Women in radar
Peggy Haynes
‘I volunteered in 1942, when I was 18.
I thought I’d like to join the motor division and learn to drive but I was put up for ‘Clerk, Special Duties’. Neither I nor the recruiting officer knew what it was.
Everything had to be recorded. I was quite hoarse by the time I’d finished because you had to relay the plots to the filter room.
I can’t say that we were ever afraid. If you were plotting you were too busy and afterwards you were so tired that you just went to sleep.
I was on watch when D-Day came.
When I got back to the cookhouse, they were announcing on the radio that there had been an invasion and that people were going ashore in France.
You could hear a pin drop. When he stopped speaking, gradually the noise built up and I walked back to the Manor thinking what a shame that my childhood sweetheart, who had flown so gallantly until 1942 won’t be there to see that we were going back.’
