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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Mary Blood and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Mary’s story, together with the war story of her husband, Harry Blood, was transcribed onto a floppy disc by Fred Kennington, thereby saving Stockport Library Service staff an immense amount of work!

Next morning we had an early pick up from the hotel back to Airways House, where the luggage was weighed and we were weighed, going off then in a luxury coach, the luggage being taken separately. By now we knew we were going to Croydon Airport, where things began to happen in earnest. A very helpful Accounts Officer explained the Belgian money to us, that being the first indication where we were going. After sandwiches served by BOAC personnel we were full of excitement at the prospect of departure. It was a bit premature as the weather closed in. We had to stay for lunch in the Sergeants’ Mess, one course being onion soup. It was not a good idea as we would soon find out.

News that we would be boarding the Brussels plane at 1315 did clarify the next destination. Not the luxury aircraft you might expect. This was a Dakota fitted for the transport of stretcher cases and with longitudinal metal seating. It was my first ever flight, not at a great height, so we saw the cliffs at Dover and the Belgian coast. Once over Belgium the weather closed in again. We began to hit air pockets, the aircraft suddenly dropping and making us ‘green’. Opposite me was a lady from the W.V.S., very elegant. As the aircraft bounced about, she was the first actually to be sick. Now I have never seen anybody be sick so elegantly, but she started us off. I hung on until the aircraft was circling to land, but then I lost my onion soup. Landing at Brussels Evere service airfield, the lads there were very pleased to see us and their first request was for English newspapers. Thereafter I always used to take some with me.

We were taken by transport across the city of Brussels with its new ‘sights’. Our destination was the Caserne Baudoin in the east of the city and on a hill overlooking it. It was a real old castle-type place, very unwelcoming and without the possibility of being comfortable. The way in was over a sort of drawbridge, under an archway, then into a huge cobbled courtyard. Internally there were great wide corridors bearing Wagnerian murals, swords, helmets and things German. There was also a piece of allegorical poetry on a wall, whose translation was that, on Judgement Day, God and the German soldier would stand eye-to-eye. All very off-putting to the new arrival.

The W.A.A.F. Guardroom was on the second floor. Our billet was a hundred steps up, on the top floor. It was a huge barn, brick walls, on which a bit of paint had been slapped. The floor was tiled and had no covering; the windows, only on one side of the building, were nearer the ceiling than the floor, you needed a stepladder to look out of them. I had a bed in a corner below a window. I could stand on my bed, pull myself up, and sit on the broad windowsill that gave a view over the city. No way could it be made homely, even flowers emphasised the grey and gaunt appearance. We had to tidy up our kit that had been packed in kitbags for a week. The beds had not the usual R.A.F. biscuits, but straw mattresses. I went to bed that night thinking, ‘A Belgian has slept in that bed, then a German has slept in it and now there is a W.A.A.F. in it’. Caserne Baudoin was a former barracks that had been taken over to house the Second Tactical Air Force (T.A.F.). It housed R.A.F. personnel but, at the time, only a few W.A.A.F. There was a concession for W.A.A.Fs. that, on the morning after arrival, you could stay in bed until 1000. We took full advantage of it! The whole day was spent getting the usual ‘arrival chit’ signed. It wasn’t like the usual R.A.F. camp; the Caserne was only a barracks, and offices were scattered over the city. Half the time was spent getting lost.

Right, so I’m in Brussels, the War is still on, but fighting had moved far on. British forces had freed Brussels, and it was now a leave centre for men from the Front, for Allied troops. To accommodate them many large buildings had been taken over. The Metropole Hotel was, I think, the A.E.F. Club, the Montgomery (Monty) Club was a former Royal Palace, and so it went on. Entrance to clubs, theatres, concerts, Opera House, etc. was free, as were the trams and trains. ‘Charge it to Churchill!’ was the cry. Trams were grossly overloaded with people on the roofs. Meals in the clubs were cheap, and there were things we in England had never seen for years – thanks to Americans. My first visit to the A.E.F. Club got me a cream tea – scones, cream, jam, tea, for 1/- (5p). The YWCA, for the women's services, had been the house of the top Gestapo man - thick carpets, chandeliers! Those men coming to Brussels from the front had their priorities – a haircut, a bath, a good meal, a pint, and evening entertainment – so the city was lively indeed. Initially, us girls found it difficult to find our way around the city. Trams ran ‘on the wrong side of the road’ and we were constantly crossing and re-crossing the road. Just two or three days after we arrived, Agnes, another of the W.A.A.Fs. and I decided to go out, getting on a tram. Tempting fate, we asked a Belgian man on the tram for directions. In perfect English, he gave us directions and suggested he meet us a couple of days later and take us round the city. He was actually very nice. Tempting fate again, we met him, Louis. He gave us a really good tour of Brussels and finally took us to the Palace Café - very good and very expensive! It turned out to be a very pleasant evening. Louis had been an officer in the Belgian Air Force and was wounded just before the occupation. He was also with the Belgian Resistance. Agnes arranged to meet him again, and in a couple of months or so, Louis and Agnes got engaged and duly married. Little did I know things would change for me, too.

We weren’t in Brussels merely for entertainment of course, we had a job to do, without knowing in advance just what. In fact there were seven of us W.A.A.Fs., a couple of airmen and an officer, F/O Wardle. Mr.Wardle, much older than the rest of us, had been sent over to find suitable premises to set up the A.P.D.U. (Air Publications Distribution Unit). Now they say you can’t fight a war without paper! There are very necessary things like railway warrants (for leave) and ration cards as well as lesser interesting pieces. No longer was I in an Airmen’s Mess, but in an office, located in a four storey building in the Rue Joseph II. When the Germans left Brussels, the local ‘Quislings’ had departed in a great hurry, as the place had unmade beds, and all sorts of bits and pieces that we had to clear up. Prior to our arrival, any paperwork necessary had to be flown over from England. However, the port of Antwerp had been reopened, allowing supplies to come in by sea. Once we had cleaned the place and set up shelving and whatever, a great load of paper arrived on one of the 60’ long R.A.F. ‘Queen Marys’. This great vehicle had to be backed through the narrow gateway and be unloaded. We were in business.

In these early weeks, we were our own small unit and not really in touch with other R.A.F. personnel. We went out always with people from the unit. From the W.A.A.Fs’ viewpoint, leisure time was good. There were the clubs; it was quite safe, and there were more servicemen than servicewomen so you could find boyfriends. It was accidental that Agnes picked up with a Belgian.

The A.P.D.U. covered the whole of northern Europe. We were receiving calls from all over the place, and personal visits from units nearby. What a small world the R.A.F. proved to be. A Sgt. walked in one day, looked at me and said, ‘Good grief, I know you, you were at Coltishall!’ I went in for breakfast and who should serve me but John. I had attended his wedding at Coltishall. He was the lad, who had to await his father’s permission to get married. I met Sally, too, from Coltishall. She was stationed at nearby Malines, and I went to see her there. But this was the same for all of us. I had asked for an overseas posting thinking it would be an adventure and it was certainly turning out to be one.

It wasn’t all routine. For the General Election in 1945, forces personnel could either vote at home by proxy or take a postal vote. Somebody had to post them – us. We had to send out voting papers and envelopes to every R.A.F. member in northern Europe who opted for a postal vote.

A couple of days stand out in my memory. Beryl, from the office, and I had the same day off. There was the Canadian Army Education Service which did many things the name suggests. We found out they organised the so-called ‘Grand Tour of Brussels’ by tram. We managed to find the starting point and climbed into this articulated tram, mainly occupied by American servicemen, complete with cameras. The English-speaking guide came along to us, bowed low, and said, ‘There is a coach reserved for the ladies’. Unlike the slatted wooden seats where we were, this coach had padded seats. It gave us a really comprehensive tour of Brussels, leaving us with sightseeing fatigue and the need for a dinner in the Monty Club!

Another day, two of us went to Ghent on a very slow train. In fact, we had very little time there to meet the person we had arranged to see. More trouble on the train back. We were pushed into a first class carriage by one of the railway staff. Along came the guard, he also bowed low, turfed two Belgian men out of their seats and the seats were ours. Discrimination was not unlawful in those days! After what had been a tiring day and we were starving, the YWCA was closed. We must have looked very sad as we were invited into the kitchen to be given large plates of cottage pie. It is these little incidents that stick in your mind.

I had been brought up as a Methodist and, also, in the forces, many of us went to church. Away from home, church was a place of comfort. Easter Sunday 1945, I was on duty in the middle of the day. I wanted to go to an early service and found there was a Methodist Chapel in Brussels, the Wesley Chapel. It turned out to be a lovely chapel, medium-sized, very well decorated and it would a real home to me later. It had been founded by an American Missionary Society, but by this time it had become self-supporting. Several of the Belgian members had suffered persecution under the Germans; two were killed; two, including the Assistant Pastor, had been sentenced to six months imprisonment for helping British airmen who had baled out. Some were sent to Germany for forced labour, some of them never returning having died there. The chapel was full, civilians outnumbered by service personnel. After duty, I returned to the evening service of hymn singing. Subsequent Sundays, a group of us went to the morning service, lunch at the Café Concorde, a visit somewhere in the afternoon. Back then to Wesley House for tea – one day a competition to see who could drink the most tea! The evening service was, first, a half hour ‘songs of praise’, followed by a combined French/English service. The hymn books were printed in both French and English. If the preacher were giving his address in English, Dr. Thonger would either translate it into French in sections, or take it down in shorthand and read it in the other language, as appropriate.

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