PAST TIMES Wren’s-eye view of the Battle of the Atlantic...
VIKKI WHITE LOOKS AT A NEW BOOK RECALLING THE WARTIME ADVENTURES OF 101-YEAR-OLD CHRISTIAN LAMB
CHRISTIAN Lamb worked on D-Day maps in Winston Churchill’s secret offices and joined the team tracking the Royal Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic ... all the while desperately praying that her fiancé John’s ship would survive.
He was on board the destroyer HMS Oribi, a key player in the battle, and she was in the plotting room when the first reports started to come in.
“Signal after signal came in relentlessly. Waiting for news became unbearable and no one wanted to go off duty,” she remembers.
“The tension grew as Oribi was obviously headed straight for the German submarine ‘wolf pack.’
“The plot in front of us became a vivid picture of the action, with all of us taking a vicarious part in it.
“My plotters tried with various spurious excuses to persuade me to change watch so I might not know of the dangerous drama evolving.
“But, of course, I could not possibly leave the scene. I had to be able to see what was happening.
“I knew that if I was not in the plotting room, hearing the news as it came in, I would not be able to put it out of my mind. I wouldn’t be able to sleep or rest. I would only be able to wonder what was going on and assume the very worst. It was better for me to be in the thick of it.
“I knew I was experiencing just a fraction of the fear that John and his crew must be facing. But having just secured this man, I was truly worried that I might now lose him.
“In the plotting room, I too felt as though I was in that nightmare film, knowing that each signal that came in was already out of date and that in the time it had taken to reach the plot, anything might have happened. I would not be able to tear myself away from the plot until I knew that Oribi was safe again.
“Though I tried to maintain a calm exterior, on the inside I was racked with anxiety.”
Christian admits: “I do not know how I managed to get through those fraught days while ONS-5 and Oribi, in whose wardroom I had so recently celebrated my engagement to the man I loved, was under attack. Each hour seemed to last an eternity until at last the Royal Canadian Air Force was within range and the residue of the bitterly defended convoy sailed safely on to its destination.”
Christian became engaged to Lt John Bruce Lamb DSC after a whirlwind romance and they went on to wed and have three children.
Now 101 years old, Christian recalls her wartime adventures in new book Beyond The Sea.
The Londoner quickly rose through the ranks of the Women’s Royal Naval Service and is one of the last surviving officers to have served her country throughout the Second World War.
Christian recalls many of her adventures during her time with the Wrens.
“There were occasional courses for Wrens and I was sent to Bath to do one,” she says.
“What it was about remains a mystery, but I do remember that on the return journey I missed my train. How I did this I can’t imagine, as one of my many failings is to be always frightfully early.
“I could not believe my luck when I was saved by a delightful Polish officer with whom I had been consorting at a party the night before.
“He astonished me by saying, ‘Shall I take you back in the old crate?’
“‘What old crate?’ I was nearly speechless when I realised he meant his aeroplane and stammered out my rapturous acceptance!
“This episode may sound quite ordinary now but then it was quite the most daring experience in my life.
“My rescuer was, I suppose, an instructor because he had at his disposal a Miles Magister training plane with just two seats, one behind the other – in the open air of course.
“I had to sit on my parachute in the back and we set off in style looking out for and overtaking my missed train.
“My pilot tried to give me some good frights en route and make the trip extra thrilling by dive-bombing cows or anything else that took his fancy.
“I had been hoping that he might loop the loop for an extra show off but perhaps it was just as well he didn’t or I might have fallen out.
“Flying in an open plane, low over the River Tamar and seeing the whole estuary and coast as on a map, was an experience I’d like to relive even today.”
Beyond The Sea by Christian Lamb, published by
Mardle Books (paperback RRP
£8.99). Available in bookshops and online