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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Melissa, a pupil from Teversham Primary School on behalf of Mrs Dorothy Pettitt and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Pettitt fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was called up to the A.T.S. in September 1942 when I was 21 years old. The A.T.S. was the women’s army and stood for Auxiliary Territorial Service. I still remember my Army Number: W/209663. After training, I joined the 606 H.A.A. Battery; this was a Heavy Anti-Aircraft army unit of large guns.

I was stationed mainly in Sussex and Kent until I was demobbed in about April 1946. Our gun post would be on a site on the coast with the heavy guns mounted above ground and the command post with the communications, where I worked, underground. We lived in tin huts called ‘Nissan huts’ or under canvas and worked long hours in shifts so the site was manned 24 hours a day. I was a telephonist, when enemy bombers were detected I would receive a call from what we called ‘G.L.’. I now assume they used radar to locate the planes. G.L. gave the location of the bombers, the height they were travelling, the direction and their speed. I would make some calculations and relay this to the gun operators up above so they could line up the guns to fire at the aircraft if they came within range of our gun post. The heavy guns were extremely noisy when they went off. I also relayed the information to the ‘plotters’ who moved markers on a map of England to show the route of the bombers.

Bombers came from the direction of France across The Channel and batteries were at strategic points to London and other big cities. Unfortunately, some planes did get through and were able to drop their bombs and cities like London and Coventry were badly hit. Some enemy bombs were dropped at our gun sites, but they didn’t get a direct hit, although I remember some bombs falling close by in Kent.

Doodlebugs were quite frightening. They were a flying bomb that made a thunderous noise and had a flame from the back. When the flame went out you knew the bomb would fall and cause awful damage. They used to fly low over the sea and just skim over the cliffs on their way to|London. They used to call Romney Marshes in Kent ‘Doodlebug Alley’.

All our work was very secret. I only knew about my own job. This is why I didn’t know anything about the work in the G.L. cabins or what happened to the information I relayed. This was for security. I could not have explained anything to anyone else because I really didn’t know. It is only from newspapers and television programmes since the war that I have understood a lot of what went on and the reasons why we were doing things.

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