My Memories of the Second World War: Work in a Costing Office

Sept 3rd 1939

I lived in Tividale, Staffs when war was declared and my husband and I both worked in the Costing Office at N Hingley and Sons Ltd of Netherton. It was a firm who made forgings and stampings, in fact the anchor for the Titanic (the supposedly unsinkable ship) was made there. When it looked as if the war was imminent my husband Howard Marsh joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. He was then sent to Hastings for six weeks where all the young men marched and marched in order to get them fighting fit. On September 16th I decided I wanted to help the war effort so I applied to be a Land Army girl (I was sixteen) but I wasn’t accepted because I had a job of national importance in the costing office of N Hingley and Sons. This is where we met and fell in love.

One day when I was working in the office I suddenly heard a terrific noise, everyone jumped up thinking we had been bombed, but it was my husband in his spitfire actually flying between the chimney stacks of the buildings (he was a proper dare-devil) all the workmen- my father being one of them- dashed outside shouting, “it’s that dare-devil Howard Marsh!”

I had to catch a bus home (sometimes having a lift on Ralph’s motorbike) but all the light on the bus had been blackened so the enemy couldn’t see us and the headlamps of the bus were blackened too. We always carried our gas masks round our necks just in case we were attacked with gas bombs during the raids. The German planes were Messersmitches 109s (fighters) and Dornier (bombers) but our brave men fought them off.

My husband shot down his first plane, a ME109 off the Isle of Wight on the 24th November 1940.

On the 10th November HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse was sunk by the Japanese. On the 7th September 1941 my husband shot down a ME 109 on a trip to Holland. In 1943 he was promoted to a Pilot Officer.

On the 26th January 1941 we married at St Thomas’s Church, Dudley by the Revd Iball, whose son is a lay reader at St Giles Church, Whittington (my church). My husband was actually in the Battle of Britain and was one of Winston Churchill’s Famous Few. By this time he was a Flight Lieutenant. On the 18th of July 1941 Howard and a friend Flight Lieutenant Eric Marrs attacked a Heinkel 111 over the sea towards the Isles of Sciliy. The Germans starboard engine streamed glycol and oil smoke. The Heinkel went down to sea level jettisioned its bombs and began to leave an oily trail on the water. The two RAF pilots continued to attack their bullets kicking up the water all round the enemy machine. It finally made a right hand turn, hit the sea and blew up. This is an extract from the book, “Wings of Freedom” by Norman Franks.

On the 14th November 1941 the aircraft carrier Ark Royal was sunk by a U-boat.

On the 19th November 1940 my late Mother and Father, my brother Raymond and I slept under the table in the Dining Room. It was a very heavy air raid, all clear at 4.31am. November 20th slept in cellar again — another air raid. November 22nd -3 more air raids.

On the 10th December 1941 the HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by the Japanese.

My husband left me on my 24th wedding anniversary for another woman and he died on the 7th March 2001 aged 84. My eldest daughter Susan has his wartime medals, she lives in Horsham.

I remarried in 1971 to Richard Hammersley, a farmer, and a wonderful man. Sadly he died of a massive heart attack in 1984. This is the reason for my change of surname.

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