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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Suzanne Longstone and has been added to the website on behalf of Miss Freda Flowers with her permission and she fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

In 1939 Freda’s mother made her join the Land Army based near her home in Surrey. However, after about eighteen months Freda couldn’t bear it any more and rebelled, walking out of the Land Army and into the WRNS. For a year she was on minewatching duties based at Ormond Lodge, Richmond. Her love of the water and her skills in swimming, canoeing got her selected to be trained as Boat Crew. The training meant promotion to Leading Wren and the Boat Crew were the only Wrens to wear a white lanyard. Her first posting was HMS Victory in Portsmouth, ferrying officers and crew around Portsmouth Harbour. (see story titled ‘A Rebel Who Loved The Water’)

Invasion plans were hotting up all the time and on the sixth of September 1943 Freda was transferred to duties as deck hand at HMS Forward, Newhaven. Their boat had a crew of four — a coxswain(cox), engineer and two deck hands. They worked on two boats. One was the Ocelot - a 40 foot river launch originally from Teddington on the River Thames — not exactly the best designed craft to withstand the conditions in the English Channel! Both boats were used for in-harbour work, but the ‘Ocelot’ provided the living facilities, including sleeping - two crew slept forward and two aft. Headquarters was HMS Forward, sited in secret tunnels in South Heighton, Newhaven. Duties were to carry mail, stores and officers out to the wooden minesweepers stationed in the Channel. Newhaven harbour was crammed full of ships ready for the invasion, so there were no berths for the minesweepers to dock at. They were constantly plying up and down the Channel, looking for mines and relied on the WRNS Boat Crew to deliver their mail. Freda and her fellow crew had only one weekend a month off, and another period of about seven days off every three months. On one trip their boat crashed into a minesweeper in mid-channel and the cox lost her nerve. Freda had to take command. The cox soon left and on 18th March 1944 Freda was given instant promotion to Leading Wren (Coxswain). She remembers skidding as she went up to the officer to receive her promotion and nearly crashing into the table!

In May 1944, when invasion became more imminent, duties were stepped up. All leave was cancelled, and no-one was even allowed to leave Newhaven. Then their duty was to carry Kite Balloons out to ships in the invasion fleet. These were small barrage balloons which were attached to a ship with the intention of deterring enemy dive bombers and prevent them getting close enough to sink the ship; or entangling the bombers, so causing them to crash. However, some ship’s captains were not convinced that this would happen and were not too keen on them. It was felt that the Kite Balloons could give away the ship’s position to enemy aircraft and have the opposite effect of making the ship an easy target. Some ships would leave harbour without them, having conveniently ‘forgotten’ to take them on board while tied up. Often, crews of the Merchant ships would pretend not to understand English, so Freda and her crew would follow them far out into the Channel, whilst persuading them to take the balloons on board, involving a long trip back to harbour.

When D-Day was very close, Freda’s boat was allocated to a special operation towing a buoy, containing a mechanism that made it appear to be a fleet of ships to the German radar systems, out into the Channel. In mid-channel they handed it over to a MTB (motor torpedo boat) which took it very close to a part of the French coast not involved in D-Day, with the intention of deceiving the Germans into diverting their troops to the wrong area and so helping the invasion.

After all the ships had left for the invasion Freda remembers the harbour of Newhaven being completely empty and silent; extremely eerie after the cramped conditions and bustle of the harbour in the last months. She will never forget those first prisoners, shipped over after D-Day. Word got around the Harbour that prisoners were expected, so lots of people, including Freda, made their way to the jetty and watched them coming off. The men were very small, wearing no clothes and clutching a piece of sacking to cover up their nakedness, most with no shoes though some wore wooden clogs, long, matted hair and thick beards. At the time everyone was totally shocked at the sight of them. Freda later thought on reflection that they were more likely to be German slave labour who had been rescued, rather than German soldiers taken prisoner, but she was never sure. In contrast later, German Air Force officers taken prisoner were marched off a ship: full uniform — all neat and smart, polished, knee-high jack boots and leather attaché cases under their arms, all looking very sure of themselves. There was also a woman dressed in what appeared to be Red Cross uniform, but word had it she was a German spy from the invasion beaches.

However, Freda’s duties were not over. The crew were assigned to work alongside Air-Sea Rescue boats — civilian yachtsmen who went out through minefields to pick up aircrew from the sea. She remembers one crash in particular. They watched, amazed, as the cabin door of the rescue boat slid open and all eight of the crew of the rescued plane stood up and walked out — no injuries, no-one needed stretchers or first aid. All the rescuers were thrilled!

Freda explained that the Navy was called the ‘Silent Service’ during WW2 because so little information leaked out to the enemy. All their vital work was carried out in a quiet, confident manner. The officers didn’t need to shout or bully their crew. There was total respect that everyone in the navy would get on with their job, small or large. She fondly remembers life where she knew that what she did was appreciated, and will always remember wearing her Boat Crew white lanyard with pride.

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