大象传媒

I was just 17 and two months of age in 1942. Too young for military service, but the idea of joining the forces seemed more exciting than another two years of boarding school. Besides I wanted my revenge on those German bombers who kept me awake every night.

When I went to the recruitment office I was not asked for my birth certificate, but was accepted into the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). I was told to present myself at Victoria station the next week, where I would be loaded onto a train and shipped with hundreds of others to basic training camp in Guildford, Surrey. Shivering with anticipation and fear I stood waiting for orders dressed in my best utility outfit: a red hat, dress, shoes and coat. Very chic, I felt.

Our barrack hut was huge and the beds were made up of three small mattresses called 'biscuits'. These, wrapped in rough army sheets and grey blankets, had to be piled up one on top of the other at the foot of the bed ready for daily inspection. We were lucky, the boys didn't get sheets.

Here we were assessed, inoculated and deloused. Yes, most of us did have lice or at least nits. The worst cases had their heads wrapped in white cloths covered in some sort of delousing chemical. I escaped with a comb-through that discovered two nits. I had never felt so humiliated in my life. All this for a pay of 11 bob a week.

After two weeks of basic 'square bashing' we were chosen for the units we would join. I found myself as a Signals Corps trainee and sent to ex-King Farouk's luxury villa in nearby Kingston, where we were taught how to manage an old-fashioned telephone switchboard, march in step and digest army food. As way of compensation, our pay was raised to 16 shillings.

With my Signals Corps badge proudly pinned onto the left side of my uniform, I found myself posted to RAF group headquarters at Rudloe Manor in Chippenham near Bath. Here, thank goodness, I was never called upon to use a switchboard, but acted as a gunnery liaison officer seated above the enormous plotting table manned by members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). They followed the movements of enemy planes, moving plaques that indicated their height, numbers, speed and direction across the map of the south west of England. My job was to warn anti-aircraft guns when the enemy was approaching their area and give the order to fire.

Not infrequently the Air Commodore would open the glass panel that divided me from his vantage point and scream, 'Helen, you're firing at our planes again!'

There was great excitement and speculation on 6 June 1944, when we saw hundreds of plaques indicating that they were our own planes headed for France. Little did we realise at the time, but we were watching the making of history; the D-Day Landings had started.

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