Human stories

Just days after the end of its combined bombing offensive, the RAF and US Army Air Forces embarked on a new campaign. In response to the plight of the starving Dutch people, the same Allied bombers that had dropped bombs on Germany would be used to deliver food parcels to civilians across the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.

Mail from home was a vital connection to loved ones and an important morale booster to US soldiers stationed overseas during the Second World War.

The 6888th's Central Directory Postal Battalion was the only unit of mostly-Black American women to be sent overseas during the Second World War. Led by Major Charity Adams, the 'Six Triple Eight' deployed to Birmingham in early 1945, where they undertook the mammoth task of sorting millions of letters for delivery to U.S. soldiers in the European Theatre.

As part of preparations for the D-Day invasion, members of the US Army's 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were deployed to Britain. While conducting drills, marches and rehearsal operations in the Spring of 1944, American airborne troops were stationed across counties in the East Midlands including Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire, often billeted in or around the major towns in these areas.

Few realise that 'America's favourite pastime' has a history beyond the country's hallowed baseball grounds. While the game has often been relegated to the sidelines of British sporting culture, during the First and Second World Wars it was arguably one of the country's most played - and watched - sports, thanks to the arrival of baseball-loving Americans and Canadians.

As dawn broke on 16th July 1944, a GMC 6x6 truck rolled off a Landing Craft Tank (LCT) onto Utah Beach. This truck was different. The “Daniel Boone” was remarkable for being the first "Clubmobile" to land on the continent. Fitted out with an electric doughnut-making machine and equipment for brewing coffee, the Clubmobile would bring the morale-boosting work of the American Red Cross to the allied forces advancing through Europe.

On 12 August, 1944, Alexander Jefferson was flying his P-51 Mustang over the French Riviera, when he noticed a string of blinking red lights – anti-aircraft fire. His aircraft critically hit, Jefferson bailed out, and was soon captured by the Germans, beginning a nine-month ordeal as a Prisoner of War.

The 100th Bomb Group is one of the most famous of the Second World War - earning the nickname 'The Bloody Hundredth'. Their experiences are featured in the war drama Masters of the Air. But where did their legend come from?

Situated in large English country houses and hotels, rest homes were set up by the Eighth Air Force and jointly run by the Red Cross to provide an antidote to the mental stresses of air combat. They aimed to prevent emotional breakdowns among crew members by "returning them to a world they knew before".