Harriet Wight was living in the countryside in North East Scotland at the outbreak of war and recalls seeing an enemy aircraft drop a bomb over Aberdeen. It was then she decided ‘to do her bit’ and joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS). After a medical in Dundee she did her initial basic training at Balloch on the edge of Loch Lomond and began her duties as a messenger. She was eventually posted to Ilfracombe in Devon as a signaller and was involved in taking and logging signals which at that time mainly related to noting casualties from the North African campaign in 1943. Harriet moved on to operating telephone switchboards after a period of training and was posted to Hatston on the Orkneys, close to the vital naval base of Scapa Flow. Harriet spoke of meeting her future husband, who was a sailor involved in Arctic and Atlantic convoys, and how she never concerned about the danger he was in until she found out that an American soldier pen-friend of hers had been killed in Belgium and then the reality of war hit home. Harriet concluded by saying how very proud she was of having been a Wren. 

Harry Eddy was born in Devon and joined the Navy in 1943. Following training in Letchworth and Troon, he passed as a wireman and was posted to the LCT-944 (landing craft tank) in readiness for the D-Day landings. Harry describes in detail life aboard his LCT and the responsibilities of his role, recalling the horrors of war and the Navy’s perhaps rather shocking approach to recruits who abandoned their posts during the height of battle. He also remembers how an attempt by his crew to rescue a stricken landing craft from Sword Beach nearly sank his own ship, leaving him lucky to make it back to Britain alive. After the liberation of France, Harry recalls how he and his shipmates headed for Westkapelle, a coastal town in the Netherlands, where the promised and much-relied-upon air support didn’t arrive. In his own words, “It made D-Day look easy.” Harry also shares his memories of VE Day, and joyfully recalls an emotional reunion at a meeting of the LST and Landing Craft Association with his best friend from the war who he hadn’t seen for 40 years.