HALL PLACE NEEDS YOU! APPEAL FOR STORIES & MEMORABILIA: AMERICAN GIs AT HALL PLACE, BEXLEY IN WWII (1943-45)

Kirsty Macklen, Collections Manager for Bexley Heritage Trust at Hall Place in Bexley, Kent curates a 6 month exhibition each year at Hall Place for the public using the Bexley Museum collection. In an exhibition starting this September 2014, she will be focusing on GIs who were stationed in Bexley as part of the joint Anglo-American code-breaking exercise known as Operation Ultra, which was centred at Bletchley Park, but incorporated a traffic intercept station at Hall Place housing some 200 U.S. GIs. A U3A Shared Learning Project is currently under way at Hall Place to help Kirsty gather material for this exhibition. We are so excited to be able to tell the hidden story of the GIs and their life here. But, we need your help! Sadly, there is very little physical evidence left of their time there. Kirsty would love to personalise the exhibition and tell the stories of the men behind the uniform, so we are on the hunt for any photographs, uniforms, letters, keepsakes from the GIs or their families, telling us what they did when they were based here. We are also looking to explore in the exhibition how the GIs integrated with the local community that lived in the borough. So we are now appealing to local U3As to ask whether anyone remembers, or knows anyone who remembers, the period 1943-45 when the GIs were stationed here at Hall Place. Perhaps you played softball with the GIs, or attended local dances? If so, we would love to hear from you. More of the Research Photo courtesy of Bob Frederickson

Hall Place