Italian Campaign
Related book
Megan Hutching (ed.), A Fair Sort of Battering: New Zealanders Remember the Italian Campaign, Auckland, HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN1-86950-505-0. RRP $39.99
A Fair Sort of Battering: New Zealanders Remember the Italian Campaign consists of thirteen chapters—each based on an interview with someone who took part in the campaign between 1943 and 1945—and an introduction which gives an overview of the campaign.
The experiences recorded covered everything from life before the war, enlistment or conscription, previous campaigns, the Italian campaign itself, and life after the war. I wanted to try and convey something of what life in war is like apart from the action, so there is information about contact with Italian families, food, drinking, going to brothels, keeping clean and sports as well as the nitty gritty of life in the front line.
There is an interview with a nurse and a padre. Also with a dentist and a 'Tui'—one of the New Zealand women who worked in the New Zealand Forces Clubs that provided so much company and relief to servicemen away from home.
The interviews range in length from two to six hours, so each had to be heavily edited for the book.
I have left in some of the questions. This was partly to make better sense of what people were talking about, but also to remind the reader that the text they are reading is the result of an interview. It is an exchange between two people and so the information recorded will differ from that written or recorded by the person whose memories they are.
The interviews will be archived at the Oral History Centre, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington ([email protected]) and will be available to researchers depending on any conditions placed on them by the interviewees.
Megan Hutching
Megan Hutching is senior Oral Historian with the History Group, Ministry for Culture and Heritage. You can read a review of this book on the Ministry's website.
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