Doreen Galvin describes that as a young woman she was passionate about maps and photography, thus knew when the war broke out that she must apply for intelligence work – not admin. After being firstly involved in photo interpretation, Doreen was then moved to Bomber Command and finally sent to be an Operations Officer at Tempsford RAF base.
Doreen recalls how on arriving at Tempsford she was immediately thrown into work and quickly taken to the map room. She remembers that upon looking at the wall of maps, she realised that she was standing face-to-face with all the locations of the clandestine operations by the RAF during the war. In this role she was responsible for receiving, processing and reporting these locations and objectives to the War Cabinet.
In this interview Doreen fondly recalls her contribution to the war, reflecting upon the excitement of working with maps and photo interpretation during the war. Doreen gives an interesting account of the war effort from a different perspective than that of the front line soldier, by both originating from a female viewpoint and also the clandestine operations which were happening back in England.