Veterans' voices

The story of Coventry's war is one that has often been told: the apparently endless bombing that reduced the city centre to piles of rubble interspersed with huge craters, and perhaps above all the destruction of the fine medieval cathedral. This book is different. Turning the focus away from the city itself, Caroline Freeman-Cuerden has listened to the memories of twenty-three veterans, just a few of the thousands of Coventry men and women who served and fought in the Second World War. Their stories are recounted here in their own words, interspersed with letters, documents, diary excerpts and photographs. We hear from all theatres of the war - from fighter pilots and RAF ground crew, from a sailor who served in the Arctic and from a soldier at Dunkirk; we read first-hand accounts of what it was like in Normandy on D Day, contrasted with fighting in the jungles of Burma and Sumatra, and serving as a dispatch rider at Alamein. We also discover what it was like to return to a devastated Coventry at the end of the war. Most of these veterans had never spoken before of their wartime experiences, and their memories will die with them. This book is our chance to listen.