Side B of the fifth audio cassette of a collection of eight which records Ron A. W. Perry’s memoirs entitled ‘The Way It Was’.
Side B is 00:41:53 long and starts straight away with Ron’s voice, halfway through a sentence. There is static noise interference throughout the recording and Ron’s voice is very quiet at times. Between 00:23:27-00:26:27 there is a musical interlude of classical music and between 00:32:33-00:36:11 there is the sounds of the sea with no audio from Ron. The recording ends abruptly with Ron’s voice, cutting off mid-sentence at 00:41:46.
The themes explored on Side B include: continued discussions of the shooting exercise with detailed description of the different guns used; stories about one of the soldiers who was a professional burglar and his use of the black market during the war [00:07:13]; Ron’s friends experience of a military prison [00:14:46]; details of the 34th Armoured Brigade which included the 147 Regiment, 107 Regiment, 153 Regiment (Armoured Corp) and the 7th and 9th Royal Tank Regiment [00:26:27]; a very detailed account of Ron’s journey overseas from Gosport to Normandy, including how he felt, the landing on the beach and the first things the troops did to set up camp [00:33:04]; and the description of the tank crews ‘escape pack' [00:42:27].
Existence and Location of Copies
A digitised MP3 version is available on Preservica via internal access at Bath Record Office.
