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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Lois Cooper and has been added to the website on behalf of Vera Woodhead with her permission and she fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My memories of D-Day are quite vivid. My friend Joan and I were dispatch riders and co-drivers for the Civil Defence officer. We had various jobs to do, including going round all the outlaying country Civil Defence posts. As D Day approached we were kept very busy going to all areas with dispatches. .

The roads we passed through were lined with military personnel and vehicles of all kinds: tanks, mobile guns, lorries, armoured vehicles and troop carriers. The copses, woods and forests were also packed with vehicles and troops, a sight I and many locals shall never forget.

D-Day was postponed for 24 hours and more and more vehicles were congregating, waiting for the signal to go. Another sight I shall remember vividly was all the massed assortment of craft lying off the Solent, packed so tightly that one could not see the sea. Literally one could have hopped across from craft to craft to Lymington on the other side of the Solent without getting ones feet wet! Off the Needles and Freshwater Bay, many more ships and other craft were waiting for their orders.

I was duty driver the day before D-Day. Our C.D. Officer had to report to the Solent Yacht Club at Yarmouth, as it was the meeting place for all the officials, military, and others, to receive their orders.

After that we returned to our HQ, and patiently waited by the radio for news of the D-Day landings, which by then were a few hours away.

These are the areas, where the troops and vehicles were waiting: Norton Green, Causeway, Southdown Road, Easton Lane, Green Lane, Wilmingham Lane, Cranmore, Bouldnor, Newtown, Porchfield, Calbourne, Brighstone and Brook.

As D-Day unfolded, our ears were glued to the radio and our thoughts with the troops. The thousands of boats craft, tanks, lorries soldiers, dispersed. There was no bombing that day. What a sitting target they would have made! After the invasion Gliders were towed over to Normandy, quite a few via the Island There were also more fighters, bombers and troop carrying aircraft (Dakotas etc.). When all the soldiers, tanks, vehicles, mobile guns and boats had gone, everywhere looked bare and deserted.

After D-Day, we had the fuel pipeline, Pluto, through the Island to keep the vehicles going in Normandy, and we often saw parts of the Mulberry Harbour lying off shore.

We stayed on at the C.D. H.Q until 1945, then were disbanded. Then in 1946 our husbands were coming home, all decked out in their demob suits, mostly navy blue with a faint stripe, and shoes. I don't think they were issued with any other clothing.

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