From June Beslièvre.
MENTION of the 65th anniversary of D-Day brings back so many memories.

I joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service in March 1944. We were all very proud of that, as we were the first of the women’s services to be nominated ‘Royal’.
My work was in the pay office, a very important department of the Navy as I don’t think the men would have been so keen to fight without their pay.

We were part of the Fleet Air Arm, stationed on HMS Daedalus at Lee-on-Solent, near Portsmouth, and were well aware of something going on as D-Day approached and our leave outside the station was cancelled.

Then, for some strange reason, we found ourselves packing up, lock stock and barrel, pyjamas and toothbrush, to move away from the base.

As we left, we passed scores and scores of army units and, out to sea there were ships galore, side by side, it seemed almost touching, from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight – I used to say you could have walked on board ship from one to the other.

How Germany never knew this was going on I don’t know, you’d think they could have bombed them in base, but perhaps the sheer numbers put them off.
We landed up in a tiny place called Graffham, just outside Petworth in the middle of Sussex. Our nearest village was Midhurst.

The fact that we held the records of the squadrons who, when they were active onboard the aircraft carriers, were shown in our books as ‘discharged’ to a named carrier, was the reason given for our move.

I think, too, they wanted us out of the way in case the base was bombed.
However, we had a lovely time in the few days we were there before D-Day, as we attracted lots of attention. A group of WRNS in the middle of the country seemed strange to everyone around us.

There was loads of hospitality, not least from many of the local army units dispersed in the area waiting for the call. Mainly commandos, they seemed to enjoy food the likes of which we hadn’t seen in a few years.

We were invited to concerts and dances, fetched and carried in their huge trucks, which took a lot of climbing into and out of, so lots of hilarity there.

D-Day itself is one I’ve never forgotten, as the sky seemed overloaded with planes. Massive great transporters and their escorts flew in droves and work stopped as we all went outside to watch. Like the ships at Portsmouth, there didn’t seem to be any spaces between them and we thought they’d never stop coming.

There were sad moments too when we had to write ‘discharged dead’ in the ledger and we thought of all the friends we’d made on base and in the camps around us who we would not be seeing again.

I will never forget their sacrifices on 6 June 1944.
Genée Cottage,
Rue de la Hauteur,
St Lawrence.