大象传媒

I was at school when the war started and I became a school air raid warden. I remember the day the Army Remounts came to the stables at Hampton Court - Limerick, my mare was stabled there. I remember cycling from school to the stables and being so very worried that they might have taken her away. However she had managed to look "blowsey" and thus didn't measure up.

Later I became a bicycle messenger between the First Aid Post and the Air Raid Warden Post.

In 1943 I joined the ATS [W/284556]with my Mothers permission and trained as a Driver before D Day. I had a half pint of milk ration per day because of my age.

I took vehicles to Canadian LSTs, manned by the Royal Navy at Greenock for the Russian convoys. A military police escort met us outside Glascow to get us through the city to Helensborough.

During D Day preperations I took vehicles to the Americans who were already onboard ships at Southampton. I travelled in the back of a lorry to VRD to collect smoke screen vehicles to bring down for the Guardsmen. We often took vehicles to the Americans based along the south coast. I saw very long convoys of americans just slowly going along until it was their time to embark. It was easy to get past them because of the convoy distancing rules of a telegraph pole and a half between vehicles.

I returned from Southampton the second time by train. I watched trains packed with very young American troops kept mooving until their time came.

Later I delivered jeeps to an airfield where they were bound for Arnheim. The Cherry Berries met our jeep convoy and we saw them being loaded onto the planes.

I will be "fleshing out" and adding to this account in due course.

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