大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Chris Comer of Stockport Libraries on behalf of "Radar" and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

During the approach to D-Day I was stationed on the North Devon Coast.

When I first joined the WAAF I was interviewed by an RAF officer to ascertain what branch of the WAAF I was interested in joining.

My older brother, Jack, had been working on radar since the start of the war and I naturally developed an interest in it myself. There perhaps was a chance I could even end up being posted to the same station as Jack. (In fact this didn't happen - Jack ended up getting posted abroad whilst I stayed in the UK).

The RAF officer who was interviewing me seemed a bit sceptical about whether I would be able to cope with understanding radar, but I managed to convince him that I could.

I did my basic training in a seaside town in the North West practising drill etc for a week or two. Then I was sent down South to begin my radar training in earnest. There was a variety of radar equipment to learn about, some designed to track low flying aircraft and shipping and some designed to follow high flying aircraft.

When I had finished my training I was posted to the South West serving at a variety of stations in Cornwall and Devon. This suited me very well as I had spent most of my teenage years living in Newquay where my mother still lived.

On the night of the 6th June 1944 I was on night duty at a radar station on the North Devon coast. Although we had no specific knowledge of the D-Day plans at the time it was obvious something was going on.

A large amount of ships and smaller craft was passing down the Bristol Channel heading along the Devon coast towards Cornwall and the English Channel.

The numbers were so huge and the radar images were so dense that it was impossible to pick out individual ships. Yet if you popped outside to look out from the cliffs everything was eerily quiet with the vessels passing silently down the coast.

We came off duty at 8am and returned to our headquarters. When we arrived there the WAAF and RAF personnel excitedly told us "The Second Front has started" and we replied "We know!"

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