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Part of our time we had to learn square drill, taken by various males. We became very proficient at this and at one time a 2/Lieut. Codner drilled us and used our squad as an example to the new intake of men. Later, however, we were fired on by Germans in low flying aircraft, and had to run for it, to the wall for safety. Drill outdoors was then abandoned. Lieut. Codner was later to be an escapee in the ‘wooden horse’ saga when a prisoner of war, we did see mention of him in the British War Museum.

King George V1 visited Dover Castle and we had to form up in front of the Officers Mess for his inspection — very honoured.

When eventually we saw the last of the Black Watch, the 34th signal Training Regt was in full swing and occupied the whole of Dover Castle precinct. There was, in the cliff beneath us, royal Navy personnel, doing what we did not know!

Over the moat was a drawbridge — not used as such — and then the guard room, always manned, checking personnel in and out. At one time some Germans — spies I suppose — were imprisoned there temporarily.

Buildings housing us all were dotted about all over the place and some just outside the Castle ramparts, reached by one of the many tunnels and some sleeping quarters actually underground. Our gymnasium was also outside, this was where we later held dances.

The aim of the regiment was to train men as signallers and gunners and ‘intakes’ arrived at intervals, and as a squad, and would progress through A B C and D Depot batteries before being posted to other fighting regiments. There were also headquarters permanent staff who did the teaching and administration and this is where we came in. Some of the girls, cooks and orderlies worked in the Officers’ Mess, some in the Sgts. Mess and some in the O.R.’s {other ranks} Mess.

The Christmas of 1939, our first of the war, was riotous, something quite different. I was no singer, but joined a few others who could, Mary among them. Attending choir practice in the garrison church, St. Mary’s, the great attraction here was the tea and buns provided by the Padre. The practice was leading up to singing at the service on Christmas morning. We had to go to the office to do some work first and whilst we were there Major Dyer sent for us one by one. When I went in he wished me a happy Christmas. What else we said I cannot remember, but he was half cut. He then proceeded to pour out a whisky for me, which I had never drunk before, and I drank it. Orders had to be obeyed. It went straight to my head and I was on top of the world. We then went off to Church and I know it was all a big blur, including the faces in the congregation, but when I did make out a face I knew I smiled broadly, here were lots of suppressed giggles all round.

According to tradition at Christmas dinner, Officers waited on the other ranks .

That first winter of the war was very cold, with snowfalls. Trucks making deliveries to the Castle could not make the hill, so men had to go down and pull food etc. up on makeshift sledges. It was awful for us really so cold everywhere, no central heating, just a small coal fire in the office but the Sgt. was always ordering ‘brew ups’, tea which we drank out of half pint, thick china mugs. We always had to carry these mugs, knife, fork, spoon to meals, washing them up after a meal in water in buckets in the Mess Hall .

In the early days, tea was brought to us in a bucket and one dipped the mug in to fill it. It was so sweet, it was horrible, and when we said so, we were told we could have a bucket with sugar to one without — no half measures, that is when I started drinking tea without sugar.

The first breakfast we had, was ox heart, surrounded by greasy gravy. This did not happen again, I suppose it was cooked mainly for the Black Watch. Our breakfasts did become normal.

After a while, it was necessary to put the A.T.S. in our own eating area and for this was chosen a room above the stables, neither having been used for years. They were cleaned out, a long table and forms provided. The windows were of the small diamond variety, some of which were missing, the stairs to this room were steep and narrow. There was an old-fashioned kitchen range there which was lit but never stayed alight. It belched smoke too into the room.

There was snow around and we had to collect ‘dixies’ with the food in, from the cookhouse across a paved area, down a flight of steps, across a path to the stables, then up to our mess room. We had to keep our coats on it was so cold. Oh yes, on a couple of occasions we had to slide down the steps on our backsides because they were impacted with hard snow, holding the dixies aloft. We moaned about the arrangements and after a while, moved yet again, to what had been part of Married Quarters. Here we had our own cook, no great shakes, but an improvement.

Dover started to become a target for the German aircraft, and if in our free time the air raid siren sounded, we were not allowed to leave barracks. Officially, there was a way through a tunnel, over the moat and away, but it was a long way round to get to the town. However, because of this enforced confinement, we started exploring the Castle and precincts thoroughly — a fascinating place. We explored the tunnels, battlements, the keep, everything, and in the fine weather it was a lovely place to be.

I remember one lovely evening one of the girls took a few of us to one part of the moat where we sat quietly and heard a nightingale, lovely.

We saw a lot of enemy action. We could see fires on the French coast. Germans bombed shipping in the Channel and this we could watch from the Church wall. Our M.T.B’s . would rush out from Dover to look for survivors — {MTB’s Motor Torpedo Boats}. Dog fights overhead. Their planes would swoop in and machine gun the town, then off again, before the sirens sounded sometimes. Ships in the harbour were bombed. Our barrage balloons were potted at and destroyed regularly.

One Sunday afternoon an aerial dog fight developed, which was not unusual for us, but this particular day it was being reported on the radio, a blow by blow account. The families at home were horrified and worried stiff. My eldest brother rang the parents, saying it should not be allowed that we were in the ‘front line’. Little did they know that four of us were on the public tennis courts in the town, trying to play some tennis. However, it seems various parents were ringing each other with a view to demanding we be taken away from Dover. We were horrified, and told them not to do such a thing, we were happy and never felt in any danger.

Ultimately, the constant enemy action caused the regiment to be moved as training was being interrupted — but a lot happened before that.

One day I was walking along the shopping street on my own when a sailor grabbed me and pulled me into a pub. A German plane was flying in low and machine gunning the High Street. I do not think there were any casualties.

The tunnels at the Castle were used as shelters and you only went to the one to which you were allotted, not just anywhere. During the day we were alright because the offices were partly below ground level.

There was a restaurant in the town below ground level, and called The Crypt, probably was at one time. Natural stone walls, very safe from air raids, we thought. It was quite a sociable place to go, we always got chatting to people at other tables. One evening some Naval Officers asked us to have a drink with them and we all had a happy time. They were from the Frigate ‘Kittiwake’ which, to our horror, was sunk the next day.

Eventually because of the bombing and shelling it was arranged that all personnel sleeping in barrack rooms above ground were to be transferred into The Keep. Dover Castle is of the Norman period and quite huge inside. Our beds were very close together — head to toe — and we were all accommodated in two of the Castle rooms (halls I suppose originally). At one end was an area which was used in the old days as a lavatory. The floor finished about two feet from the end and there was a sheer drop where ‘IT’ went. Portable loos were in there, usually used only in an emergency. Two smaller rooms were occupied by N.C.Os.

The rooms above us were occupied by men. After a while, when I was lying in bed ready for sleep, I saw an eye gazing down between the massive beams forming our ceiling and the upstairs floor. Then everybody looked up and there were eyes all over the place — gradually notes attached to a piece of cotton would be lowered. We had mentioned the eyes to some of our boyfriends and they told us at night it was like a mosque up there — all on their knees, peering at us through the cracks — so we then undressed in the small rooms before getting into bed. The R.S.M heard about all this and had the gaps filled in but some bits still got poked out.

It was whilst we were sleeping in there that a bomb was dropped on the Keep. It just glanced off the wall and blew the blackout down. The noise of that frightened the life out of us because normally no outside noises could be heard. Also, there were four machine guns on top — one on each of the four towers — we could hear these.

It was a dreadful time during Dunkirk. Two of our regimental Officers volunteered for a particular task and went off. Two days later we heard that they had been killed. War was beginning to mean something.

Some evenings, if we were free, we went to the docks taking buns, cigarettes, anything we could to hand, to take to the returning soldiers who were in a very poor state, leaning out of the train windows. Soldiers and sailors were being carried by stretcher to waiting ambulances and driven off, some on foot heavily bandaged and saddest of all, bodies being transported by ambulances driven by the F.A.N.Y. During all this, enemy aircraft still around.

Although what we had seen was devastating, it is strange, we all had to get on with living and aim at finishing the war and win it.

The Germans then started shelling Dover from huge guns set up on the French coast. These, of course, were silent until they landed — so very frightening — they did a lot of damage in the town and in the docks. Little on the Castle except one which damaged an underground emergency hospital.

I recall a missile of some sort fell on Burtons {the clothiers} situated in Market square. The building was badly damaged but the plate glass windows remained intact.

The sea front and esplanade were soon to be cut off by barbed wire and become out of bounds for obvious reasons. Invasion by the Germans was always on the cards, had they followed up at the time of Dunkirk, it would have been easy. For the castle to be used as a training ground was not viable — moves were afoot for the Regiment to go elsewhere.

In 1941 it was arranged that we were to be moved to Lancashire, to a place called Bamber Bridge.

We were so happy in Dover castle, although the conditions were spartan. It was our first taste of army life and many times we were desperate to leave but would not have gone although we could have, as the A.T.S. did not become part of the British army until 1943.

There was one time when some of us said we would give it a year and then go, but we did not. Once we stood at the mouth of a tunnel high above the rocks and said if things got worse we would jump, but we did not.

L.M.M. GOOSSENS - 3 September 1939-1941

September 1992.

I was stationed in many places in England — some good — some not so good, throughout the six years of war, the last being spent with the H.Q. M.E.F. Cairo.
It was all an experience I wouldn’t have missed for anything.

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