大象传媒

THE TIDE TURNS

In 1944, preparations were being made along the South Coast for the invasion of occupied Eurpoe; units were gathering for the reversal of our withdrawal in 1940. A number of the FANY's who had been seconded in the ATS had become Plotting Officers in heavy AA batteries. One battery was posted on Hayling Island, protecting the assembly of the invasion forces from observation by enemy reconnaissance aircraft.

We left our tranquil gunsite on the Island Magee in February and travelled from Stranraer in one complete train to Hayling, taking 2 and a half days. Once there, we had two or three hours to "Make ready to fire", and for several hours the walls of the plotting room seemed to rock like a railway. Luckily several nights passed before any German planes appeared and when they did we had "Beginners luck". We shot down to the very first one we fired at. Each battery had a "piece of sky"; we were only allowed to fire into that "piece".

One night our Radar gave us the bearing and location of a German plane; we watched the light on the plotting table with bated breath, it was coming into our "sky". We had set range, height and fuse on the guns and when the plane came near enough we opened up with all four of our guns and continued firing until it dropped out of range beyond the Isle of Wight. Soon we were firing on more planes and nearly all of them turned back after the first burst near them. The next Morning the Royal Observer Corps telephoned us to check on our first plane and to congratulate us on being the only battery to have fired on it and shot it down.

During most evenings before D-Day we were up, firing 15 to 20 times a night and as we were on "30 sec." manning, I could only get away from the plotting room when one of the RA Officers stood in for me.

Our Civilian laundry man had a frightening experience. He had got into a stream of Army vehicles on their way to the channel and as there was no way he could turn off he had to go over to France on D-Day with the landing forces. Once there he was tipped out on the beach and sat, terrified, in his little van while hordes of soldiers rushed past him armed to the teeth. Eventually a Sergeant got him into a "duck" which was returning and our laundry turned up a week late!

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