A free web archive of over 25,000 objects and 2000 stories capturing ordinary people’s experiences in the Second World War has gone online.
Their Finest Hour is the result of a two-year research project by Oxford University.
Over 500 volunteers ran 73 digital collection days across Britain, where members of the public brought family photographs and artefacts to be digitised on the website.
In addition, over 750 people uploaded their stories and objects directly onto the website.
The collection can be searched and categorised by theme or location gathered.
Project director Dr Stuart Lee said: “Very few families in Britain and across the Commonwealth were untouched by the war. We knew from previous projects that people have so many wonderful objects, photos, and anecdotes which have been passed down from family members and which are at risk of getting lost or being forgotten. We’re delighted that we have been able to preserve so many of these stories and objects and make them available to the public through our archive of memories.”
The artefacts on Their Finest Hour include:
- A map of the planned D-Day landings marked ‘Top Secret’, which was among papers and photographs belonging to Major George Stidwell MBE, who served in Combined Operations at D-Day.
- The barograph from the Grille, a German state yacht built for Adolf Hitler’s private use. In May 1945 the ship was captured by the Royal Navy in Norway. Captain Ernest Fisher OBE of the Merchant Navy was invited to board the ship and kept the barograph as a souvenir.
- A toy dog known as Strubbi. The dog belonged to a little girl named Gisela Kruger who fled her hometown of Stettin in Germany (now in Poland) with her family near the end of the Second World War to escape the Russian army.