Florence MacCallum was born in November 1920 in London, England. She grew up during the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] that followed World War 1 [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918], and by 1937 England was at war with Germany again. It was quiet for a while; they did not have a lot of bombing at first. They were all issued small shelters. MacCallum’s family kept theirs in their garden beneath an apple tree, with enough room for her, her mother, her sister, and her grandparents. They went in every night. Once there was bombing for 96 consecutive nights. They lived near a field that was used before the war for allotments, or community gardens to grow one’s own vegetables. During the war, the military used it as a gun emplacement. They had no windows left in their house, they had been cracked and broken from the explosions of the guns going off. They could not have any light showing, so they put black paper over what remained of the windows. It was always dark inside. They moved outside of London, which was slightly better, but in the end the Germans came up the Thames estuary. They then moved to Sutton in Surrey [Annotator's Note: Sutton, Surrey, England] which was a little bit better. In any case, MacCallum worked in London, so she had to go into the city every day. She worked near where all the newspapers were located. There were daytime bombings there, but most of the bombing was at night. MacCallum was called up and sent to work for the US Army Services of Supply, near Hyde Park at first, then moving to Cheltenham near Gloucestershire, in the west of England. She and the other girls boarded at the Cheltenham’s Women College [Annotator's Note: now Cheltenham Ladies’ College in Cheltenham, England]. She met her husband [Annotator’s Note: Granville MacCallum] at this time, the day after he had arrived. They met in the town hall when they were getting a cup of coffee or tea, and he asked her on a date for the next day. He was sent to London to work on the railroads. MacCallum was also sent back to London to work in the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s office, of which General Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] was the head. She worked in G-1 section, which took care of personnel. One morning, MacCallum was running late after a sleepless night of bombings. She was rushing to work at 10 Grosvenor Square [Annotator's Note: centerpiece of the property of the Duke of Westminster] when a staff car pulled up. In her hurry, she ran right into General De Gaulle [Annotator's Note: French Army General Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle; later President of France].

Florence MacCallum [Annotator’s Note: a citizen of England working for the U.S. Army Joint Chiefs of Staff in London, England] was sent to Paris [Annotator’s Note: Paris, France] with headquarters following D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Her husband [Annotator’s Note: an American soldier whom she met while working in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England] was also in Paris. They had married before D-Day. She wore a uniform, even though she was not in the Army, so as not to be seen as a spy. It was a khaki uniform, with an Eisenhower jacket [Annotator's Note: also called an Ike jacket; waist length jacket developed during later stages of World War 2; named after General Eisenhower] that they could wear with either skirt or trousers, and a beret or Glengarry cap [Annotator’s Note: a garrison cap]. Her boss was General Abbott [Annotator’s Note: Brigadier General Oscar Bergstrom Abbott, Chief of the Miscellaneous Branch, August 1940 to June 1942]. At this time, General Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] was organizing Overlord [Annotator’s Note: Operation Overlord, the codename for the Battle of Normandy, launched on 6 June 1944 with the D-Day landings]. MacCallum remained in Paris until the armistice in May 1945 [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. When the Germans realized they were losing, they were quite vindictive. They started sending rockets into London, which killed MacCallum’s aunt and her two children, among many other people. Her grandfather also died, when he fell down the stairs trying to get out of his room during a bombing raid in complete darkness. When the armistice was signed, they all returned to England, and her husband lived with her at her house. They later moved to the United States. He died in February 2011, and she still misses him.

Florence MacCallum [Annotator’s Note: a citizen of England working for the U.S. Army Joint Chiefs of Staff in London, England] was not taught much about World War 1 [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918] in school. Her father lost in an eye in the war, and her mother’s brother was killed. The English suffered quite a bit from wars. MacCallum disliked the Germans after World War 2. She disliked what they did to the Jews or anybody they did not like. She has had many relatives killed in wars, and she knows how much her grandmother suffered from losing her son during World War 1. MacCallum is Catholic, but her family was Church of England. Every year on Armistice Day [Annotator’s Note: Armistice Day, 11 November, commemorates the end of World War 1], she would bring flowers with her grandmother to St. Aidan’s Church in London [Annotator’s Note: London, England] where they had a memorial to the soldiers killed during World War 1. She does not hate Germans and has met many kind ones. You cannot judge a whole group of people. MacCallum remembers watched newsreels before the bombings, although she did not often go to the movies because it was too dangerous. The population was issued gas masks, since so much gas was used during World War 1. A shelter was dug in their backyard, beneath an apple tree. Since most people did not have televisions, they learned news from newspapers and radio. The British tried to get help from the United States, but it did not work out until Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] and Churchill [Annotator's Note: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill; Prime Minister, United Kingdom, 1940 to 1945] did not like each other too much. British soldiers were sent to Japan. It all worked out in the end, since the Allies won.

Florence MacCallum [Annotator’s Note: a citizen of England working for the U.S. Army Joint Chiefs of Staff in London, England] was on a bus on her way home from church when war was declared [Annotator's Note: by England on Germany, 3 September 1939]. She heard it on the radio. Her uncle was an air raid warden. The first time she heard an air raid siren go off, it was a false alarm, but it was not so funny after that. Canadian and Australian soldiers came over [Annotator's Note: to England], as well as Indian Gurkhas [Annotator's Note: also called Gorkha or Gorkhall, soldiers native to South Asia recruited for the British Army and Indian Army]. She prays every day that there will not be another war. You cannot know what war is like unless you have been through it. She did not suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder [Annotator's Note: also called PTSD, a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event either experienced or witnessed] but did suffer from depression after the war. She was incensed when London was set on fire. She cried when seeing the damage while crossing the Thames River. Her work was the same while stationed in both London and Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. One late night in Paris, she left the office and walked towards the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysée and saw people celebrating, not knowing what was going on. The war had ended, and she did not even know, despite working in Headquarters. With a coworker of hers named Dulcie, she went to a YWCA [Annotator’s Note: Young Women's Christian Association] for tea and met some injured veterans from a nearby hospital. Each woman could only invite one man into the YWCA, which bothered MacCallum as these men had been injured fighting in the war. She snuck one of the men, named Tex, in. She eventually met up with her husband [Annotator’s Note: Granville MacCallum] and they went home to celebrate, but all they had was a can of salmon [Annotator’s Note: MacCallum laughs].

Florence MacCallum [Annotator’s Note: a citizen of England working for the U.S. Army Joint Chiefs of Staff in London, England] returned to London [Annotator's Note: London, England after the war ended]. She wanted to show her husband [Annotator's Note: Granville MacCallum] the hospital where their daughter, Claire, had been born in December 1945. On the way, they saw a large group of Italian soldiers sitting in the park having a good time, and she realized they were prisoners of war. MacCallum came over to the United States with Claire in May 1946, to join Granville who had already returned. Meeting her husband is her most memorable experience of the war. War was a horrible thing to go through. When London was being bombed, people would go to the underground to sleep at night for protection. A bomb landed on them, and they were all killed. MacCallum worked for a magazine publisher until she was conscripted to work for the Army. Mines [Annotator's Note: stationary explosive device triggered by physical contact] used to be dropped by parachutes which would sometimes get caught in the trees. Men would be sent to disable them, which was a dangerous job. One once landed in MacCallum’s great aunt’s home, went off, and her house was gone.

Florence MacCallum [Annotator’s Note: a citizen of England working for the U.S. Army Joint Chiefs of Staff in London, England] witnessed the aftermath of bombings in London. The night before she married, they had a reception at their house. They were so strictly rationed that they could not buy anything. Granville [Annotator's Note: Granville MacCallum, her husband] had to go to work in London, from their home which was in a suburb, but an air raid siren went off while he was waiting for his bus. MacCallum’s Uncle Burt was an air raid warden and had to go out. His wife was so worried and would not stop calling for him to come back, they ended up shutting her in the closet under the stairs so she could not hear the noises [Annotator’s Note: MacCallum laughs]. They had their wedding. Her grandfather was supposed to give her away, but he had died [Annotator’s Note: after falling down the stairs trying to get to a bomb shelter in the darkness during an air raid] right before the wedding. Instead, her Uncle Alec was given leave from the Army to go to the wedding and gave MacCallum away.