A Poignant Time

I joined the ATS when I was 18 in 1941 and was eventually attached to B Company ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service, now Women’s Royal Army Corps with the REME (Royal

Electrical Mechanical Engineers) at Arborfield. I had received my training as a projectionist, showing training films on all heavy and track vehicles.

The day war ended there was a mass exodus from the camp, as everyone wanted to be in London. I happened to

I was only a baby in 1945 but this story of VE Day was told to me by my mother and the poignancy of it has always stayed with me. On the night of VE Day my mother walked the streets of London with her sister who was desperately searching for her son, an RAF bomber pilot, convinced that he would be amongst the celebrating crowds. He, his crew and plane, had disappeared without trace while on a mission over Germany several months earlier. No trace was ever found but, that night, my aunt searched every face believing her son was there somewhere. My mother remembered it as one of the saddest days of her life, to be walking alongside her distraught sister with all the exuberant joy and happiness surrounding them.

Jill Millard, Sydney, Australia