“When did you first learn that you were to participate in the invasion of Europe?”
“In a roundabout sort of way. One day, just as I was about to go on duty, I was handed a very small package which arrived for me in the post, and I unwrapped it.” Inside was her father’s rosary, which was given to his mother when he was a very young man. “This very beautiful thing he had carried through the First World War, through Jutland, Dardenelles… And its arrival through the post with no message - anything - threw me into a state of fright. I assumed, this being war-time, that he had been killed. So I took it back to my room. I was no use that day as a nurse at all. There’s no duty I remember.
“And as soon as I decently could, the following morning, I rang home and I said, ‘Mother, is father dead?’ She said, ‘My dear, I don’t think he’s dead. I’ve just been doing his breakfast. It’s terribly difficult to tell with your father!’ And she came back a few minutes later and said ‘No. He’s not dead. He’s eaten his egg!’ So I made my excuses and got off the phone. She must have thought I was drunk. I learned afterwards that he had learned that I was going to be sent from Aldershot…
“The first official news that I had, came just before the end of May. I was called and asked to prepare a list of the nurses serving under me, whom I thought would be suitable to be taken on actual nursing service with the armed forces. One realised at once, with all this talk of the second front, that this was actually going to be it. And I think I must have danced out of the office … I compiled my list and I couldn’t tell anybody - strictest secrecy. I had a very stressful time, packing …”
“What was the atmosphere like in Aldershot, which was a major garrison town, in the days before the invasion?”
“Absolute bedlam. Men coming down with things everywhere, packing - unpacking - orders - counter-orders. Everything seemed to be terribly disorganised. And out of this disorder - jumble - came … it was wonderfully organised. It was quite astonishing.
“We in fact were not directed to an urban area, closed camp. We were driven down in lorries into Gosport on D + 8. We went through very very quickly. People called things to us. You know, people joked - man power shortages?’, gave us some tea. It was very encouraging. Some of us, I think, were very near to tears. We went over on an LST - it was just a boat. I can remember the moving part of this was … them singing for us ‘For those in Peril on the Sea’.”
Nursing in a Field Hospital, “I actually hit Europe before my husband. We were immediately processing wounded for transporting on hospital ships. The pressure of work was very much, despite our enormous desire to go. Provision for war wounded? - they were not treated at the forward medical stations, field hospitals, where we were.
“We did very little surgical nursing. We were mostly involved in doing surgical nursing for prisoners of war, but they had to be transported back to rear dressing stations, and some of the men were in desperate physical condition. Because, apart from being wounded, they were trapped in the back of a lorry and were driven hundreds of miles. We had very few doctors.”
“How did you feel, getting so close to men who were, after all, the enemy?”
“I was a nurse. And, it sounds a cliché to say such things. We didn’t have control, in the end. One felt enormous pity. One never thought about it. Some we couldn’t get on ships and they died. It was a very busy time. Sometimes the emotional aspect really drained you.”
“How did you find your nurses, many of whom were very young girls, coped under fire?”
“I think they did very very well indeed. I think they showed tremendously - these girls - I don’t think you can touch England at all.”
“The American forces [nurses] were very… Some of them had not even touched England. They had just come straight through. They had never come under fire at all. And some of them really were … an enormous number were hysterical. It was absolutely terrible. In fact, with hindsight, we British girls were too harsh with them, but it was the fact they hadn’t had this experience (of domestic bombing).”
“Did your attitude towards the Germans change when you were involved in evacuating and treating and caring for the wounded and malnourished from Ravensbruck concentration camp?”
[Long pause.] “I find it very very difficult, in rationalising that at all. It was - terrible. And I suppose in hindsight, yes. One’s attitude did change. Seeing Germans and then seeing the Ravensbruck… was catastrophic. We were … girls who had coped perfectly well (previously) just couldn’t cope - with the stench, we were in hell. They were barely human. Half mad, many of them. Ingrained dirt in this place, it was terrible, terrible. We didn’t know what to do.” [She mentions the gas chambers.] “It was only the men, doctors … the women just cried. I still have nightmares. Guilt. Terrible state they were in. After all this long time, the terror… They had been left, simply dumped, even the rations… nothing. Absolutely dreadful.”
(Interviewed for the Gosport D-Day tapes and used courtesy of Gosport Museum)
Of course, for many soldiers, wherever they were stationed, the basics of life were the same. Shelter or cover from enemy fire, food, comradeship, and letters to and from home.
Mr Rouse of Eastleigh was in the Army. These extracts, from a ‘Hampshire’s War’ project by the Wessex Film and Sound Archive, are used courtesy of the Archive.
Asked how long it went on for, Mr Rouse replied, “Probably a month, or something like that. Our destination finally turned out to be Southend-on-Sea. But of course we were then put inside camps, behind wire, and we had our own troops guarding between the two perimeter fences, to stop us mentioning or getting anything through to civilians. Then the order came to move and that was cancelled for 24 hours, and then we moved off and left from Tilbury. And then we unloaded on the landing craft .
“We left Tilbury in a liberty boat. They put us onto the landing barge, off the Normandy Coast. ‘Cause I was Beach Recovery Unit and we were on the beach. It was a question of getting on shore and then you saw the vehicles off the landing craft. Coming down, if somebody lost their nerve, felt the water coming up off their bodies, they used to put their foot down and they used to just keep going and that jammed up the landing craft.”
[The interviewer remarked that this must have been scary.]
“If you’d got to stand and watch I suppose technically it would be hell, but as long as you’re involved in doing something, I mean you didn’t take much notice of what was happening.”
“The advance was to Dieppe and Le Havre.”
“I was on the Courseilles, landed at Arromanches.”
“That’s where the Mulberry was?”
“Yes, the concrete ships as they called them, but it wasn’t there then.”
“Did you have any prior knowledge of the Mulberry Harbour?”
“No. Because, actually, we didn’t know where we were going. Montgomery came - he visited the invasion forces beforehand. He took over Southend football ground. And the troops were marched … when you marched with guards either side of you, then you went to Southend football ground.”
“What did you know at that stage that could have been of use to a fifth columnist?”
“Well it wasn’t so much that, it was planned not from the civilians getting to you but to keep you from passing a letter saying where you were. Montgomery told you exactly what was going on and what was likely to happen. We were told when we landed you were going to be on such and such. You had a card which gave you a marshalling area. When the initial assault was on, the craft then came back to the ships to take off the liberty boats to go in and do a job where a job was necessary - it