大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Rob Illingworth & Alison Palmer of the Kent Libraries & Archives Team on behalf of Gladys Todd and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions

When the Second World War started in 1939 I was fifteen years old and living in Chatham with my parents, two sisters and three brothers. There had been talk for months about the threat of war but when it actually happened I had no idea what to expect. All I knew about war was what I had heard from my parents about the First World War.

Because of the dockyard and the various industries in the area Chatham was a prime target for German bombers. Our house was not big enough for a shelter indoors or in the garden, so when the air raid sirens went we would hurry across the road to the public shelter. My job, as second eldest, was to take the biscuit tin that held all Mum鈥檚 important papers while Mum dealt with the younger children. I had to guard the tin with my life and I would sit on it to keep it safe while the air raid was on. Sometimes we spent all night in the shelter sleeping as best we could (not easy when you鈥檙e sitting on a biscuit tin), listening to the bombs dropping and hearing the big guns up on Chatham Lines banging away all night.

In 1942, at the age of eighteen, I took the decision to join the WAAFs. I knew that I would have to do war work of some sort and didn鈥檛 want to end up in a munitions鈥� factory or the Land Army so decided it was best to volunteer. I chose the WAAFs because I preferred the uniform to that of any of the other women鈥檚 services. I didn鈥檛 even tell my family that I was going to join up, I just went out one day and enlisted in the WAAFs as a driver, my poor mum had a terrible shock when I got home and told her what I had done. My elder sister was already married and therefore not required to do war work and my other sister and brothers were too young, so I sort of felt I was 鈥榙oing my bit鈥� for the whole family.

I was sent up north to Morecambe for my driving training where I stayed for four months, travelling right across the town each day for the driving course. While back home on leave in February I received a letter from the RAF informing me that I was being posted to RAF Sundridge, near Sevenoaks in Kent. It was a maintenance unit and my job was to drive a crew of fitters and mechanics in a big, three-ton truck. There were five or six of them and they travelled in the back plus a Flight Sergeant who sat up front with me. Together we went all over Kent to sites where aircraft had crashed and the crew had to either repair them or dismantle them and load them onto low loaders to be taken to where the parts could be re-used. Sometimes the work would take several days and we either had to stay at a nearby camp if there was one or if not in private billets. There were a lot of airfields in Kent, Hawkinge, Manston, West Malling and Biggin Hill and a few smaller places that were just landing places like Marden, Headcorn and Brenzett. I suppose they came into being so that aircraft had somewhere to come down if they were in trouble. Not all the crashes were at airfields; some were in orchards or fields and sometimes even on houses. I remember once being sent to Gillingham where two Flying Fortresses had crashed head on. One was coming back from ops over Germany and the other was just going out at about five O clock one morning. They crashed onto some houses in Gillingham and one or two people were killed or injured.

For that job I was able to stay at home as it was not far away. There weren鈥檛 many cars around then and hardly any traffic in our street so Mum could hardly believe here eyes when an enormous lorry turned up outside the house with me at the wheel. All the neighbours came out to see what was going on and Mum just stood there saying 鈥淥n boys come quick, it鈥檚 our Glad, it鈥檚 our Glad.鈥�

Another job that I was sent to was at Reculver on the north Kent coast. I was sent there to collect what they told me at the time was a mine that had washed up on the beach. I had to take it to Farnborough in Hampshire to be examined. I only found out much later that it wasn鈥檛 a mine but was, in fact, one of the bouncing bombs that were being tested at Reculver and were later used by the Dam busters to bomb the dams in Germany.

Being in the WAAFs I met people from all parts of the country, they weren鈥檛 all local people although I remember one of the girls whose family ran a chemist shop in Sevenoaks. My friend Kay was from Shoreham and we have remained friends for over sixty years, she now lives in West Kingsdown and until recently we saw each other every couple of weeks.

I met my first husband while I was at Sundridge; he drove a low loader and came to one of the jobs I was on to pick up the crashed aircraft. He had done three and a half years overseas in Egypt. We married in 1945 just after the war in Europe finished, we feared he would be sent out to the Far East as the war with Japan was still going on. But of course that all got cut short and he didn鈥檛 have to go, I was demobbed in August 1945.

Although there was a war on I enjoyed my time in the WAAFs. It was an experience I wouldn鈥檛 have missed, it was interesting work, I met a lot of interesting people and went to so many different places that I certainly wouldn鈥檛 have done otherwise. Being away from home makes you grow up and I think it would do a lot of youngsters good to go into the services. I still have a licence and still drove until last year but I don鈥檛 know if I want to drive any more at eighty. So although I don鈥檛 drive anymore I could still take you to most places in Kent.

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