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I have received the King' command to express His Majesty's appreciation of the loyal service given voluntarily to her country in a time of grievous danger by June Rosemary Bennett as a Woman Home Guard Auxiliary.

I received this citation at the end of the War. Not many people realised that there was a Woman's section of the Home Guard. I joined in 1942/43. I knew a captain in the Home Guard; he was the C.O. and asked myself and a friend to come along to a meeting.
We met at the Bell Hotel, a very old coaching inn near the Corn Exchange in Chelmsford. There were usually 12-15 of us at the meetings. We didn't have a uniform - just badges. Our meeting room was tiny but when we cleared it out we found that the walls were 1" thick with newspaper under the wallpaper and when we stripped it all off, the room looked bigger. It was pretty mucky work but we felt we were doing something to help the war effort.

One summer evening, the Commanding Officer took us to a firing range and we all had a go at firing a gun. He did it to make us feel that we were playing an important role in the War. In the winter time I used to go into the hotel to light the fire on the way home from work. It was pitch dark in the black out but worth while as the room was warm when we came back later.

We met there twice a week from 7.30pm until 9.30pm and our work was all connected with camouflage. We made scrim nets to throw over gun sites and vehicles. And we used hessian to make dummy bodies which were used on dummy airfields and sites to fox the Germans. I particularly remember, just before D-Day, we filled little tins with camouflage face paint. After D-Day our services were no longer required.

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