Description
Object description
British wren served with Women's Royal Naval Service in Newcastle on Tyne, GB, 1939-1943; officer served as cipher officer with Women's Royal Naval Service at Greenock, GB and aboard HMT Queen Elizabeth in Atlantic, 1943-1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Newcastle on Tyne, GB, 1919-1939: family; education; employment. Aspects of period as wren with Women's Royal Naval Service in Newcastle on Tyne, GB, 1939-1943: background to volunteering for Women's Royal Naval Service, 11/1939; organisation of office in Exchange Hotel; description of coding duties; changes in coding; use of HMS Caliope as base ship; uniform issued, 1941; fundraising activities with Russian naval personnel, 1942. Aspects of officer training at Royal Naval College, Greenwich, GB, 1943: selection for cipher training at OCTU at Greenwich.
REEL 2 Continues: conditioning to naval language and traditions; relations between officers and wrens; comparison between cipher and coding material; cipher machine used; further cipher training at Portsmouth; system for ordering officers uniform. Recollections of period as cipher officer with Women's Royal Naval Service at Greenock, GB and aboard HMT Queen Elizabeth in Atlantic, 1943-1945: posting to Greenock; use of small teams of wrens on HMT Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary in Atlantic; description of voyage aboard HMT Queen Elizabeth in Atlantic; rough weather conditions in Atlantic; reception in New York.
REEL 3 Continues: ashore in New York; contrast between conditions in US and GB; return voyage to GB; story of marriage to husband who had served with Chindits in Burma, 1945; description of flight in flying boat across Atlantic; leaving Women's Royal Naval Service after marriage, 8/1945; character of VE Day in Washington DC, 5/1945; security in Washington DC; description of build up for D- Day on River Clyde, 6/1944; visits to ships in River Clyde.
REEL 4 Continues: relations with British and US naval staff; adapting to civilian life after 8/1945; attitude to wartime service with Women's Royal Naval Service.