大象传媒

When the war started in 1939, I was a student reading modern languages, but in the Spring of 1940 when things started to go disasterously wrong in Europe, I joiuned the WAAF and became a plotter in the Operations Room at No 11 Group at Uxbridge which controlled the Fighter Command activities over the South East of England.
At first things were very quiet, but soon we were extremely busy when the Germans attacked the fighter airfields in No 11 Group to try to knock out the RAF before invading England. However the RAF were successful in beating off these attacks.
By early September we had successfully weathered these attempts but on 15 September, my watch took over in the Ops Room at 8am to remain on duty until 4pm. before long it became clear that a massive daylight raid on London was taking place. Raids were showing up all over the table. I plotted a very large formation of 400 aircraft coming in from the East and following the line of the Thames heading straight for Westminster. The Spitfires and Hurricans from Debden, North Weald and Hornchurch were "scrambled" and from 12 Group to the north of our area Douglas Bader and his Hurricans swept in to the attack. The enemy formations were broken up and we knew that dozens of individual battles were taking place over London
Information from the radar sites (then called RDF) and from the Royal Observer Corps came in so fast that we were all concentrating to our utmost to carry out our duties calmly and efficiently at tremendous speed. Once we were visited by Mr Churchill and a lady (later we found out that it was Mrs Churchill) talking to Air Vice Marshal Park (our senior commander).
From all the Fighter stations in the Group - Biggin Hill, Kenley, Tangmere, Middle Wallop, Northolt, Debden, North Weald, Hornchurch and others all the stations were scrambled until the lights on all the indicator panels in our Ops Room showed that every Squadron was airborne. This was the time when Mr Churchill turned to A.V.M. Park and asked what reserves we still had, to receive the calm reply "None, Sir".
The battles raged all day and were beginning to ease off when we went off duty at 4 o'clock.We had our evening meal and a rest and were back on duty at midnight for the night shift. Things were quiet by then. In the small hours an NCO came in to chalk up the boards headed "Enemy aircraft destroyed" and "RAF aircraft lost". The answers were stunning - 183 German aircraft destroyed but only 27 RAF lost. I know that later they decided that the actual number of enemy aircraft lost was far fewer, but never again did the Nazis dare mass daylight raids and the projected invasion of our Country was abandoned.
Next came the mass night time raids of London. We plotted them but little could be done in those days because we had practically no night fighters. We were in the Ops Room approx 80' below ground and on the first night of the mass fire raids we came up for a break and saw that the whole night sky was orange with fire. I shall never forget it, I was in tears and felt completely helpless.
All of the London area came under attack on those nights but our nearest escape was one night when a landmine came down by parachute on RAF Uxbridge and landed in the middle of the WAAF quarters where the parachute caught in a tree. We were asleep at the time. The electric was not working as the lines had been brought down and 2 NCOs came in and ordered us out in 2 minutes. The mine was 8' long and we treated it as a huge joke. We spent the rest of the night in the Hospital and were back on duty at 8am in the Ops Room wearing whatever we stood up in - in my case pyjamas. No one had any money or even our passes but they let us in anyway.
In 1941 I was commissioned as an Intelligence Officer because of being a linguist. I ended up at Bletchley Park working as a code breaker. I was not allowed to tell anyone where I worked or what I did. The work was difficult but rewarding at times and I missed the RAF. After 2 years I was promoted and posted to Air Ministry as Personal Assistant to the Director of Intelligence. I was there during the planning and execution of the D-Day invasion of France and subsequent campaigns. When things were about settled I was posted to the Middle East where I married my fiance whom I had not seen fo 3 years.
I look back on the war years with many memories but my proudest is of the tiny part I played on the day when the RAF won the Battle of Britain

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