Description
Object description
Wordprocessed ts memoir (94pp) recording her service with the WRNS, February 1941 - 1946, including training at the Royal Naval College Greenwich; her rapid promotion to Master At Arms at the shore establishment HMS PEMBROKE III (August 1941); training as a Wren Officer Cadet at the RNC (February 1942); as Third Officer at HMS EAGLET (the WRNS Training Establishment for Western Approaches) (March 1942); as Second Officer (November 1942) at the same location; at a base in Belfast, Northern Ireland (early 1943); back to HMS PEMBROKE III in charge of an administration course (Christmas 1943); as First Officer WRNS on the staff of the Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief initially in France (December 1944) and after the Armistice in occupied Germany, with the ultimate rank of Chief Officer WRNS North West Europe. The memoir includes very interesting descriptions of the use of the London underground as an air raid shelter, living conditions and hygiene in the RNC Greenwich, Home Front life including rationing, the secrecy surrounding Bletchley Park where one of her colleagues was posted, her involvement in radio broadcasts for propaganda purposes, the fraternisation of English girls with black American GIs and the different girls under her command, friendships and meetings with the actors Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh and the author PG Wodehouse, her training methods as an instructor, initial reactions to the German "pilotless planes" (V1 rockets), and her injury from bombing and recovery in Dartford Hospital; after her embarkation to North West Europe, she describes her quarters in a French chateau, Christmas celebrations, the funeral of Allied Naval C-in-C Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Victory celebrations in Paris, the state of Germany immediately after capitulation and the bitterness of the population, attendance at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials including the interrogation of Field Marshal von Rundstedt, a visit to Berlin and the ruins of Hitler's Chancellery, Russian looting, and her marriage to a Naval Commander, John Hodges, in Hamburg.
Content description
Wordprocessed ts memoir (94pp) recording her service with the WRNS, February 1941 - 1946, including training at the Royal Naval College Greenwich; her rapid promotion to Master At Arms at the shore establishment HMS PEMBROKE III (August 1941); training as a Wren Officer Cadet at the RNC (February 1942); as Third Officer at HMS EAGLET (the WRNS Training Establishment for Western Approaches) (March 1942); as Second Officer (November 1942) at the same location; at a base in Belfast, Northern Ireland (early 1943); back to HMS PEMBROKE III in charge of an administration course (Christmas 1943); as First Officer WRNS on the staff of the Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief initially in France (December 1944) and after the Armistice in occupied Germany, with the ultimate rank of Chief Officer WRNS North West Europe. The memoir includes very interesting descriptions of the use of the London underground as an air raid shelter, living conditions and hygiene in the RNC Greenwich, Home Front life including rationing, the secrecy surrounding Bletchley Park where one of her colleagues was posted, her involvement in radio broadcasts for propaganda purposes, the fraternisation of English girls with black American GIs and the different girls under her command, friendships and meetings with the actors Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh and the author PG Wodehouse, her training methods as an instructor, initial reactions to the German "pilotless planes" (V1 rockets), and her injury from bombing and recovery in Dartford Hospital; after her embarkation to North West Europe, she describes her quarters in a French chateau, Christmas celebrations, the funeral of Allied Naval C-in-C Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Victory celebrations in Paris, the state of Germany immediately after capitulation and the bitterness of the population, attendance at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials including the interrogation of Field Marshal von Rundstedt, a visit to Berlin and the ruins of Hitler's Chancellery, Russian looting, and her marriage to a Naval Commander, John Hodges, in Hamburg.
History note
Cataloguer APR
History note
Catalogue date 1999-08-06