I have included, with permission, stories of Gosport Airport and the memories of brave men and women of Gosport and Portsmouth civilians who were in the Fire Service, the Rescue Services and ARP. It was worth researching the whole of Hampshire at War, not just Hayling Island, but I have concentrated most on this island because so very much happened here. We even had a mock-invasion, when hundreds of men and machines were landed from the sea on Hayling’s shores. Such happenings were sure to have affected the population of the island - all those men roaming the streets in uniform; all those lonely young men looking for diversion during training. The pubs were full and so were the dance-halls and the local cinemas. Women gradually took over jobs formerly done by men. The gun site at Sinah Warren was a mixed one and girls shot down a Dornier. Girls also took over the telephone exchange. Wrens were doing clerical work at the camps. Women were working as bus conductors. All over Hampshire, similar changes were happening to local populations. Men who were not in uniform were in short supply.
In the country, some of the big houses were requisitioned. People were working all hours, trying to fit in Home Guard duties and civil defence with a day job. Hampshire was full, early on, of Home Guard detachments drilling - actually with broomsticks. Yes, they really did, because rifles were, at first, scarce. And evacuees were sent into the country for safety.
I offer my sincere thanks to all the people who have shared their memories with me, either by taping them or writing their stories. I have approached Hampshire museums for evidence of what was really going on which was “so secret” and have been lent a lot more stories.
Thank you, too, to those of the media who have helped by publishing my requests for information, particularly the editors of The Hayling Islander, The Portsmouth News Ltd., The Soldier, Navy News, The Legion Magazine, Kedgehook and the magazine of the Hampshire Women’s Institute. Thanks too to the County Library, particularly the branches at Havant and Hayling Island, who have been most helpful. And I have enjoyed meeting the people with whom I have chatted. I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did.
I came to Hampshire with my husband, John, who is a Hampshire man. I was at school during the war in Yorkshire. We had tanks in our suburban lane soon after the war started, and I served with my mother in two canteens for the services and joined the International Red Cross. But the effects of war were much less concentrated where I was, near Hull, than here. We spent a lot of time in our air raid shelter, as Hull was Blitzed, but although my father fire-watched Hull, where he worked, Hull was not bombed as often nor so severely as Portsmouth, which is believed to have been bombed more than any city other than London. We lived on the outskirts, so just watched fires and searchlights in the sky as we went to our air raid shelter. I planned to join the Wrens when I was old enough, because I liked the uniform, but the war was over before I left school. I know now how hard some of these girls worked, and at jobs for which I was hardly fitted.
I have enormous respect for those who are represented in these pages. Some said they were not afraid because they were so well trained and they just had a job to do. Others were just plain scared and admitted it. And I am aware that they remember with respect those whom they knew who failed to survive, and whom many have said they recall “at the going down of the sun and in the morning …”
I began recording Hayling Island history as my own personal millennium project and have compiled much of this account with reference to the experiences of those who have lived and worked here. I am grateful to all those who have contributed their advice, memories and photographs, and to Captain Derek Oakley, MBE, RM for reading the first version of the manuscript and for writing the Foreword to what has grown into a very different book!
Hayling lies east of the City of Portsmouth on the south coast of Hampshire, England. Between it and Portsmouth is Langstone Harbour. The waters of Chichester Harbour lap its eastern shore. Close to the Portsmouth Royal Naval Dockyard and the city’s naval establishments, and with accommodation already present in the form of holiday homes, hotels and holiday camps, the Island was used throughout the Second World War to accommodate large numbers of Royal Navy and Royal Marine personnel, particularly those in training. Hayling’s creeks and harbours were ideal for mooring a growing number of the minor landing craft used in the invasion of continental Europe in 1944 and for training those who manned them.
Hayling’s wide sandy beach was used for a large-scale invasion rehearsal and prior to this, the Island was the starting point for secret raids on Occupied France. It provided a base for secret training of COPP personnel (Combined Operations Pilotage Parties) who were to survey possible landing places for Allied invasion forces both on European and Mediterranean shores.
I feel privileged to have been the recipient of many recollections of Hayling Island from those who were here during the period 1939 to 1945. Where authorised, taped memories have been deposited in the Wessex Film and Sound archive and letters received will be offered to the County Record Office. Telephone conversations were recorded in note form at the time they were made and extracts from as many contributors as possible have been included in the text. As time went on, I extended my research to the rest of Hampshire. Here I present a number of snapshots of the time from the memories of those who experienced it.
On a personal note, I have enjoyed conversations with many charming elderly folk who were young then, but only a little older than me. Some of the ladies were able to man gun-sites and administration offices to release men for other essential work. Now I know, to some extent, what I missed. It is only recently that some of the information collected here has become available. I realise that I was living through much more history than anyone managed to teach me in school.
During the time I was preparing the Hayling material it became clear to me that this was just the kernel of something potentially much larger, a book that could actually encompass the experience of the war-time years throughout Hampshire as a whole and indeed beyond its county boundaries, and although incorporating this additional material has obviously proved a much, much longer task than the production of the originally planned volume would have been, we feel that the overall result has been a much better narrative, and one that still retains the Hayling Island material, but now set in its wider context.
The material in this book has been loosely grouped in broad categories, covering such obvious areas as the Army, the Navy, the Home Front, etc. However, it is not always possible to be so clean-cut about people’s reminiscences, which inevitably will overlap artificial boundaries in some cases. I hope the reader will forgive these instances where we have felt it is more important to let someone carry on telling a fascinating story, rather than cut them short and try and “shoehorn” their tale into a specific category. Similarly, some of these interviews were done in a format which identifies the interviewee and interviewer by initials, and where this has been done, I have left it in place, as an added aid to understanding who was speaking at the time.
The ranks mentioned in people’s contributions are usually the rank they held at that time, although not always. Some of them of course went on to obtain higher ranks through promotion, both during and after the War.
THANKS AND PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to Captain Derek Oakley, MBE, RM, for checking through the first draft of my work. Also to: David Lee, Wessex Film and Sound Archivist, for help and advice; Dr John Stedman, Portsmouth Museums Service; the Curator and Staff of Havant Museum; Havant and Waterlooville Urban District Council; the Royal Marines Museum, Portsmouth; Portsmouth D-Day Museum; Emsworth Museum; Aldershot Museums; Hampshire County Record Office; John Badley, Langstone RSPB Reserve; Mr L. Cairns, Coastal Defence Engineers, Havant Borough Council; Mr R. Miles, author of Miles Aweigh, for insight into what the training he received on Hayling Island led to; Beryl, Lady Mackworth, for permission to quote from personal memoirs; W.D. Jarman, author of Those Wallowing Beauties - the Story of Landing Craft in World War II; Mr Ron Dunham, for putting me in touch with Peter Frampton, author of The Royal Marines 803 LCV (p) Flotilla Combined Operations Force; the editors of The Hayling Islander, Portsmouth Evening News, Navy News, The Globe and Laurel and Kedgehook; Hampshire Library Service, especially