World War II began in 1939 and raged until 1945, touching the lives of hundreds of millions of people and resulting in the deaths of over 70 million. Though these five years produced many tales of tragedy and despair, some stories did have a happy ending.
In West Derby Village, just outside of Liverpool, England, men were preparing to leave for battle. Barrhead resident Adrienne Campbell was but three years old, and her sister Florence Close five when their father William Love offered his services to the British Royal Air Force.
Once he was finished his training in 1941, Love was given 24 hours to come home and say goodbye to his family before he was shipped out to North Africa.
Unsure of whether or not her father would return, Campbell said she remembers everyone crying. Although she was quite young, the atmosphere when news of the war originally reached her family is not something easily forgotten.
“I remember there was a lot of sadness when they announced the war,” she said. “My mom and dad, they knew it would change their lives completely.”
Making her way through childhood without a father was not specific to Campbell or her sister. In fact, it was something everyone did. Wives made do without their husbands, mothers without their sons, and children without their fathers.
“It was the normal because everyone was in the same boat. There were no men. No men at all,” said Campbell. “Everything was run by women. You just didn’t see any men besides old men and boys.”
Because her mother was required to work, Campbell attended school when she was only four. Her sister would walk her there and back, both of them carrying a small box around their necks. In these boxes were gas masks, carried by all children and adults in case a plane dropped a gas bomb.
“They made the children’s with a little face like a duck, so that we wouldn’t be too frightened to put them on,” said Campbell. “They were in a little box, and you’d put it around your neck, then you’d toddle off to school. It was normal for us.”
The sound of bombs is something Campbell still remembers clearly, as well as the searchlights in the sky: great beams of light searching out planes. Houses all around her family’s home were bombed. The area Campbell lived in was often in danger due to an army camp situated at the end of their street.
The windows of houses had to be covered with blackout curtains to prevent enemy planes from seeing light. Air raids were common, and once the sirens began the family headed immediately to their air raid shelter. The shelters were damp and musky and raids could last for hours, though normally no longer than a day.
“The first thing we would do when we got down there was put the kettle on for tea,” smiled Campbell.
“I was too young to be frightened. I thought it was quite the adventure to go down in the air raid shelter.”
Campbell was used to seeing destroyed buildings reduced to rubble. Today, she can only imagine the thoughts running through her father’s head as he saw ruins himself in Germany and Italy.
“How do you think they felt knowing Liverpool was like that too? Wondering if everybody is OK?” said Campbell. “Mom would just send good news, he would just send good news back, and they knew that the other was suffering but they didn’t want to add to the worry of what they were going through.”
It was only recently Campbell went through the diaries her father kept during the war, and it wasn’t an easy read. Though the entries aren’t in great detail, Campbell said she never realized how much danger he was actually in.
One story stands out: when William was detached from his squadron and lost in the desert for three days. It was hard for a daughter imagining her father walking alone for days over sand without food or water.
“There could have been enemy planes coming over and spotted one man on his own. He could have been shot, he could have died of thirst or starvation,” she said. “His feet were so swollen they couldn’t take his boots off. They had to cut them off for him. It must have been awful, but Dad was tough.”
A warm memory for Campbell was when she would accompany her mother to the local hospital. Dressed nicely in a white dress with bows in her hair, the four-year-old would sing for the wounded soldiers while her mother played the piano or the accordion.
“The poor men. You’d see them in wheelchairs without arms, without legs, with bandages all over their face,” said Campbell. “Any entertainment, they were so happy with. They would put their arms out to touch my hand, because they were probably away from their little girl.”
The smell of bandages and antiseptic are still strong in Campbell’s memory, but so is her mother’s ability to play any request the soldiers suggested. Those few hours on Saturdays spent bringing music to brave men were something special.
Perhaps the fondest memory for Campbell over the four-year span of her father’s absence came on one Christmas day. The Love family had received a telegram a short time earlier from William, telling his loved ones to listen to the radio Dec. 25 for a nice surprise.
Christmas came and the family was huddled around the radio, only a small box with a loud speaker on the front. They twiddled the knobs and listened through the constant crackles with the volume as high as it could go.
“We heard him. ‘Hi this is Billy Love in North Africa. Hello to my darling wife and beautiful little girls, and mom and dad.’ He had a lot of sisters and listed all of them too,” said Campbell. “Of course because it was coming from North Africa it was very, very low, but as soon as we heard his voice we were all crying and crying.”
William had been chosen as one of 12 men in the entire squadron to send a radio message, a wonderful Christmas present to the Love family indeed.
Campbell was lucky enough to see the return of her father when she was seven, along with the rest of her relatives who were involved in the war. The day he returned is still a clear and happy memory.
“When he came home I was playing in the street. I was playing hopscotch and I looked to the top of the street and there was a man,” Campbell recalls.
“I went, ‘Oh I think that’s my dad!’”
She immediately ran into the house to tell her mother, and by the time they were outside the man was close enough to be identified. After four long years, loving father and husband William Love had safely returned.
“We were very, very thankful that none of our relatives even got injured. We didn’t lose anybody,” smiled Campbell. “When you read what they went through, it’s a miracle. We were very lucky in the family.”
