大象传媒

Beryl: I was 17, not old enough to go in the Army, volunteered and went to Taunton, and said that I鈥檇 like to join the ATS. I said I was 18 鈥� I lied to get in. I was called up on 22 December 1941 and I had my call-up papers to go into the Army on 2 January 1942. I went to Honiton for my ATS basic training: they taught you how to march, what the Army was all about, you had to have your injections. They dished out what we had to wear, two of each or three of each 鈥� a couple of bras, a couple of hook-side corsets, stockings, brown leather shoes, tunic and skirt and hat, khaki shirts, woollen white pants and long, what we called passion-killers, khaki silk knickers. One of the pairs I had came up to my arm pits and down below my knees 鈥� I can tell you, I never wore them all the time I was in the ATS!

At the end of our basic training we had all our injections, to make sure we were fit enough to fight, we were then expecting to go on to the jobs we had volunteered to do. I volunteered to be a driver, then the word came through that they were desperate for women to work on the gun sites 鈥� jobs that the men had previously done 鈥� except for firing the guns. RADAR was in its infancy and very very secret in those days. Some of the girls were chosen to train for that. The information the RADAR had picked up was transferred by electric cables to the gun post itself. There were machines called Predictors, Height Finders and Range Finders, people did spotting with binoculars to look for the aircraft in the daytime. Then underneath the concrete building where we worked, there were plotting rooms. They also plotted enemy aircraft coming in over the coast. All that information came from the GL into the Predictor, which is where I worked. As the name suggested, it predicted the future position of the aircraft you were tracking at that time. It was very clever, we didn鈥檛 understand what was going on in the machine, we just knew that we had jobs to do and we just carried those jobs out and hopefully all that information would go over to the guns. From the information we received, they could also work out the fuse for the shells which would be fired from the guns so they would take x number of minutes, so that by the time the aircraft had got there, the shell should have hit the gun. We never hit anything in our battery, not for want of trying. I found out later that the fact the guns were there and firing gave the civilians a feeling of security, and that we were looking after them, which was wonderful.

When I went to Taunton they told us we would work as near home as possible, which was the biggest con ever. We were sent to Devizes in Wiltshire where we did our basic Ack-Ack training, then to Whitby in North Yorkshire, where we did practice firing. We fired at a sleeve over the North Sea which was being pulled by light aircraft. We didn鈥檛 line up on the aircraft, incidentally, we lined up on the sleeve, otherwise we should have shot him out of the sky. Then the time came for us to go on to different gun sites, and these were at strategic points all over the country. The majority of my time was spent on the River Humber. We were along with the Coastguard Station which was down near the mouth of the river. Our job then was to make sure that the German aircraft never reached Immingham Docks, and the ICI Works, which were the targets. If we didn鈥檛 shoot them down, we were still giving comfort to the civilian population.

I was there until 1943, I met Ken then, when he was on leave and I was on gun site in Sheffield. We married in 1944 and in January 1945 I was discharged because I was expecting our first baby. It was a time I never would have missed, although it was an awful time to grow up in for the civilian people, who had rationing and clothes coupons and, in big places like London, had to spend the nights in air raid shelters. Life must have been hell for them. We were in the midst of it, but at least we knew we were doing a job. Other times we were free 鈥� we used to go to the local pub and to dances, so we did have some fun. It was the beginning of emancipation for girls of my age 鈥� we were doing a man鈥檚 job and expected to be treated equally.

Ken: I was in the Royal Navy, 1940 to 1946. I was a bunting tosser (a signalman!) 鈥� flags, semaphore, and lights flashing. I joined a Hunter class destroyer; it鈥檚 a light destroyer with three twin four-inch guns. We went out on patrol in the Atlantic in convoys, then down to the Mediterranean, in Gibraltar, escorting, or trying to escort, convoys to Malta. But we never did, we got damaged every time and got patched up. Then we went round the Cape, Cape Town, up to the Red Sea, Alexandria, with convoys to Tobruk and back, the Malta convoys 鈥� the first one from Alexandria never got through. The second one did get through 鈥� the Italian fleet came out and started bombarding. We had to lay a smoke screen between the fleets and the merchant ships. We went along with HMS Carlisle and we rammed the Carlisle 鈥� couldn鈥檛 see her in the smoke. Then back into Malta for a re-fit and repairs. Because the aircraft didn鈥檛 come over in ones and two, they came out in 30s and 40s.

Then after a patch up in Malta, we went on up to Gibraltar, for further repairs, came home, repaired in Falmouth, then back to the Mediterranean for the North African landing, and unfortunately the captain got in the way of an aerial torpedo which went into the forward magazine, blew everything up, in front of the bridge. Everything went except for the twin 4 inch gun, and that came up under the bridge, where we were standing. There were five killed on the bridge, and about 37 below. We didn鈥檛 sink; we managed to go astern, back to Gibraltar. The ship鈥檚 company went back to England, but 40 of us stayed on board. She was patched up with iron casing full of cement, then we brought her back to Chatham, came home on leave and met somebody (laughs, wife is with him!), drunk every night (I wasn鈥檛, she says) that鈥檚 all we could do, go out drinking. Then after the survivors鈥� leave was up, I went back down to Plymouth, went out and picked up an aircraft carrier in Vancouver, went back to the Firth of Forth, with a convoy. We had to have all the engines taken out, so they sent us out on leave, so I went home and got married, then went back, rejoined the ship and went out to the Far East, to Burma and Malaya, with all the Japanese aircraft.. and that was the end of the War!

We went back to Trincomalee, where we were based, instead of coming straight back home we had to ferry troops back to Melbourne, Australia, to Wellington, New Zealand, and the captain requested that we go from Wellington, to the Suez Canal, we would have gone all round the world in the Empress. But they refused and we had to go back to Trincomalee, pick up British forces and take them home. (Wife says 鈥渁nd you saw our son for the first time, and he was three months old. He was born when Ken was in Wellington, New Zealand 鈥� and I could have killed him! I had a letter from him saying he鈥檇 wet the baby鈥檚 head鈥�)

Beryl: Ken was in the Royal Navy and I was in the ATS. I鈥檓 very proud now to be Chairman of a group of ladies who all served either with the guns or the searchlights. There was a Searchlight Regiment that was all female; there wasn鈥檛 a man on site at all. In 1996 we became a branch of the Royal Artillery Association. We have 756 members still living, and at nearly 80 I鈥檓 one of the youngest 鈥� a lot of the ladies are well into their 90s We have a reunion every year at York which is absolutely marvellous for them, we live from one year to the next. If they don鈥檛 go anywhere else during the year, they come to the Reunion, so they can be with girls (!), the camaraderie is wonderful.

Ken and I married on our third meeting! We didn鈥檛 know anything about each other, really. I did my first stint of 鈥渃onfined to barracks鈥� when I met Ken, because I could only get a 24 hour leave, and he talked me into taking another 24 hours and when I got back to camp I was put on a charge, before the CO. I explained why and she said if everybody did it, where would the war be! I lost my stripes as well. But it was worth it!

In June we shall be married 60 years (Ken: you only get 10 years for murder!)

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