Our thanks to RAF Benson for providing this article and photographs. Women of the WAAF: Joan Woodruff (née Heraghty) Joan Heraghty was born on 4 November 1923 and originally came from Goldthorpe, a few miles away from Doncaster in South Yorkshire. At eighteen years of age she decided to join the Woman’s Auxiliary Air Force. After her days of learning to march and learning about the Royal Air Force (square…
Women of the Air Transport Auxiliary – Freydis Mary Sharland Thanks to RAF Benson for providing us with this article Between 1939 and 1945, more than 1,300 ATA pilots delivered warplanes between factories, facilities and bases across Britain, and, later, into mainland Europe and the Mediterranean. In January 1940, the ATA’s first eight female pilots were recruited, and, based at what had been the De Havilland airfield at Hatfield in…
Naomi & Arthur: Letters from Liberation A new permanent exhibition opens on 27th January 2024 at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, tells a story of how a small act of kindness can have a life-changing impact. It will focus on two people from different worlds – Arthur Tyler, a soldier with the Oxfordshire Yeomanry, and Naomi Kaplan, a Polish Jew who survived both Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. When the…
The Attack on Monte Camino 1943 (80th Anniversary) Of course 11 November 2013 marks 105 years since the signing of the Armistice in 1918, but it also marks 80 years since 7th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry were engaged in the Attack on Monte Camino during the often-overlooked Italian Campaign of the Second World War. The following entries from the Regimental War Chronicle record the events leading up to…
Their Finest Hour Second World War Digital Collections Day at Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum Join us at SOFO Museum to share your Second World War stories, photos and items on the 1st April 2023 – we’ll record your stories and photograph your objects to add to the Their Finest Hour online archive. The museum will open to visitors free of charge throughout the day and will be hosting a range of…
The Man Behind the Medals In this blog series, SOFO Museum’s Research volunteers look at the stories behind some of the medal sets in the museum’s collection, from those that can be seen on a visit in our dedicated Medals display to some of those that are still tucked away in the archive. While medals will tell you a little bit about a soldier’s service, it’s only with further research that their…
The Man Behind the Medals In this blog series, SOFO Museum’s Research volunteers look at the stories behind some of the medal sets in the museum’s collection, from those that can be seen on a visit in our dedicated Medals display to some of those that are still tucked away in the archive. While medals will tell you a little bit about a soldier’s service, it’s only with further research that their…
The Man Behind the Medals In this blog series, SOFO Museum’s Research volunteers look at the stories behind some of the medal sets in the museum’s collection, from those that can be seen on a visit in our dedicated Medals display to some of those that are still tucked away in the archive. While medals will tell you a little bit about a soldier’s service, it’s only with further research that their…
OXFORDSHIRE YEOMANRY ‘QUEENS OWN OXFORDSHIRE HUSSARS’ 63RD (OXFORDSHIRE YEOMANRY) ANTI-TANK REGIMENT RA (TA) SECOND WORLD WAR 1939-1945 In 1938 the regiment was converted from its artillery role to that of an anti-tank unit and renamed the 53rd Anti-Tank Regiment Royal Artillery (TA) (Worcestershire and Oxfordshire Yeomanry), the 4.5-inch Howitzer guns were now replaced with two-pound anti-tank guns. The Oxfordshire Yeomanry had two batteries, 211 at Oxford and 212 at Banbury.…
One of our recent acquisitions is Villa Patricia, which was donated by a local couple in Woodstock. The doll’s house was commissioned by Dr Richard Blaiklock who served with the Hampshire Regiment as Regimental Medical Officer. He was sent overseas to Southern Italy in 1944 to assist local hospitals, and from there was sent into several prisoner of war camps to assess the prisoner’s medical needs. One of the camps…
