Parcels of food and basic supplies were sent from the USA to thousands of Londoners forced from their homes and struggling to survive following the Second World War.
Organised by the charity CARE, the packages helped families across Europe to recover and to rebuild their lives during the aftermath.
As Britain celebrates 70 years since the war ended, the now international aid organisation has launched a search to find the people who received the original CARE packages.
One of them, Joseph Briddock, 79, shared his memories of living with his mum and sister in Penge East during the war with News Shopper.
“After the war it took a while for things to get better and this otherwise difficult time was brightened up by parcels sent by strangers from across the ocean,” he said as he chatted on the phone from Ireland where he now lives with his wife of 52 years.
“I remember one contained a patchwork quilt which I have kept to this day and Kellogg’s cornflakes.
“We had never seen cornflakes before. They smelled like magic.”
Joe Briddock, 79, with a blanket he received in a CARE package from New York.
During the war, Mr Briddock lived with his Yorkshire-born mum Annie and younger sister Anne in the Penge and Anerley areas.
His father, also Joe, was away fighting in the Middle East.
Mr Briddock, a grandfather-of-four, described watching a German bomber caught flying overhead in the searchlights when he was around eight years old and living at St Hughs Road, Anerley.
“They [the night fighters] had caught a German bomber in their beam,” Mr Briddock said.
“All the guns were firing at it and couldn’t hit it.
“Everyone was stood outside their houses cheering and booing.”
Later, the family’s home in Rainbow View, Penge, was flattened by a V2 rocket leaving them trapped in an air raid shelter for hours until American soldiers came to dig them out.
In June 1943, Mr Briddock, his mum and sister had another lucky escape when they were machine gunned by a low flying German plane as they walked to school.
“My mother lay on my sister to protect her,” Mr Briddock said.
“It was flying that low, I remember seeing the pilot sitting there.
“A horse nearby was so terrified that it jumped into a shop window.”
Mr Briddock grew up to train as a structural engineer before marrying his wife Muriel in 1963 and having four children.
He said: “I never had any ill effects from the war besides a recurring dream – I’d open the door and there’d be a German fighter standing there with a knife.
“I would take it from him and cut him with it. He would come apart like rubber.”
CARE distributed more than three million packages across Europe, including to many thousands of British families, schools and hospitals in the first year after VE day.
Colonel Burgess, Secretary of the Metropolitan Area of the British Legion presenting a CARE food parcel to a disabled ex-serviceman of New Cross, London.
Chief executive Laurie Lee said: “Many people are surprised to hear that British people were among the first to receive international aid – and in a climate of scepticism and aid fatigue it’s good to remember that for this aid organisation, charity did begin at home.”
Did you or your family receive a CARE package? Get in touch to tell your story by visiting the CARE website or calling 0800 3202233.
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