CHB: “Did they keep the landing craft in one box and the destroyers in another, like that?”
KK: “Yes. Landing craft and then LST’s and then LCTs…”
Wren Marjorie Hepworth, at HMS Vectis (Isle of Wight) in the run up to D-Day, was in charge of a staff of six Wren officers. Her office dealt with all the smaller ships:
MH: “And just before the end [of the build up to D-Day] you see I was FMO, [Fleet Mail Officer] and also ‘FMO’ was ‘Force Medical Officer’, and the signal was sent to me for the date of the invasion! And, of course, I returned it to the Force Medical Officer, because I knew I wasn’t supposed to know the exact date. But the Solent was absolutely full of ships. We had army, all these big consorts. A friend in the Army was on an American ship and he once brought a loaf of white bread ashore and that was simply wonderful for us, and we saw all these caissons being assembled [for the Mulberry Harbours] and drifting away.”
Olive Baker was a Leading Wren in the Fleet Mail Office at Cowes in the run-up to D-Day. She suffered from stomach trouble, possibly brought on by eating the fried food provided for the girls, but possibly, she realised, from the stress of a bereavement in 1942. When D-Day came, she felt depressed, from hearing that a lot of people she knew formed part of the Beach landing party for Juno Beach, and that several of them were killed.
“When we woke up the next morning I remember the first thing that I saw was the St David’s hospital ship going up the Southampton Waters and that was the day I was off. I was a bit upset because I wasn’t in the thick of it, so I went down to the office and hung around and I remember seeing the postman of a small Canadian ship, ‘cause the Canadians went over from there. And I remember this Canadian coming in and he was always a cheeky chappy and he was absolutely shattered. I remember the change in him overnight. I think - we were obviously worried about casualties.”
Some of the Wrens who were on duty were invited into the Radio Room from where they heard sounds from the Normandy Beaches - guns, men’s voices. They found it very emotional and most did not stay long, although afterwards this recollection was uppermost in their minds. They felt that it was a privilege to have been there. It had been tragic when one of their force ships was lost. But they were proud to have played a part of the operation, even a small part, and delighted it had been a success. A special communion service held the day before D-Day was recalled, together with the keyed up feelings associated with it. Then sailing was postponed because of the weather. Staff had to work, but there was not much work to do. They watched the ships sail, knowing what was going to happen, and felt very emotional.
Isobel Holmes, BEM, born 1925, was recruited in Londonderry and worked there in the Supply Branch. This extract from Chris Howard Bailey’s interview with her for ‘The Vital Link’ exhibition at the Royal Naval Museum is included because, although not in Hampshire, it shows the attitudes of the Wrens and the sense among them, that each day might be their last. Her work involved making sure ships on convoy duty received quickly the stores they needed when they docked.
Isobel recalls the day she was told that the war was over; she was on a ship and thought the sailor who told her so was joking. Then, ships in harbour began to hoot and a huge cheer went up. She was offered a tot of rum.
IH: “I was very proud to be a Wren. Perhaps we didn’t appreciate how important our part was, because everybody’s part was important during the war. And perhaps this is the reason that we felt there were others doing things that were much more important than what you were doing. But my job was just as important as the next one. Other Wrens used to say ‘Goodnight and God bless’ because one never knew if you were going to see the next day.”
The war brought not only danger, but also new skills, enforced travel, and a chance to see the world. This is former WRNS officer Peggy Kent (née White), born 1919:
“When I joined the WRNS my name was Peggy White and I lived in the north of England. Joined first of all as a Wren living at home, and then I was made an officer and sent up to Greenock as a cypher officer. I went to Glasgow as a cypher officer then I was sent down to HMS Mercury to do the signal course. I was the second one to do it. It was an RNVR course - mostly men but a few women were allowed on this course. There was one course before mine and I think they had a year between to see if it worked, and then we were sent off and when we finished (it lasted for about four months) it was frightening because we had all these things with flags and signals. We had to learn Morse code, you see.
“And you had these awful … In the classroom you had a buzzer, and we all had our names - call signs - and mine was WIG. The instructor would send a signal to WIG and I had to reply to it. It was all rather frightening, but we survived. I expect they were desperate. We used to do this flag signalling - out on the terrace with battlements round and a sailor would stand sending signals in semaphore. We used to be in pairs and one would have her back towards the semaphore, and the other would be writing down. And when we had sailors, they used to say, ‘Would you like me to say what he’s making or would you like to say what you think he’s making?’ Anyway, somehow we survived.”
“Did you ever use semaphore?”
“Only on these marching manoeuvres. It’s a long time ago.”
“Do you remember your first day there?”
“I’ll never forget when we arrived at Petersfield Station. We were picked up by some sort of transport and it was December - terrible, terrible weather. I don’t think there was snow on the ground but my memory of this transport going up the A3 … we couldn’t tell where we were going. It was absolutely wild, and when we got to this enormous house, we were met by a man with a hurricane lamp because all the electrics had gone. They had no heat and no light. I think there were four or five women, we were taken up to what used to be the scullion’s quarters - iron bedsteads, two of us in bunks. And we couldn’t believe it was so cold! It was absolutely awful. We had blankets and of course, with the rationing, we were always desperately hungry for something like a piece of chocolate, which you couldn’t get. And a friend of mine, we shared a cabin and we used to rush in at break-time and we had a jar of Ovaltine and two straws and we used to spoon it in and crunch it in our mouths. And then after that I was sent off to Dover: I was doing signals for D-Day. And afterwards we were sent off to Ceylon.”
“So in the 1940’s, you’d be 20ish?”
“Yes. I came back to Hampshire because of course by then, 1946, the war in Europe had finished. I was on the staff and I met my husband who came to do his long course and we married in 1948. And we went full circle because we came back, years later, to the same quarters. When we were there during the war you used to see when you went home on leave if there was a pork pie or anything you could take to your family, because we got very much better fed. So you went home where the fatted calf was laid out. We had leave for Christmas, but coming back we couldn’t get out at Petersfield. The train went straight on to Portsmouth and I had to spend the night at some awful hotel and try to get back the next day. In those days, when the snow was very thick, we used to come across the fields on tractors.”
Wren Muriel Townley-Jones, born 6th June 1924, shared her 20th birthday with D-Day itself. Muriel recalls being “marched up and down across the parade ground, an instructor teaching us all what we had to do.” She remembers the instructor and was amazed that she recognised him many years after the war when she happened to meet him again. “He’s 90 next week and it seemed strange.”
“Of course, my mother was very strict. We had these galvanised Anderson shelters, and we went down there and it was sometimes three or four times a night. She made sure that every time you got back in bed, and even if you’d just got back in bed and the siren would go off again, and she was so nervous about it that we had to go down with her. And I used to say, ‘Oh, Mum!’ - you know. We used to have something to sort of relax on. Sometimes it would go on for hours, and we were always drinking tea. Well, there was only my mother and I mostly, because the others were away, you see. My father was in the