11. Angels of Mercy

Summary

D-Day: The Tide Turns – Episode 11: Angels of Mercy

Release Date: August 7, 2024 | Host: Paul McGann

---

Introduction: The Unsung Heroines of D-Day

Timestamp: [00:34]

The episode opens on June 11, 1944, five days after the historic D-Day invasion. At the harbor in Gosport, England, the HMS LST180 prepares for departure across the English Channel. Among the 200 men aboard are Iris Ogilvy and Molly Giles, two dedicated RAF nurses poised to establish a field hospital in Normandy. Iris, affectionately known as "Fluff," embodies a fatalistic bravery, driven by the loss of her husband, Donald, who perished over Holland. Their journey symbolizes the critical yet often overlooked role of women in the massive Allied operation.

Women Power: The Backbone of Operation Overlord

Timestamp: [05:09] – Dr. Tessa Dunlop

Dr. Tessa Dunlop, author of Army Girls, sheds light on the unprecedented mobilization of women during World War II. By 1944, the British military had enlisted approximately 300,000 women in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), 180,000 in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), and 70,000 in the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens). This marked Britain as the belligerent nation that proportionally mobilized the most women, integrating them into every facet of the war effort from anti-aircraft operations to intelligence roles.

Conscription and Controversy: Breaking Traditional Barriers

Timestamp: [06:00] – Dr. Tessa Dunlop | [06:20] – Claire Mulley

The National Service Act of December 1941 extended conscription to women aged 19 to 43, a significant shift that sparked intense debate. Dr. Dunlop highlights Winston Churchill’s pivotal yet often unacknowledged role in advocating for women's conscription, despite initial resistance from the War Office. Claire Mulley adds that the discourse included a spectrum of opinions, with some women steadfastly opposed to military service, while others recognized its necessity for a swift victory.

Breaking Stereotypes: Women in Non-Combat Roles

Timestamp: [07:12] – Dr. Tessa Dunlop | [07:36] – Claire Mulley

Despite their extensive involvement, women were legally restricted from combat roles. Dr. Dunlop explains that British women in the ATS, WAAF, and Wrens were barred from directly operating weaponry, a policy that indirectly placed them on the front lines, often leading to casualties: “Women have been conscripted, but they're not expected to serve in the front line... The women who are killed as a direct result of their service work is higher than we imagine” ([07:36]). This paradox underscores the perilous reality women faced, even in non-combat positions.

Operation Overlord’s Hidden Engines: Logistics and Secrecy

Timestamp: [10:50] – Dr. Tessa Dunlop | [18:42] – Giles Milton

Operation Overlord's success hinged not only on the bravery of soldiers but also on the meticulous logistics managed by women. Dr. Dunlop emphasizes, “if you have up to 2 million men based in Britain, training all over the country, who's feeding them?...Women” ([10:50]). Central to this were the Mulberry Harbors and the Pluto pipeline—ingenious solutions to the Allies' logistical challenges. Author Giles Milton explains, “The Allies had their secret master plan, which was to tow harbors across the Channel, the famous Mulberry Harbors... Pluto, which was an underwater pipeline... a lifeline to all of those armoured divisions” ([18:42]).

Behind the Scenes: The Crucial Role of Bletchley Park

Timestamp: [21:46] – Claire Mulley | [23:05] – Dr. Tessa Dunlop

Bletchley Park, the heart of Allied code-breaking, was predominantly staffed by women. Claire Mulley notes, “75% of the people working at Bletchley are women... without their work, we wouldn't have been able to do this” ([23:05]). These women, possessing expertise in mathematics and engineering, were pivotal in decrypting the German Enigma codes, providing the Allies with strategic advantages that were crucial for the success of D-Day.

Personal Narratives: Fanny Gore Brown and ATA Pilot Joy Lofthouse

Timestamp: [11:35] – Fanny Gore Brown | [26:53] – Claire Mulley

Fanny Gore Brown's journey exemplifies the dedication of women like her. Assigned as a plotter at Dover Castle, Fanny describes the grueling environment: “Tunnels had a very, very peculiar smell...I had terrible headaches” ([11:35]). Her meticulous work in tracking Allied movements was vital for Operation Neptune.

Similarly, Joy Lofthouse, an ATA pilot, navigated the skies with equal parts bravery and grace. Claire Mulley recounts Joy’s experiences: “They certainly face a lot of prejudice...but they build up their respect” ([27:44]). Joy’s role as an Atta Girl—one of the first female pilots—highlighted the breaking of gender barriers, even as women were restricted from frontline combat.

D-Day: The Day of Reckoning

Timestamp: [31:48] – Nuala Calvi | [34:07] – Nuala Calvi

On June 6, 1944, as the Allied armada commenced its crossing, British nurse Fanny Gore Brown was on duty. The dawn of D-Day brought chaos and heroism in equal measure. Nuala Calvi illuminates the personal toll, describing the heartbreak of “a generation of young women” losing loved ones: “Some make a last ditch attempt at contact before they depart” ([34:07]). The poignant note left on an abandoned tent—“Sorry Jean had to go, Johnny”—captures the personal sacrifices amidst the broader conflict.

Aftermath and Reflection: The Lasting Impact of Service Women

Timestamp: [40:15] – Dr. Tessa Dunlop | [41:26] – Fanny Gore Brown

In the war's aftermath, Dr. Dunlop reflects on the enduring legacy of these women: “They were an absolutely integral part of the war machine” ([40:15]). The experience empowered women, laying the groundwork for future movements advocating for gender equality. Fanny Gore Brown echoes this sentiment, expressing gratitude for her role: “I have ever since been so thankful for the experience... It's up to you. Get on and do it” ([41:26]).

Conclusion: Honoring the Angels of Mercy

As the episode draws to a close, it underscores the indispensability of women's contributions to D-Day and the broader war effort. From plotting operations and breaking codes to tending the wounded on the front lines, these "Angels of Mercy" played pivotal roles that were only recently fully recognized. Their legacy is not just one of bravery but also of breaking societal barriers, paving the way for future generations of women.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Iris Ogilvy: “I don't care what happens to me” ([00:34]).
• Dr. Tessa Dunlop: “They were an absolutely integral part of the war machine” ([40:15]).
• Fanny Gore Brown: “I have ever since been so thankful for the experience... It made one feel you can do things if you want to” ([41:26]).

---

Final Thoughts: In "Angels of Mercy," Noiser's D-Day: The Tide Turns masterfully weaves personal narratives with historical analysis, shedding light on the crucial yet underappreciated roles women played during one of history's most significant military operations. This episode not only honors their sacrifices but also prompts a re-evaluation of war narratives to include the diverse contributions that shaped the outcome.

Transcript

[Sponsor Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game, shifting a little money here, a little there, and hoping it all works out well? With the name your price tool from Progressive, you can be a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help you find options within your budget. Try it [e-mail] progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states.

[Narrator]

It's late on the 11th of June 1944. D day plus five we're at the harbour in Gosport on the south coast of England. Less than a week after the Allied invasion of Normandy. Men and materiel are still being loaded onto boats to make the hundred mile voyage across the Channel. His Majesty's ship LST180, a so called landing ship tank, is loading up for the voyage. But as well as tanks, the hulking vessel will be carrying personnel 200 men and two women. Iris Ogilvy and Molly Giles are RAF nurses. They volunteered to set up a field hospital in Normandy. It's a dangerous job, but Iris, known to her friends as Fluff, has nothing to lose. Since her RAF husband, Donald, was killed flying over Holland, she's adopted a fatalistic attitude. I don't care what happens to me is how she puts it. Iris just wants to do something meaningful with however much time she has left. The two women spend the voyage in the captain's private cabin. Out on deck, they would likely attract stares, perhaps wolf whistles too. Not that these girls would struggle to cope with a bit of male attention. They're used to it, and they don't mind being noticed. In their royal blue battle dress, complete with Red Cross armbands, they cut quite a figure. As the LST makes its way across the Channel, Iris squints at her reflection in a little mirror, carefully applying her Elizabeth Arden lipstick. When she and Molly go ashore, she intends to look her best. Just before dawn, the ship docks at Juno beach, almost a week on from D Day, the scene there is still one of carnage. The fighting has moved inland, but there's no doubt this is a war zone, the sand pockmarked with craters, torn metal and worse. The two young women scrambled to shore near the town of Cour Saul sur Mer. When the beachmaster catches sight of them, he can't quite believe his eyes. Watch out, Adolf, you've had it now, quips one of the British soldiers. Before long, Iris and Molly are dealing with casualties at a medical camp a few miles inland. Over the next few days, they treat over a thousand Allied soldiers tending to their injuries, offering solace and hope. Then they escort them to the nearby RAF landing strips, where a fleet of Dakotas stand by, ready to fly them back to England. To the men on the front lines, these glamorous young women are nothing short of miraculous. They call them the Angels of mercy. Iris and Molly might be the first women to cross the Channel as part of Operation Overlord. But from its very inception, D Day has required not just manpower, but but woman power too. This unprecedented military endeavor, moving a vast army of fighting men across to France, has relied on a second, less obvious army as well. The half a million women in uniform who made D Day possible from the Nouser network. This is d Day. By June 1944, hundreds of thousands of British women are involved in war work of some kind, many of them in the official women's services. There's the Auxiliary Territorial Service, or ats, the women's branch of the army. This includes AA Command, the Anti Aircraft division tasked with shooting down enemy bombers. The Wrens is the equivalent force attached to the Navy. And for the Royal Air force, there's the WAF. Dr. Tessa Dunlop Author of Army Girls.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

Proportionally, we mobilized more women than any other belligerent in World War II. By the end of the war, the ATS is the biggest service. 300,000 recruits have passed through as members. The WAAF is about 180,000. And the Wrens that were elite service, or at least they considered themselves as such, were about 70,000 strong.

[Narrator]

Women have been conscripted into war work since December 1941, when parliament passed the National Service Act. Back then, it only applied to unmarried women between 20 and 30. But by 1944, conscription of women has been extended to include those aged from 19 to 43. Whatever their age, forcing women to serve is controversial.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

The War Office, very reluctantly, in late 1941, agreed to conscription. They sort of had sweat coming off their bald heads. It was a massive Churchill U turn that none of his biographers ever write about. And it's him that sells to Parliament the idea of conscripting women.

[Narrator]

Author Claire Mulley if you look at.

[Claire Mulley]

Hansard, you can see some quite colourful discussions about whether women should be doing this. And you get men and women on both sides of that argument, actually, which is quite interesting. So you get a lot of men saying, well, the reason we're going to war is to protect you girls. And you get a lot of women saying, the war's Gonna be over much faster if we corral our entire nation's national resources to the war effort. But you also get women going. No way. Thank you. We're ladies. So you get the whole gamut of it.

[Narrator]

Even under conscription, there are strict limits on what women are allowed to do. The range of jobs on offer grows during the course of the war, from the more typically female support roles, cooks, orderlies, secretaries, to male jobs such as mechanics and engineers. But there's one line that can never be crossed.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

In Britain, our women were strictly non combatants. And that meant that while you have a legal standing by 1941, while you can serve in an operational site like a gun site, you cannot pull the trigger off one of those giant anti aircraft guns. You're not even allowed to load it. And this is dancing on semantics, because women died on those gun sites.

[Claire Mulley]

Women are conscripted, but they're not expected to serve in the front line. Of course, women do serve in the front line, even those ones that aren't considered to. So we have women in who are manning searchlights or doing the calibrations of the anti aircraft guns. And they are in the front line because if you're an enemy bomber flying in and you can see the searchlight or you can see where the anti aircraft gun is firing from, because you can see the bullets, you're obviously going to fire at them. So they were in the front line of fire, but it's never really recognized in that way. The women who are killed as a direct result of their service work is higher than we imagine.

[Narrator]

Throughout the war, around 2,000 women serving in the ATS, WAAF and Wrens will lose their lives. The ban on them using deadly force may seem crazy to us now, but at the time it's considered essential to placate those who feel the fairer sex have no place in the forces in the first place. Because politically this is a hot topic. And not just in Parliament. When the Daily Mail runs a poll asking its readers what they hate most about the war, women in uniform comes out on top.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

Britain always had a fear of putting women in uniform. There's an idea that it is Bolshevik to put a woman in uniform, that by taking away their individuality, you are in some ways stripping them of an essence of femininity, of a sense of themselves, and thus may lead to that dreaded word promiscuity. It was particularly the ats, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, that was singled out and it was dubbed the Auxiliary Tart Service.

[Narrator]

Such as the moral panic that a special commission is Convened to look into rumours of promiscuity in the women's forces.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

The Markham Committee was established to sort of placate the panic in the public and political discourse. They actually count the number of illegitimate pregnancies in the services versus the number of illegitimate pregnancies, and that's the term used in civilian life. And they are relieved to announce that there is more lax morals among the civvies than among those girls in uniform.

[Narrator]

By 1944, most Brits have got used to the sight of a woman in uniform, whatever their personal opinions on the matter. And when it comes to D Day, women have a key role to play.

[Claire Mulley]

I think it's really important that we remember that D Day was a largely male business, but not wholly male business. Of course, all the service personnel to reach the beaches in Normandy were men. But many of the vital functions that made D Day happen couldn't have operated without women.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

Because if you have up to 2 million men based in Britain, training all over the country, who's feeding them? Who's packing their kit bags, who's sewing their kit bags, who's typing up the troop orders and the marches, who's logistically shunting them from one end of the country to the other end of the country? Women.

[Narrator]

Some women find themselves closely involved with the preparations for Operation Overlord Wren. Fanny Gore Brown is 19 years old when she is assigned to work as a plotter at Dover Castle. She's already abandoned her plans to study at Oxford in favour of military service. High on the cliffs overlooking the English Channel, Dover Castle is an imposing stone fortress built shortly after another Cross Channel invasion, the Norman conquest of 1066. The plotting room is deep underground. To get there, Fanny must traverse several long tunnels lit by dingy lamps and smelling of mold.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

Tunnels had a very, very peculiar smell. Really extraordinary, dank, uncomfortable places, with a very early form of strip lighting, which was horrible, actually. I had terrible headaches.

[Narrator]

When she arrives for her shift, Fanny puts on a headset and picks up a long stick. This she will use to push counters across a large table, like a croupier in a casino. Only instead of moving chips across a roulette table, she's moving vehicles across a map.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

It was very demanding work. We actually marked on charts on the wall everything that moved in the Channel in every direction. And the plot itself was absolutely sacred. When the plot was being updated, nobody moved close to it at all.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

The Wren plotters, they worked eight hour watches in Dover Castle. They're drawing up plots based on the information that's received and the map shows where the convoys are going up and down the channel. And all this activity is in the build D days. And soon plotting officers are in complete charge of the plotting room. It's their base, it's their domain, their kingdom. Nautical knowledge that previously was a male domain becomes one that's also a female domain. You start with four plotters in the WR in 1940 and by the end of the war there's plotters in all operation rooms across the uk. And actually quite a lot of girls really rather liked plotting because it involved not just a level of cognacy but also of teamwork, which was revolutionary in so many young girls lives that they did something previously deemed to be a man's job and they were proved more than capable, of course they were, of doing those jobs.

[Shopify Announcer]

When you think about super successful businesses that are selling through the roof, like Heinz or Mattel, you think about a great product, a cool brand and brilliant marketing. But there's a secret the business behind the business making selling simple for them and buying simple for their customers. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout as Heinz and Mattel. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com promo all lowercase go to shopify.com promo to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com promo McDonald's meets the Minecraft universe.

[Narrator]

With one of six collectibles and your choice of a Big Mac or 10 piece McNuggets with spicy nether Flame sauce. Now available with a Minecraft movie meal at participating McDonald's for a limited time. A Minecraft movie only in theaters.

[Indeed Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast and even better. You only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply in the plotting rooms.

[Narrator]

Huge wall maps are mounted on solid wooden boards. By the end of a shift, the wren's fingers are bleeding from pushing in drawing pins. But worse is when they have to pull them out. That means a ship has sunk at Dover. Fanny is working directly for Admiral Ramsay, the man in charge of Operation Neptune, the naval component of Overlord.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

Dover is wonderful. We would all have died for him. He was incredible. Absolutely incredible. Not a man to go and have a drink in the bar or anything like that, but absolutely super to work for real, real leader.

[Narrator]

And Ramsay isn't the only well known figure to grace the ops room. The Prime Minister is also a frequent visitor.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

Churchill came to Devour really quite often and of course always came to the ops room. The two memories I have of him, one was when he brought General Smuts along and they came into the ops room and Churchill with a stubby finger pointed from Dover to Cap Greenheim and said to Smarts, very close. And the other memory of him is that I came out of the ops room, the long corridor so you could see looking straight back, straight back to where the terrace was built into the cliff, cliff face. And he was standing on the terrace in his boiler suit, quite alone, looking out to France. I shall never forget that.

[Narrator]

In the run up to D Day, many service women are reassigned. Fanny Gore Brown is sent to London to take up a new position as PA to Admiral Tenant.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

I found I was expected, God help me, to be his personal assistant. I walked from Sloane Square to Norfolk House and to my astonishment, American marines wearing white gloves were guarding the door. And of course they turned out for me and saluted me. So that was exciting, that was expected. And I went upstairs to meet Admiral Tennant who had never had anything to do with the Wren before. And he was in charge of all the construction, design, construction of the Mulberry Harbors and the Pluto pipeline. And his nickname was Ramp R A M P. Rear Admiral Mulberry and Pluto.

[Narrator]

Mulberry and Pluto are two top secret innovations that are critical to the D Day invasion plan. One of the reasons the Germans are convinced the invasion will take place in the Pas de Calais is that the Normandy beaches provide no harbors. And everyone knows that harbors will be needed for the flood of reinforcements that will arrive in the weeks following the invasion. The Mulberrys offer an ingenious alternative. Author and historian Giles Milton.

[Giles Milton]

The Allies had their secret master plan, which was to tow harbours across the Channel, the famous Mulberry Harbours, which were then to be installed at Arromanche, which was to allow the delivery of vast numbers of tanks and general military hardware onto the shores of France.

[Narrator]

Pluto, meanwhile, stands for pipeline under the ocean. And it does pretty much what it says on the tin.

[Giles Milton]

The other thing that the Allies needed and they needed in vast quantities was oil, petrol and, you know, fuel. 148,000 vehicles are thirsty. And so the Allies dreamed up this thing called Pluto, which was an underwater pipeline which pumped fuel across from England to Normandy. And this proved a lifeline to all of those armoured divisions that had come ashore.

[Narrator]

Mulberry and Pluto are central to the logistics of Overlord, and it's critical that the Germans don't find out about them beforehand. After all, as the propaganda posters put it, loose lips sink ships. Fanny worries she might let slip crucial information to the wrong people.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

And, of course, tremendous anxiety that one would be be hit over the head in an outrage and end up in hospital and start blabbing happily it didn't happen.

[Narrator]

In fact, the closest Fanny comes to blabbing is to her own mother. One day, Mrs. Gore Brown makes an offhand remark about the harbors in the Pas de Calais and how important they'll be to the coming invasion. Fanny is about to correct her, but then holds her tongue. All over Britain, women are keeping secrets that could jeopardize the entire war if they got out, including on the specifics of D Day.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

Penny Bailey, who was a typist, a clerk in the army, knew where her boyfriend was going to be before he did, because she was typing up the troop commands. And when she told me, age 99, she was still whispering it because it's a top secret.

[Claire Mulley]

It must have weighed incredibly heavily upon them and there must at times have been conflicts of interest where they desperately wanted to tell people, don't go, you know, but couldn't do so. But all the people that I know of, the interviews I've read and the few that I've done, I mean, they have this even sense now of reluctance to talk about it because they took their signing of the Official Secrets act so very seriously. I was talking to two women recently, one Betty Webb from Bletchley park and Patricia Altram, who's a Wren, and they both said that when they were asked to sign the Official Secrets act, the officer asking them put a gun on the table in front of them. And, I mean, there was no indication he was going to use it. It was just like adding weight to the conversation in a silent way. And that was noted.

[Narrator]

The women who work at Bletchley park, the code breaking centre based in a country house 50 miles outside London, are charged with keeping one of the most important secrets of the war. The German Enigma codes have been compromised, meaning the Allies can decrypt enemy communications. After the war, the Prime Minister will single them out for praise.

[Claire Mulley]

Winston Churchill says that these women were the geese that laid the golden egg and never cackled because they never spoke about it. Intense security around it throughout the war.

[Narrator]

Around seven and a half thousand Women work at Bletchley Park. The majority are Wrens. Middle class women have been freed to gain degrees in mathematics, physics or engineering because with so many men away fighting, universities have spare places. It's these women who helped construct the early computers that break the top secret Enigma codes. Others work as translators, analysts, admin staff, motorcycle dispatch riders. Most of them keep quiet about their work at Bletchley long after the war is over. Such is the culture of secrecy and in the run up to D Day, the work done there is vital.

[Claire Mulley]

75% of the people working at Bletchley are women and most of them are just in junior roles and they don't have the military overview, they don't have the strategic picture. But without their work, we wouldn't have been able to do this.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

We're going to see this flurry of Enigma activity. We need to be able to confirm that the Germans have swallowed Operation Fortitude, Hook, Line and Sinker. That is convincing the Germans that the D Day landings are in fact going to arrive in Pas de Calais, not in Normandy, where they do arrive. And we can confirm that because we are able to intercept and to process and to decrypt all the enemy communications. Over 2000 more female recruits are drawn into the park and the code breaking nexus in that year. We also need to know exactly where the enemy are located in Normandy to know what our boys are going to be up against.

[Claire Mulley]

By the time we get to early June, Bletchley park has got this incredibly detailed picture. They knew how many tanks and how many troops were stationed where and they knew where those forces were headed. And this probably was one of the decisive factors in the success of Normandy.

[Narrator]

By the time D Day comes around, Fanny Gore Brown is ordered to relocate again when her boss, Admiral Tennant, is sent to Southwark House near Portsmouth. By now she's privy to even more top secret information.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

I'd known where, of course, when I was at Norfolk House. I knew where did end. Obviously the date. I didn't know. I certainly knew the date by when I got to Celtic. We knew all about the scale because of the endless typing and the endless checking. People used to walk round and round the room checking typescript because I can't remember how long Overlord is, but it's a very long. It's a very long operations order in tremendous detail.

[Narrator]

One of Fanny's colleagues in the Wrens, a young woman called Christian Lamb, is charged with drawing up visual aids for the men going ashore on D Day. Her little office beneath a stairwell in Whitehall is plastered with maps of the French coastline. Christian's job is to draw whatever landmarks, churches, castles, railway stations and more will be visible from each landing position, a bit like the panoramic engravings at the top of the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building, telling you what you can see below. Although in this case, Christian has to base her work not on direct observation, but on careful calculations about angles of sight, total accuracy is essential if the men in the landing craft are to understand what's in front of them. When they reach Normandy 80 years later, Christian's contribution to the success of D Day will see her receive France's highest honor, the Croix de Guerre. You were not there in person, French President Emmanuel Macron will tell her, but you guided each step they took. But even those not involved in the invasion itself can draw their own conclusions about what's going on. Among them is Joy Lofthouse, a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary, or ata. Known unofficially as an Atta Girl, Joy's job is to deliver aircraft to where they're needed, and it gives her an unusual vantage point. She can see with her own eyes what's hidden from those on the ground.

[Claire Mulley]

She was told she had to be really quiet about what she was seeing because most people didn't have her perspective. As she is flying over the country lanes on towards the south coast, she sees the mass buildup of military vehicles. She sees the fleets of boats and barges lining up in the Solent already. And then she flew back again a few days later and it was all gone.

[Narrator]

When Joy got her wings in the ATA, she joined the ranks of 168 female pilots, working alongside more than a thousand male ones. Most of them are too old for frontline service. A year earlier, the ATA became one of the world's first equal opportunities employers, awarding the same pay to women as they give to men.

[Claire Mulley]

They certainly face a lot of prejudice. I know that there were pilots who delivered aircraft and got out of the plane and people would ask them where the pilot is. You know, that happens more than once. So there is a lot of that prejudice going on. But I think they built up their respect and they end up, you know, they started the war, they were flying in a skirt on a third of the salary of the men, and they end up flying in trousers on the same salary.

[Narrator]

For many Atta girls, the opportunity to fly Spitfires and Hurricanes is pretty much a dream job. And like the nurses who go ashore in Normandy, they're quite happy to combine bravery with a touch of glamour. Mary Ellis was One of the more legendary ATA pilots, known to her friends as Spitfire Mary.

[Claire Mulley]

She told me that she was delivering an aircraft, and she said she never wore her pilot's cap because she had lovely blonde curly hair. And she didn't want to ruin her hair for the dances that night. And she thinks it saved her life because one day a returning bomber, a German bomber, came the other way and obviously thought, oh, that's a bit of easy prey. I'll take that down on my way. But as he came close, he saw her blonde hair and he actually saluted her and flew on.

[Narrator]

If a German pilot had engaged her, Mary would have been unable to fight back. Because even if her Spitfire was loaded with ammunition, women are forbidden from firing deadly weapons on D Day. The Atta girls are strictly ferry pilots working on the home front. None of them are sent across the channel to Normandy. But the movements of both planes and ships making that fateful journey are being carefully plotted by young women all over the country. And the stakes have never been higher.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

Whether it's an aircraft or a seaborne vessel, it's a moving target. So you've got to keep plotting. It's in real time. This is happening in real time. The size of the D Day operations means it's hugely logistically challenging. If you drop the ball, if you misread a command, if you plot inaccurately, then that could cost lives.

[Sponsor Announcer]

I was never really a runner. The way I see running is a gift, especially when you have stage four cancer. I'm Ann. I'm running the Boston Marathon. Presented by bank of America. I run for Dana Farber Cancer Institute to give people like me a chance to thrive in life even with cancer.

[Narrator]

Join bank of America in helping Anne's cause. Give if you can@b of a.com support and what would you like the power to do? References to charitable organizations is not endorsement by bank of America Corporation.

[Bank of America Announcer]

Copyright 2025 Spring Fest and Ego Days are here at Lowe's right now. Get a free select EGO 56 volt battery with purchase of a select trimmer blower or mower kit. Plus, shop today for new and exclusive items you need for your lawn. So get ready for spring with the latest in innovation from Ego, the number one rated brand in cordless outdoor power only at Lowe's. We help you Save. Offer valid through 4:2. Selection varies by location while supplies last.

[Indeed Announcer]

This is a message from sponsor Intuit. TurboTax Taxes was getting frustrated by your forms. Now Taxes is uploading your forms with a Snap and a TurboTax expert will do your taxes for you. One who's backed by the latest tech which cross checks millions of data points for absolute accuracy. All of which makes it easy for you to get the most money back guaranteed. Get an expert [e-mail], only available with TurboTax Live full service. Seek guaranteed [e-mail] guarantees at Southwark, Fanny.

[Narrator]

Gore Brown is back in her old job, having begged Admiral Ramsay for an effective demotion so she can join her fellow plotters in the ops room. She doesn't want to miss out on the most significant naval operation of the war. Fanny is on duty the night of the 5th of June, as the vast Allied armada begins its journey across the Channel.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

My shift was 11 o'clock at night till 8 o'clock following morning. 5th, 6th of June, the armada was slowly, slowly, slowly sailing across the Channel. Ramsey went to bed with instructions to be called a 5 if things were going badly and a 6 if things were going according to plan. And I went off watch at 8:00 into breakfast. And the radio wallets was on in the mess announcing that the invasion started.

[Narrator]

That morning. People up and down Britain, in and out of uniform, are waiting with bated breath for news from Normandy. Among them, tens of thousands of young women who've fallen in love with American servicemen. Nuala Calvi author of GI Brides A.

[Nuala Calvi]

Lot of British girls, obviously they would have only encountered Americans on the silver screen. So I think a lot of GIs had this kind of aura of Hollywood glamour almost about them. They were comparatively rich. A GI earned five times as much as a private in the British army, so they could really afford to treat women on dates. They had things like deodorant and aftershave, so they smelled wonderful. They smoked exotic cigarette brands such as Camel and Lucky Strike. And a lot of women found the GIs more attentive than British men. They would shower them with compliments, they would pull out chairs and so on. One of the GI brides I interviewed called Sylvia told me it was the first time a man had ever bought her flowers when she went out with a gi. Sylvia told me that she felt a lot of the Americans were keen to get a British girlfriend before going overseas, so that if they were killed, there'd be someone left behind to mourn them.

[Narrator]

On the 6th of June, many of these handsome GI boyfriends suddenly vanish. A generation of young women find themselves ghosted, some more literally than others.

[Nuala Calvi]

Everyone knew D Day was coming. You know, they knew why the Americans were there, but they'd Been there for a long time. And so it was still a real shock, I think, when the Americans suddenly left. And for some it happened so quickly there they didn't get a chance to even say goodbye.

[Narrator]

Some make a last ditch attempt at contact before they depart. One of the most poignant images of D Day is an abandoned tent hastily scrawled on with white paint. Sorry Jean had to go, Johnny.

[Nuala Calvi]

As far as I know, no one's ever tracked down who Jean and Johnny were, but they were obviously important enough to each other that he wanted to leave her a note and that's the best he could do. And whether they survived D Day or not, a lot of American men never returned to Britain after D Day.

[Narrator]

In the weeks after D Day, British service women begin being sent across the Channel, always a relatively safe distance behind the frontline troops. The ATS send mixed sex ACAC teams to shoot down Hitler's new V weapons, pilotless flying bombs released in retribution for the invasion.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

Within a week of the D Day landings, Hitler and the German High command unleash their V1 and V2 rockets. But by the autumn of 1944, 80% of those rockets are being felled by AA command before they hit their target. And AA Command is operated by more women than men.

[Narrator]

Fanny Gore Brown crosses the Channel with her boss, Admiral Tennant, landing on one of the Mulberry harbours they worked on in secret.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

When we arrived at Arrowmarsh in the morning, it was very exciting to land on the Mulberry. That was really exciting. And we were met by Norwich with loose seats in the back and we drove through Normandy to Granville on the Jabeur Peninsula. Devastation, absolute devastation. Appalling, appalling. Villages absolutely destroyed.

[Narrator]

Dreadful. But the worst sights by far are those witnessed by the British nurses. As early as noon on D Day, the first casualties start arriving at hospitals on the south coast of England, especially in Portsmouth and Southampton.

[Claire Mulley]

Part of the planning was to clear the hospitals on the south coast cities. Everything was, you know, scrubbed, everything was stockpiled, ready to take the casualties. And the casualties came really fast, I think, you know, barely within hours of, of the invasion being launched. We had casualties. They'd be brought up from the dockside in lorries. There's appalling injuries there that had perhaps received some emergency treatment on the hospital ships bringing them back. One of the nurses, a Red Cross nurse called Mary Verrier, said some of the time all we could do was give them tender loving care and a kiss and a hug. And that, that's just not once it was relentless.

[Narrator]

They treat Michigan machine gun wounds, burns and lacerations from barbed wire. Some 800 walking wounded arrive on the first day. Within less than a week, nurses like Iris Ogilvy and Molly Giles are traveling in the opposite direction. The American nurses arrive in Normandy first, as early as D day plus one. But the beaches are too congested for them to unload and their medical equipment is scattered by the chaos of the landings. Instead, they do what they can for the injured on their hospital ships. Within a few days, American, British and Commonwealth nurses have begun to establish hospitals on French soil.

[Claire Mulley]

They were serving in field hospitals near the front and in evacuation hospitals further back. They were on hospital trains, they were on hospital ships. You get some flight nurses on medical transport aircraft. So you have them in all of the theaters of the war really, in various different ways.

[Narrator]

And it's not just official nurses who are risking their lives to help the D Day casualties.

[Giles Milton]

French women who lived in Normandy made great efforts under considerable risk to themselves, to nurse men who landed on D Day itself. There were accounts of women going onto the beaches while they were still under fire and helping men who are desperately wounded, women who have rather been airbrushed from history and no one knows about the extraordinary dangers they face to help try and rescue some of those men coming ashore.

[Narrator]

Even weeks after D Day, there's no shortage of danger for those tending the wounded. Two British army nurses, Dorothy Fields and Molly Evershed, are among the tens of thousands of service personnel remembered on the British Normandy Memorial, which commemorates those killed on D Day and in the months of fighting that followed.

[Claire Mulley]

Dorothy was 27, Molly was 32. And they were on a hospital ship that struck a mine just off Juno Beach. And there was a report that their ship was almost cut in half and was listening badly and it was clearly going to go down. Now, both these women were very strong swimmers and of course they. They could have leapt off, they could have tried to swim to safety, but they, both of them refused to leave their posts. They repeatedly returned below decks because there were a number of stretcher cases already below decks. And between them they carried out 75 stretcher cases. They had to lift these stretcher cases over the rail on the side of the ship and get them out into lifeboats. And the last sighting of Molly was her struggling to escape from the hatch as the ship went down. And very sadly, she did didn't make it.

[Narrator]

Estimates of the total number of nurses killed in action vary. The US army reports 201 killed during the war. The British army twice that number clearly the number of female casualties is dwarfed by the male ones. But men and women alike serve in various positions throughout the war, some more dangerous than others.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

It takes time to reassess and place the female narrative alongside the male one. In World War II, we always refer to these male heroes, the flower, the youth moan down and like, I totally get that. But the vast majority of men who serve aren't on the front line. They're also in logistical positions, office boys doing jobs that don't actually directly imperil their lives. And that women are doing those jobs doesn't mean it's of less value. It means it's different. And sometimes it's less dangerous. But being in the most dangerous position doesn't mean you're necessarily in the most valuable position. And everyone plays their role. And I think words like vital, important are the appropriate words to term the role of women. I think it's understandable for a whole bunch of societal reasons why it's taken 50 years or so to get this narrative of women's role in war fully up and running and recognized. I think it's also important not to distort it. They didn't do always the same role as men. Invariably they didn't. But they were an absolutely integral part of the war machine.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

I have ever since been so thankful for the experience. I think it made one feel you can do things if you want to. It's up to you. Get on and do it.

[Dr. Tessa Dunlop]

This is the first time that hundreds of thousands of women are experiencing a paid sense of purpose, a part of being a patriotic project, an idea of an independent self who is working alongside men, who is in many respects equal to men, although not paid as well as men, and not doing always the exact same jobs as men. And it will prove, not immediately, but it will prove revolutionary. I don't think it's a coincidence that those women give birth to the generation that is going to push for women's lib, that is going to be called the bra burners. Second wave feminists. Now, where do they get those ideas from? What comes along with a different idea of what it means to be a woman? And it comes from those women who experienced something different in the war. They had their moment and I think going forward they see a new landscape for their children. There is no war to free their girls. So. So what are they going to offer the future generation of young women?

[Narrator]

In the next episode, we conclude our D Day story with a look at what happened after 6 June, three months of bitter fighting across Normandy hundreds of thousands of casualties. And as Operation Overlord draws to a close, the fate of Paris hangs in the balance. That's next time. Titanic Ship of Dreams, the new podcast from the award winning Noiser Network. Join me, Paul McGann, as we explore life and death on Titanic. I'll delve into my own family story following my great uncle Jimmy as he tries to escape the engine room. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors.

[Fanny Gore Brown]

I saw that ship sink.

[Claire Mulley]

And I saw that ship break in half.

[Narrator]

Titanic Ship of dreams. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.