Love and War in the WRNS

by Vicky Unwin

  9/2 Yesterday I went off to see the 1/O, and have got things straight with her. As a Cypher Officer I stand little chance of returning to UK until July or later, and so I really do hope to be away from here in 2 months. Anyway, she said she would do her best to expedite my draft – though I do realise she has very little to say in the matter. She suggests I might like to go to Kilindini – my goodness, I soon said no!

  … I am having my hair permed this week, and am gathering together cottons for the East, including a red check cotton evening dress, which I know that you would love. Please give my love to Pa and Rosemary, and say a prayer for my quick draft! Heaps of love, Sheila,

  Perhaps it will be Delhi, I know lots of people there.

  Sheila always likes to have a dig at her sister when she’s feeling depressed and frustrated! It seems as though no-one expected the war to end quickly as she talks about being posted for 18 months. Again she acknowledges her ‘wanderlust’ and desire to see more of the world:

  FOLEM. 19/2/44

  My dear Mummy – … I hear Rosemary has gone to Air Ministry which I think is a great pity, as I think it would be a good thing if she could break off from all her London friends and start afresh in a new place. However, the job sounds quite good. So we shall see!

  I can’t think how Aunty Rose got hold of the idea that I was coming home in February! All I can guess is that I probably told her I was due home in February, and she jumped to conclusions – as a matter of fact I am very surprised to hear the wheels have been set in motion for drafting home the Levant Wrens and I believe the first set of officers are due to relieve us next month. However, as they are all 3/O’s, it wouldn’t affect me, and anyway, as I have already told you, I have applied for, and am very much looking forward to going to Eastern Fleet. I do hope my draft will come through soon. I must make enquiries about when it went in, and see if I can make out how much longer I shall be here – it seems very funny to be gathering together one’s whites while still wearing greatcoats, but that is what I am doing! Molly Rendell, my stable mate, fell out of the brake and broke a bone in her foot a week ago, so I have been kept very busy visiting her in hospital – we have been out to tea together for the first time today, to the Sporting Club, where we met some ‘local’ friends of mine, wealthy Jews, who are very kind and awfully nice – I believe I told you how a month or so ago, I went out to dinner with them, and we sat down 15 – all but 2 of us being family! They ran into swarms of brothers, sisters, wives and mothers, so that you never know where you are – and you have to be solemnly introduced to everyone – One amazing thing is that the children are so polite – always shake hands and are not in the slightest bit self conscious. Everyone shakes hands on every possible occasion out here. It was very strange to me at first, but now I shake hand like the rest and you will laugh at me terribly when I come home and start my tricks in your household!

  Robin has arrived in Algiers, and has pronounced it a poor place – not advisable for me, he says. I wonder where he will land up – I don’t expect we shall meet again till after the war – even he says this, not knowing I am off for the East – but we shall see! I don’t expect to be there more than 18 months at the least, inclusive of going there and coming back – it seems too good an opportunity to miss – as you know I am a very restless person with a horrible wanderlust! I am going to make enquiries about WRNS after the war, as, if I’m not married (you never know – tho’ don’t expect any telegrams!) I think it is the only life for me!

  Heaps of love,

  Sheila

  As ever, things do not go to plan and she is ‘rather wild’ when her transfer request still had not been forwarded to the Admiralty four weeks later. She tries to ‘set the ball rolling and made the powers-that-be send a signal about it – but I don’t know yet whether they will play. A very mean trick I call it – when they knew I was rampant to get away, and had promised to speed things up a bit.’

  She is so grumpy that, even though John is in Cairo for a few days, she refuses to go and see him, as she doesn’t ‘feel it a good thing. He must come down here if he wants to see me!’ Her room-mate Molly, not content with having broken one foot, immediately on having the plaster off, fell over and ‘cracked the other one’ and is ‘worse damaged this time’. Life is ‘boring’ and consists of ‘nothing but work’.

  To add insult to injury the mails are disrupted –‘not one bloodstained letter (as the saying goes)’ – for three weeks. This is set to continue for the next few months, until after May, as there was a lot of naval activity around Italy to support the Allied push culminating in the battles of Monte Cassino. The navy lost several vessels off Anzio, including the destroyer Janus and HMS Penelope.

  But a week later her dogged pursuance of her transfer is rewarded and she is ‘on the move again, tho’ I’m not sure where I’ll end up’:

  6/3/44

  … last Friday, I arrived in at midnight to find a message telling me to stand by to dash off to the place where I last spent leave [Port Said] in order to catch a ship – The next day it was decided that I should go off to this place anyway, ready to pop on to the ship should occasion arise – not bad on the Navy’s part – as they had said in the signal to the ship they would take either 2nd or 3rd officer in exchange – so I dashed from dressmaker to dressmaker, packed my bags in an evening (how on earth I got everything in I don’t know – but I did) and I caught the 9 o’clock train here arriving at 5 last evening. So this morning I betook myself to Navy House to fill out the form, and was promised a phone call when they knew – at lunch time it came – from the O/C Naval draft, asking me was my wish to transfer on compassionate grounds (husband, fiancé or family) as no one wished to change, but a swap could be arranged if I had a very good reason. I’m afraid I hadn’t the pluck (or heart) to tell a lie, and so he said he was very sorry, but it couldn’t be arranged! Alas, this was terrible, so I rushed off to Navy House again and rang up the SSO in Alex and told him the story. Well, he said, would I like to go down to Suez, relieve a Paymaster there temporarily, and he would go and see the 1/O about sending a signal – so for the minute I am staying put. If I go to Suez it will be much easier for me eventually to catch my ship – and I won’t have to rush all the way back to Alex with my luggage to the office which I loathe. So I really hope that I go there. It will be a new place anyway, and I know several of the people there. What adventures we do have! It shows, anyway, that if you don’t shout for yourself you don’t get anywhere (not that I’ve got very far to date, but I’m on the way). I have bought you a nice hot water bottle, and have packed it up with a nightie for Rosemary, and 2 pairs of Italian silk stockings which Bruce sent to me, but which were too small. The parcel isn’t posted yet, but I’ve asked Molly to do so when she comes out of hospital – I’ve also sent you a photo I had taken before Xmas, which I think is rather awful, but which everyone seems to like rather. I hope you’ll like it too. I must now rush off to the dhobie because I asked them to do some things in a hurry – thinking I’d be away tomorrow! Heaps of love,

  Sheila

  When Sheila arrived at Suez she was told that she was to be made Principal Cypher Officer and Confidential Book Officer:

  … which fact didn’t please me at all, as what’s the use of taking over a lot of complicated stuff when you’ve got to turn it over to someone else within a matter of weeks. Needless to say nobody here has heard anything about the reason for my coming here – and as the present PCO is going it all fitted in very well for them. However, I have firmly told everyone I’m not here to stay so I hope they’ll realise it in time.

  Worse still, there is ‘absolutely no work to be done at all. I come and go exactly as I please – a thing unheard of in Alex where we were so busy we nearly killed ourselves. I hate having no work to do.’

  As for Suez itself, it is a ‘frightful spot, dirty, filthy and anyway out of bounds as they have had plague there! It is dying out now, I believe.’ However, there are several people she knows there a
nd social life seems good: she goes to a cocktail party in her first week and on ‘to dance at the French Club’, which seems to be the meeting point for the officers stationed at Port Tewfik, where they actually live, a ‘pleasant little spot, built by the Canal Company … with modern houses, trees and grass’.

  She takes to her new job, like the true professional she is:

  HMS STAG (Suez)

  C/O CPO

  24/3/44

  My dear Ma – …I’m afraid I’ve not written for 12 days, but believe me I’ve been busy! To begin with, I have now taken over my new job entirely, we have moved shop, and my reign has begun – I work from 0800–1230, and from 1800–2000 daily, so you see I don’t do too badly – Later on I am going to take the odd day off to Cairo or a half day’s bathing etc. but at the minute I like to be at the office to see that everything starts OK. I do believe in kicking off as you mean to go on, and I have naturally made quite a lot of changes in the office – added to all this I have been paying visits to the Navy all round – 2 lunch parties and one tea on board HM Ships this week, the first lunch party was a scream – we’d given up all hope of going as NOIC [Naval Officer in Charge] has to give permission and hadn’t done so, so we’d gone off and had lunch. Then permission came through and a special boat laid on from the ship, so off we went, 3 of us, and had another lush meal, topped with Drambuie. The Captain was R.C.N. [Royal Canadian Navy], and a charming man. Afterwards we did a ton of inspection, and ended up by sending a signal to a ship just passing in from one of the Wren officers who knew someone aboard. Quite a precedent! We came back in a motorboat and got absolutely soaked! 2 days after that I went aboard this same ship to tea with 2 other Wren officers and some ratings. It was such fun – everyone was young and full of fun. We went off at 2 o’clock and didn’t return till six! There is a rule on the station that you can only visit ships on an instructional tone – however, we usually manage to swing that – I get so bored climbing in and out of sea turrets – I do like to visit the bridge, tho’, and the galley is always rather fun. Today I had lunch on a small vessel in dock here – I was horrid enough to be frightfully bored – one of the officers took the letter of the law very much to heart, and insisted on showing us everything in the ship – despite the fact she was 34 years old! Katherine Piddocke … is living in nearby. She is going home to have a baby, and it was marvellous to see her again. What a chat we had! She tells me grim tales of Eastern Fleet, so that I’m almost beginning to wonder whether I have barked up the wrong tree, but there’s no turning back now! I hope to go up to Cairo next week – It only takes 2 hours by road and it is very difficult to get things here – in fact, I think we have 3 or 4 shops only. Mail has been putrid lately, absolutely none. Mollie Rendell is going to Aden, they asked me if I’d like to go but I refused. It’s only a 9 months’ station anyway. Damn cheek after two years here, I think! … Heaps of love, Sheila

  She is still maintaining that this is a temporary posting and is pleading with Alexandria to be allowed to go on the next convoy; by applying for an Eastern transfer she is barred from returning to England, so she really is stuck! Despite her work being a great come-down after her previous responsibilities, she throws herself into activities such as arranging hockey matches and going to the club, even if the company is less than scintillating. Her mother obviously thinks her new job is ‘very good’, and Sheila is more than happy to disabuse her of this notion in several of her letters:

  HMS STAG (Suez)

  C/O CPO

  24/3/44

  My dear Mama – … As for the ‘job’ – it probably sounds better than it is – I have 8 Cypherers working for me (I had one watch of 15 in Alex!) 5 of which are 3/O’s, and the other 3 are W.T.S. (F.A.N.Y’s [First Aid Nursing Yeomanry] from East Africa) all are very nice – I spend my time checking up on office details, placating people who say they are meant to have had such and such a signal, but haven’t, granting leave, signing movement orders, phoning Alex, and even ‘seeing’ the maintenance Commander about giving Wren personnel a proper cloakroom and lavatory, which we haven’t got here! Such are the trials of a P.C.O. [Principal Cyphering Offcier] – issuing orders and messages to ships and going gray when one sails without her last minute instructions – as for being C.B.O. [Confidential Book Officer] – that is rather a nightmare as it is up to me to change all the signal books in force whenever they have to be, see that they are destroyed on the right day, and get court martialed if any go astray. Pray for me! It’s not a very terrific job, but quite fun for a change. Nothing is very urgent down here – unlike Alex when all our work was top line and had to be attended to straight away. At the minute I am sitting under the dryer at the hairdressers – thank heavens the place rises to one – (sorry – pen’s run out) it is half men and half women, but the one who does us is awfully good – I played hockey yesterday – never again – It was a sandy pitch – a hot day, and I hadn’t played for over a year. Today I have blisters all over my feet, and am terribly stiff – We played the Shell Refinery people – The umpire, one of them, was very anti-Navy and kept on giving free hits against us, explaining in detail what we did wrong – eventually he told somebody off for standing and blocking the way ‘like the rock of Gibraltar’, he said. I was mooching past, so I acidly said ‘well, that’s what we are!’ Damn cheek – we won, however, by about 5 goals to nil! My swan song in the hockey world I think! I went out to the French Club to dine and dance on Saturday, and the local sub-area are having a dance in their mess on Thursday – I am going with an elderly 2/O her boyfriend a Lt. Col (medical) whom I’m not very keen on (I strongly suspect him as a dirty old man) and the P.M.O. [Principal Medical Officer] at the Naval base here, Cdr RNVR, who has one eye! However, he seems quite nice, so I am putting on my best dress, and will see what I can do!! Everyone down here seems to be either over 40, or else very wet – the worst of a backwater! Still, we do have our fun! I hope to go to Cairo this week – do a bit of shopping and see Esmé – I’ll send you a cable when I do a move – when …

  Lots of love

  Sheila

  Nevertheless life is quite pleasant in the ‘backwater’. Sheila goes to visit Esmé in Cairo, enjoys bathing – ‘we are all quite brown’ – and participates in several expeditions to the Attaka mountains, where there are two chalets which belong to the friends of the mountain club:

  17.4.44

  We were rather an ill-assorted crowd, Monica Powell, Dorothy Peck and I – 3 Wrens – M. and Mme Daumas, a French couple who live here (he is in the Canal Company) Mac, (Dorothy’s boyfriend - a rather colourless but very kind Captain in the RASC [Royal Army Service Corps]), Major Roe, O/C Signals down here, and another Frenchman who was a friend of the Daumas – the climb wasn’t too bad – but I got terribly puffed – It’s no good – I always revert to pencil, having no ink! The chalet was a small white 3 roomed affair on the top of a hill – with a rather lovely view over Suez Bay and the surrounding country. We took up plenty of drink and tons of food all ending up very merry on the flat roof of the chalet, singing lustily to the surrounding hills – The lights of Suez, Tewfik and the ships were marvellous – they made me think of Cape Town. Of course there is no blackout here – even tho’ we did have a siren here last week. The next morning Major Roe and I were very energetic, and ran over the hills down to a valley known as the Garden of Eden and back before breakfast – I got more puffed than ever! When we arrived back at Tewfik, he was told that one of his tents had been burnt to the ground, and he’d got the Brigadier coming to inspect that day!

  That evening a party of us went to the French Club to dance – all very gay – On Sunday we had another boating picnic, but it was so cold, I didn’t enjoy it a bit, and ended up by hearing Mac’s part in ‘French Without Tears’ in one of the cabins – terrific love scenes which made me quite embarrassed and everyone else laugh!

  Another expedition takes her to Abu Zenima, to carry out reconnaissance for a rest camp with three other officers. Again we see the writer
in Sheila beginning to emerge with these descriptive passages of the terrain:

  c/o Fleet Mail Office

  Suez

  24.5.44

  My dear Ma – If you look on the map of Africa or Arabia you will find one mid of the way down the west coast of Sinai, a small place called Abu Zenima – that is where I am writing to you from now – There is a manganese ore mine here or nearby and this is where the ore is brought down to the ships – But to tell you how I came to be here – One of the other Wren officers, Dob, was asked to go with 2 people she knew and another girl was needed. The idea was to come down here on a recce for a rest camp for the soldiers, so the day before yesterday we got up at 5.45, packed our things, took a boat across the canal and picked up the two men and the truck the other side – So off we set; to begin with it was very chilly, as it was then only 6.30 and the road which is a track in the desert, flat and uninteresting, the further south we got the hillier it became with an occasional oasis here and there, a few palms or trees. Now and again we met a bedouin on a camel, or one of the Sinai police, also on a camel, but otherwise there’s no one about – half way down, we met a truck with an officer in it who told us his general and staff were at a camp in Abu Zenima where we wanted to stay, and that all his division were scattered about somewhere – however, when we got here, we befriended the sole survivor of the mining company, the only European for 80 miles, a Yorkshireman, and he opened one of the disused bungalows for us, so we have done very well after all. This morning we motored down the coast to look at this proposed camp – a disused stone house built for an ore company long since defunct, on top of a hill overlooking the sea – There are marvellous mountains all round, sandstone but of the most curious strata – they seem to have been eaten away by rains, which have cut deep gullies into the rock, producing a triangular effect on the mountains – They are a deep cream colour and look heavenly against the blue sky and deep deep blue sea – We had 2 heavenly bathes and once on a calm shallow beach and the second time we climbed round the headland the house was on and bathed on the windward side and rode lovely breakers – After lunch, which was the most wonderful fish, just caught, cooked by Mr Baugh’s cook, a most remarkable Sudanese boy, Mac and I decided to augment our tan, so we oiled ourselves and sat on the beach till it became too hot to be bearable so we walked along to the jetty, where we spent about 2 hours diving in and out, and watching the fishes – the water is very clear, you can see right down to the bottom and watch shoals of bright emerald fish dart here and there, larger grey ones, and even bigger white ones with huge black eyes. It has been a fascinating afternoon and we are a marvellous colour – I have to confess that the backs of my legs are burning somewhat! The bathing really is perfect – no current, soft sand underfoot, a marvellous bay and mountains all round – I believe there are sharks, but we haven’t seen any. I wish you were here to enjoy it all – tho’ it’s hot you don’t notice it, because of the breeze, it’s dry too – more later. Love Sheila