The Second World War Experience Centre

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The Second World War Experience Centre

The Second World War Experience Centre is a UK Registered Charity and international WW2 archive

An Archive that collects, preserves and digitises the memories of anyone from whichever nation in whatever capacity that lived through the Second World War, including military, civilians, conscientious objectors, children, etc, and makes them available to the public for research and education. We hold hundreds of thousands of items in the form of photographs, documents, diaries, letters, logbooks, memoirs, recordings, etc.

20/03/2026

The Young & Lovelies

Battle dress worn for the Salerno landings of September 1943 by a soldier of 6 Yorkshire & Lancaster Regiment (the ‘Young & Lovelies’), sketched by Norman Wray of A Coy.
The regiment took part in the first landing wave of Operation Avalanche, part of the Allied invasion of Italy, landing on Green Beach near the port of Salerno on 9th September. During this operation, both British and American attacking forces had lost the element of surprise and were met with heavy opposition from the German 16th Panzer Division which was ready and waiting.

06/03/2026

British military & POW ID tags

27/02/2026

Hettie Lüder was a child interned in West Java by the Japanese. These paintings from her collection depict the so-called Beschermings Kamp (Protection Camp) known as Baros 6 in Tjimahi. In reality, it was a prison camp for women and children under Japanese command with overcrowding, poor hygiene, insufficient food, and regular 'tenkos' (roll calls).

The Archive holds Hettie's wartime FEPOW material under her married name Hettie Thomas.

13/02/2026

David Westheimer was born in 1917 in Houston, Texas, to immigrant parents (German/Russian) and bought up in the Jewish faith. He volunteered for the US 24 Army Air Corp and was selected for navigator training. He served with 98 Bombardment Group, flying B24D Liberators, and was shot down on his 29th mission on 11th December 1942. He spent the rest of the war in Italian and German POW camps.

Post-war, he became a renowned author whose best-selling WW2 adventure book Von Ryan’s Express was made into a film starring Frank Sinatra in 1965.

In his interview, recorded for the Archive, he says of his POW experience: ‘It made me more tolerant, patient, than I ever would have been otherwise… I formed bonds of friendship, strong blood-ties, which lasted a lifetime… If I had my life over again, I don’t think I would live it any other way.’

04/02/2026

We are privileged to be the caretakers of the POW logbook of Charles Coles, Royal Navy. Full of paintings, sketches, autographs etc, it is one of the finest examples of WW2 POW art & history.

22/01/2026

Norwegian Resistance.

Odd Westeng (left) with 2 friends with their hideout in a forest in enemy-occupied Norway. They were part of an escape route for those on the run from the Gestapo, guiding them across the mountains to the safety of Sweden.

On the reverse of the photo Odd has written:
'Our house is probably not attractive but, believe it or not, we loved it. The right end of the hut was my bed for 5 months, the trees my friends and the snow the best protection.'

16/01/2026

The difficulty in bringing closure to those who lost a loved one in the Burma Campaign is exemplified here in the search for a long-lost son, brother & husband Gunner Donald Kendrey from Bradford.
Donald served with 122 Field Regt and was taken prisoner at Singapore in February 1942. He died in 1944 at Labuan, Borneo. His family continued to write to him for a year after, not knowing his fate. Neither did they ever learn the cause of his death. He was buried with nearly 4,000 other Commonwealth servicemen in Labuan War Cemetery. 1,726 of these graves are unidentified, neither by name or nationality.

12/01/2026

Chris Jecchinis was born in Athens to an Italian mother and British father. After the Germans invaded Greece in April 1941, he joined Madame Eleni ‘Lela’ Karayianni’s resistance group, ‘Bouboulina’. Aged 17, he spied on the naval harbour of Salamis Island while masquerading as a newspaper boy.
With the Germans closing in on Bouboulina, Chris escaped to the mountains to join the British Military Mission. In June 1944, he enlisted in the British Army and served with a Force 133 (SOE) group codenamed Lapworth, engaging in disrupting German supplies and ‘train busting’.
Post-war, Chris held positions connected with Greek workers in Greece and subsequently went to the USA where he studied economics and labour relations.

The Archive holds Chris' recorded interview, photographs, and a copy of his book 'Beyond Olympus'.

23/12/2025

Happy Christmas to all our Friends, Members, supporters and volunteers!

Original artwork of Donald Ackroyd, Xmas 1942
🎁⛄️🎄

18/12/2025

3 Commando boxing training.
Annotated 'Stenhouse & Tinsly'
(our money's on Tinsly!)

From the papers of Major John Smale.

05/12/2025

A somewhat bah humbug Christmas card at first sight, but there's a story behind it:

J. W ‘Bill’ Clark from Hartlepool was Chief Municipal Engineer in Padang, West Sumatra. He was captured by the Japanese and interned at the notorious Changi Gaol in Singapore.
This illustrated card was given to Bill in Changi and signed inside by ‘Iris’. The artist’s signature on the front cover reads Parfitt. This is British internee Iris Gladys Joyce Parfitt who was a London-born teacher and Principal at St George’s School in Penang. At Changi, she was chairman of the camp’s Entertainments Committee. Post-war she published a book 'Jail Bird Jottings: The Impressions of a Singapore Internee', illustrated with her own artwork.

Bill's brother Major J. E. Alan Clark was also taken prisoner. After three-and-a-half years captivity, the news of the release of the two brothers (Bill in Singapore and Alan in Hong Kong) was noted in their local Hartlepool newspaper.

In 2003, Mrs Mona Clark, Bill’s daughter-in-law, donated to the Archive Bill’s FEPOW artwork including 18 pen and ink and watercolour sketches of Changi Gaol.

Address

2 Cross Green
Otley
LS211HD

Telephone

+441943466431

Website

http://www.war-experience.org/

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