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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Marie on behalf of Audrey and has been added to the site with her permission. Audrey fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

Talking of oranges…..one day early in June we heard that our age group (I was 18 then) would be entitled to some oranges. I was told that there was a small grocery store in Babbacombe which had received a consignment so I collected my Ration Book, hopped on to my bike and cycled over. All along the front of beautiful Babbacombe bay I saw this amazing sight - which struck me as funny at the time - all the hotels had been taken over by American Troops and it was just before D-Day. They were all “confined to barracks” and not allowed out, waiting for the weather to clear, so there was this curious phenomenon - all the GI’s crowded round the windows cat-calling, whistling and yelling at any girl they happened to see passing by. There was hardly anyone about, so all I could do was smile and wave and blow kisses back.

I finally found the little corner shop and I was allowed 4 oranges which the shop keeper put in a brown paper bag. I paid for them and went on my way back past all the yanks and waved cheerily at them. For several days around this time there had been a thick white sea mist and I did wonder if this was a smoke screen devised by the Americans so that German planes wouldn’t see the thousands of US troops that were lined up for miles behind our shores at the time. As I recall, because of the weather, we hadn’t had any air raids recently either.

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