My Aunty Joan - a war hero with my Uncle Stanley!

Some of the more eagle eyed amongst you might have noticed that the £895.00 we raised with the raffle was made up to £1000 by my Aunty Joan. This was very generous of her, especially when she had already donated £200 back in October. I am very fond of my Aunty Joan and I would like to tell you a little about her.

My Aunty Joan in WAAF Uniform circa 1940

My Aunty Joan is 91 years young and is very sprightly for her age. She can tell quite a story and I never tire of listening to her wonderful recollections of the war years. Aunty Joan was married to my Uncle Stanley for 70 years until his sad death a couple of years ago. They were married during World War II. In fact they got married during leave and had to report back for duty the next day. They didn't see each other again for months.

Uncle Stanley & Aunty Joan on their Wedding day

Uncle Stanley was a warrant officer in the Royal Engineers (REME) during the war and saw a great deal of action. He was often at the vanguard in Europe, making sure the tanks and the machinery of war were always in serviceable order. Unlike Aunty Joan, Uncle Stanley rarely went into detail about his war years. From the stories I have heard, he endured a great deal and saw some terrible things. Uncle Stanley was the last man dragged aboard his rescue vessel at Dunkirk. He'd been there six days with no food and very little water, having watched many from his company die on the beaches.

The mass evacuation at Dunkirk

He was also on the beaches during the D-Day landings, having helped devise an ingenious method of keeping the British tanks afloat, whilst unloading from the landing craft. This gave the British, Canadian and ANZac troops the much needed cover when trying to secure the beach heads at Juno Sword and Gold. They had offered the Americans the intel on this but had it rejected. In the end many of the US tanks sank whilst trying to come ashore, killing the crews and losing a lot of vital cover the American troops needed on Omaha and Utah beach. Anyway that is a story that others more qualified than me must tell. My Uncle was always very complimentary of the Americans. Lest we forget, we would have lost the war if it wasn't for them.

Omaha Beach June 1944

Being at the front, pushing forward to Berlin, Uncle Stanley was part of the regiment that first came across the concentration camps. When they found the sickening camp of Belsen, the local people in the towns around the site were in complete denial of its existence. Uncle Stanley's company were ordered to round up the locals and bring them to the camps to show them what had been going on under their noses. It must have been a truly terrible, life changing time for him.

Bawdsey Manor in Suffolk - Top secret headquarters of Radar 

Whilst my Uncle Stanley was fighting in Europe, Aunty Joan, who had joined the Women's Auxilliary Air Force (WAAF) had been posted to Bawdsey Manor in Suffolk. Now if there was one thing that can be singled out as giving the Britain an advantage in the early stages of the war it was RADAR and Bawdsey Manor was the top secret headquarters of radar defence. Britain led the world in this pioneering technology. Many have said that it was not the Spitfire that won the Battle of Britain. It was Radar. It gave us the vital early warning required to scramble the fighters in time to intercept the huge German bomber squadrons turning the sky black over the channel.

The famous Radar array towers dotted across our coastline

WAAF Radar operator

Bawdsey radar team of WAAF, WREN & ATS

My Aunty Joan did

At Bawdsey, Aunty Joan was a specialist radar operator and as she was WAAF she reported to Fighter Command under Hugh Dowding. Each radar post had two WAAF, a WREN (who reported to the Admiralty) and an ATS (who reported to Anti Aircraft - or Ack Ack) You will have seen the many films of the Ops rooms where all the aircraft positions were plotted and pushed around by uniformed men and women. My Aunty Joan provided the intel for the decision makers to make those plots.  Time after time Radar thwarted Operation Sea Lion, Germany's secret code name for the invasion of Britain.

It wasn't long before they connected the strange steel towers, erected around the east and channel coastline with our secret technology. Bawdsey and many of the radar installations were heavily bombed. My Aunty Joan recounts one particular tale where she was trying to get transport back from an evening out in the local town near to Bawdsey. All the WAAFs WRENs and ATS were getting into the military trucks provided, Aunty Joan was one too many for the particular truck and was asked to get on the next one. They had just set off along the coast road when an air raid came over. Bombs were dropping everywhere and they all got there heads down in the truck. When they eventually got the all clear they jumped out to find the truck in front had taken a direct hit, with all on board killed.

Dogfight over Englands south coast. A sight Aunty Joan would watch over a radar screen daily

Aunty Joan has told me of many an occasion when she was watching dog fights over the channel. Spitfire and Hurricanes up against ME109s. Watching as a Spitfire went down, quickly reporting to the Admiralty to scramble rescue boats to pick up pilot's who'd parachuted into the channel, before the cold or the Germans got them first.

My favourite story is of an occasion when she was working on the surface shipping radar called K.T. (or katie as it was known). There were four levels of radar. Above 2000 feet, 1-2000 feet, up to 1000 feet and K T surface radar. On this particular occasion Aunty Joan and a WREN operator had noticed a strange signal emanating from the end of the needles, the series of rock stacks at the westerly edge of the Isle of Wight. At this time there was a top secret convoy of Allied ships making its way into the English Channel and radar sweeps of the whole channel were constantly essential to warn of enemy ships and aircraft. All vessels in the convoy were told to stick together as they passed through. My Aunty and the WREN were adamant there was something fishy lurking near the needles and had informed their superiors. After some deliberation the superior had decided it was nothing but a ghost signal from the rock stacks nearby. Aunty Joan and the WREN were having none of it and stuck their necks out by calling into question their superiors judgement. They risked being put on a charge for insubordination. They must have caused enough uncertainty as a decision was made to send a destroyer to scout the area, where low and behold they picked up a strong sonar signature.  It was a U Boat, lying in wait for the convoy. A disaster had been averted.

German U Boats were a constant curse to Allied shipping

Months later the Captain of one of the ships in the convoy, a vulnerable straggler at the rear in fact, visited Bawdsey to personally thank my Aunty and the WREN for their skill in spotting the U boats and for having the spirit to believe in what they had seen.

 My Aunty Joan certainly has spirit I can tell you. Something my Uncle Stanley came across on many an occasion during their happily married life together.

Aunty Joan with Mum

and with Moo (who'd stolen Rosemary's shoe)