an electric light bulb in the heel as I could not get a new pair. Also soap was rationed, not that I cared much about that!

Everyone had a Ration Book containing coupons which were stamped when they were used. In keeping with other families a gardening allotment was provided to my father so we could grow food, and I quickly learned not to like cabbage. As we were all became aware, a black market flourished and for a price almost all produce could be had.

In March 1938 German troops marched into Austria to enforce the “Anschluss’ (in German ‘link up’) in reality annexation, and its government was incorporated into the Third Reich. Czechoslovakia had also been occupied, and soon after hostilities ended in Poland, Norway, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece, Belgium, and Holland were all overrun. German armed forces amounted to 7 ½ million men and included 3,528 generals.

In the summer of 1938 an au pair girl from Germany came to live with us, and with the declaration of war was classed as an enemy alien. My father went to bat for her and she was allowed to stay with us. She was a great companion and I still remember the German songs she taught us. Sometime later she was hired by the US Army as an interpreter.

We had sent an expeditionary force over to France to help the French but through the tide of battle were forced to evacuate through Dunkirk. It was a near miracle that over 300,000 English and French troops were evacuated by the Royal Navy and all manner of small craft. However all their equipment was left behind; some men did not even have rifles. While we were all very pleased that so many had been saved, Churchill made a speech pointing out that wars were not won by evacuations.

France was beaten in 6 weeks, providing the Germans with airfields much closer to England as well as ports along the French coast from which U boats could now sail out into the Atlantic.

= = = = =

More tomorrow.

 


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *