Clive Branch (article in Suffolk Free Press June 21 2007):
During the war Clive lived in Waldingfield Road, Sudbury, and he and his brother saw the airmen regularly. Clive said, “ I was only six years old at the time, but I have vivid memories of it.
The airmen used to give us sweets and things like that. Lifesavers (American fruit sweets) were about the only sweets I got at the time. One gave me my first orange, and I had my first banana from an American, too.”
Clive, now of Felixstowe, added, “My brother brought a machine gun home once on his bicycle. Dad went mad. He buried it in the garden – I expect it’s still there.”
Clive’s mother did her bit for the war effort, working at the US Red Cross Service Club which stood in East Street. The family also had a lodger in the form of Wing Commander Horton, the British RAF officer who oversaw the American camp.