大象传媒

Janie Mills
On Joining REME

I was 20 when war broke out. Although my family was originally from Scotland, we had moved to Wallasey near Liverpool where I was born. When I was 8 we went back to Dundee where I attended Dundee High School and then moved to York when I was 16. I studied sciences at Leeds University and one day I slipped into the Joint Common Room for a cup of tea between lectures and heard Hitler ranting on the radio. I didn't know any German so I had no idea what he was saying, but I heard the enthusiastic cries of "Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!" from his audience.

After university I went into a research institute working on animal feeding stuffs.
One day I heard on the radio an appeal from the War Office for women science graduates to replace men who had joined the armed forces.
I decided to apply and was accepted.
When I joined up, I went to Edinburgh to get my commission.
I felt terrible because I was the only one in "civvies" (civilian clothes): all the others had worked their way up through the service ranks. I was interviewed by a War Office official and assigned to OCTU (the Officer Cadets' Training Unit) in Edinburgh. I knew nothing about army protocol or how to be an officer, but a helpful sergeant taught me how to salute ("bring your arm the longest way up and the shortest way down").

I was allocated to a group to be trained to operate and maintain radar systems. I believe there were only 11 women radar maintenance officers (RMOs) in REME (the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) in the whole country.
We were sent for training to Richmond Park (Surrey), in normal circumstances the course should have taken 6 - 8 weeks, but we were expected to do it in a fortnight.
One day our group was relaxing, sitting round a small card table drinking tea when we heard a doodlebug; you could hear these coming, the noise would suddenly cut out and you couldn't tell where they were going to land. The men promptly dived under the table, leaving the girls sitting around it! Fortunately the doodlebug came down some way away and the only damage was some broken windows.

Sometime later l was sent to Harwich, to work on coastal defences and was assigned to searchlights.
If the searchlight radar failed I was called out to repair it.
They were always in awkward places and, because of the blackout, it was very difficult to find them in the dark.
We only had an Ordnance Survey grid reference and had to drive around with dimmed headlights and there were no road signs. However, the RA (Royal Artillery) lads were very nice and always rewarded me with a tot of rum when I'd finished the job!

After the searchlights I was attached to the Royal Artillery anti-aircraft guns.
The radar pinpointed incoming German planes for the ack-ack guns, which were very, very noisy. If the planes were hit they went straight down into the sea; the coastguards tried rescue survivors if they could see them.

We didn't get home leave very often. 大象传媒 was so vital that a 24 or 48 hour passes were quite rare, though once when I was with an Irish all-male regiment I was given a 24 hour pass for St Patrick's Day, which I think was intended to get me off the site while they celebrated.
I was allowed to go home briefly to see my sister, she was in hospital with appendicitis.
We made our own entertainment, such as it was, and I remember a quiz about astronomy that we were obviously good at, and a goose was supplied by a local farmer as the first prize!
There were only 3 women in the unit and it was really a very enclosed existence.

I met my future husband, a major in REME, at Andover. He had been responsible for bringing British Army equipment back from Italy after the end of the war in Europe, having completed this job they took over the workshop.
After the end of the war in Japan we were demobbed and able to start thinking about our future.
This was a very happy 55 years together that included bringing up our two sons. The Officers' Mess table that was presented to us on our engagement is still in use!

Janie Mills

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