Thursday 8 October 2009

Bedfordshire at the Imperial War Museum

Staying with the wartime subject of the last post (A Soldier in Bedfordshire 1941-42), I recently discovered the rich collections of the Imperial War Museum - illustrations, posters, interviews, films, books, diaries, letters and personal accounts of wartime or by service personnel.

A basic search in the IWM collections' catalogue for Luton resulted in 128 hits, beginning with a beautiful picture of the De Havilland Mosquito B35, probably built by Percival Aircraft Ltd at Luton in 1945 and a long description of the aircraft itself.

A search on Bedfordshire brought up more than 400 hits including diaries and letters written by men of the Bedfordshire Regiment during WWI and a 1918 film of the Inspection of volunteer regiments at Bedford in March 1918 by Field Marshal Viscount French.

For anyone researching 20th century Bedfordshire, this is a collection well worth consulting.

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