“I had to go on the roof to put out firebombs”
Ijoined the Wrens in 1941, working in Naval accounts, stores, and food supplies in London. In 1942 I was relocated to Mill Hill in Middlesex where I was put on fire duty. When the air raid sirens went off, I had to go onto the roof and prepare to put out firebombs.
“They were awful things – the sides fell open as they dropped and several hundred smaller bombs with parachutes fell out. They were full of chemicals that burned through roofs with a striking bright light; they melted anything in their way.
“Armed with just sand and foam, I was glad there wasn’t a direct hit to our building. I wouldn’t have survived to tell the tale.
“When I wasn’t putting out fires, I’d escape to air raid shelters at night, or go to the local church. Bombs sent out a great wave of heat. Although the shelters could not protect from a direct hit, they did provide some protection from the heatwave and flying debris.
“In 1944 I went to the naval base in Essex to get port experience. The coasts were heavily fortified with great coils of barbed wire along the beaches. Royal Navy ships patrolled day and night, and there were gunneries shooting down enemy craft and doodlebugs coming from Germany.
“One day colleagues and I heard this doodlebug overhead. It disappeared and we thought it’d been shot down, but then it came back, with the tail damaged. It landed nearby, with a huge explosion. The whole place shook, but we weren’t hurt, so we just got on with our book-keeping!” Mary Haley, accounts administrator