Military & Service

Memories of military service — boot camp, deployment, and the bonds forged in uniform.

James Whittaker and the Higgins Boat Under Gray Channel Skies

James Whittaker remembers the heavy waiting on a transport ship, the rough English Channel in a Higgins landing craft, and the moment artillery replaced weather as the coastline came into view on June 6, 1944.

Edward Collins and the Day London Exhaled: Whitehall on VE Day, 1945

In 1945, Edward Collins was swept with London’s VE Day crowds toward Whitehall, surrounded by Union Jack flags and the familiar authority of the radio made suddenly real in the street.