Ann Fellowes was still a young woman when she joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service during the Second World War. Between 1943 and 1946 she trained as an air mechanic, entering a world of engines, aircraft and naval air stations that could hardly have been further removed from her previous life.

Working alongside male mechanics, Ann and her fellow Wrens had to prove that they were capable of doing the same demanding work. She helped maintain aircraft needed for active service and later supported the training of Fleet Air Arm pilots learning the difficult art of operating from aircraft carriers. It was physical work, sometimes undertaken through the night, and brought her into close proximity with the everyday dangers of wartime flying. Yet her wartime service was only the beginning of an extraordinary journey. After leaving the Wrens, Ann trained to work with children, a decision that eventually took her to South Africa. There, amid the growing realities of apartheid, her life took another unexpected turn. In 1956 she returned to Britain and entered the religious life as Sister Veronica — beginning a new chapter that would ultimately last more than sixty years.

Known fondly as ‘Bunts’ to his friends, after the Naval slang for bunting, David Jefferies had always dreamed of joining the Royal Marine Marching Band. Due to increasing hostilities, he was denied entry in a devastating blow, but didn’t let the news stop him from pursuing a job in the armed forces.  Upon discovering that the Navy was short of signalmen, David decided to concentrate on his knowledge of semaphore and Morse code. He took quickly to life as a signalman and decided to try his luck in the Navy, where he found himself aboard HMS Foudroyant, at the time the oldest warship afloat.  In 1944, as part of D-Day preparations, David joined a crew of 11 and experienced his first journey on board a Landing Craft Tank. Arriving at Gold Beach, Normandy, the role of David’s crew was to provide assistance up and down the coast; despite being a young man at the time, he kept his calm throughout the invasion, even when his craft was hit by an 88, which he considered to be nothing more than a temporary shakeup.  During D-Day, death didn’t occur solely as a result of gunfire. Although David and his crew were lucky, other men were sadly lost amidst the chaos of the operation. 

Wally Beall had always wanted to join the navy, but when WW2 started he worked in a reserved occupation making lenses for binoculars and naval instruments. He struggled to leave the work until finally, in 1943, he joined the navy as an electrician. Wally was soon assigned to the landing craft that would make the first trip across the channel for D-Day. He shares his memories of the initial crossing, the first landing on Utah Beach amidst shelling and the subsequent trips to and from France as his craft delivered tanks, supplies and personnel to multiple beaches over the following days. As part of his story, he recalls a particularly close shave on a return trip to France, when his craft came side by side with a floating water mine. He describes the desperate efforts of his crew mates to push the mine further away using brooms and whatever else they could find onboard. Wally's interview especially highlights the camaraderie aboard ships in the Royal Navy, as well as the international effort of D-Day as he worked alongside Americans and Australians.