Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos (37 page)

During the war, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made several overseas journeys to meet the other leaders of the Allied nations, accompanied by his wife or daughters. Sarah wrote:

One day in November of 1943 I was summoned to the commanding officer and told by him that I could accompany my father on an important journey.

The RAF station at Medmenham was quite near to Chequers, and whenever I had forty-eight hours’ leave it was easy for me to get over there. I hurried there now, and my father told me that a conference between the President of the United States, Stalin and himself had been arranged at Teheran, that the President, despite his health and physical handicap was making the long journey and that Stalin had finally been lured from his lair. My father and the President were to meet in Cairo before the conference in Teheran. I was to accompany my father as one of his aides-de-camp … I walked on air.
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Sarah sailed with the conference delegation on 12 November aboard the battleship HMS
Renown
. First stop was Gibraltar:

It was dark when we anchored at Gibraltar. The Rock rose from the sea in solitary splendour, surrounded by a necklace of lights, the first I had seen since the blackout had begun in 1939.

My duties were mainly to see, along with others, to my father’s comfort and wishes, to relay messages, and to drape myself silently along the coat racks in the ante-chambers of the conference rooms with other ADCs assigned to similar duties. I did not have any ‘ideas above my station’.

A week later they were in Malta awaiting the arrival of the president and his party. The Prime Minister was unwell before the ship had set sail from England and welcomed the chance to rest, while Sarah was looked after by the RAF:

The first Conference of Allied Leaders was held at Teheran in November 1943. Section Officer Sarah Churchill stands behind Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt of the USA and Marshal Stalin of the USSR.

I was taken on a flight in a Mosquito, then perhaps the best and fastest aircraft of the RAF. I remember we flew around the whole of Sicily, over all the bits I knew so well from sitting at a desk at Medmenham gazing at photographs. It was an unbelievably exciting experience. I knew it so well, I didn’t need a map. The only unfamiliar aspect, of course, was the colour – I only knew it in black and white, and it was all lovely pink earth. We flew around the slopes of Etna, which was capped by snow and cloud, and then back to base, chasing a Walt Disney sun that refused to set. I confess that the flight made me feel a little sick. As we twirled about Etna, dropping and climbing some hundreds of feet, my ears hurt and that awful feeling in the joint of one’s jaw, as if everything was turning to water, overcame me. I had to use an immense effort of will and concentration not to shame myself or my uniform.

Churchill’s health did not improve as the voyage progressed to Cairo followed by the flight to Teheran. Sarah noted that:

This was the conference at which, among other things, ‘Overlord’, the invasion of France, was planned. It was the first meeting of all three leaders. Everyone was relieved and surprised at the genuinely mutual facility of expression between the three of so vastly different temperaments.

The conference was over in four days and the return journey started, but at Tunis Churchill became seriously ill with pneumonia, causing great concern. Sarah was described as a pillar of strength to her father and diplomatic in her dealings with everyone else, always ready to listen and talk. She managed to visit her PI colleagues at La Marsa, near Tunis, to exchange news of Medmenham. A period of convalescence in Marrakech was necessary for the Prime Minister and it was 18 January before he and Sarah arrived back in England. Returning to work in the Communications Section, she brought presents of oranges for her colleagues, regaling them with tales of Teheran and the people she had met, especially ‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin, whom she imitated very well.

Sarah acted as ADC to her father again:

I was still at RAF Medmenham in January 1945 when one afternoon I received a message which told me that I was to accompany my father on another journey. As before, secrecy and excitement prevailed. There was the last-minute rush for prosaic but necessary things like my laundry. I had to invent another story to explain to my friends my sudden departure.

A second conference had been arranged between the ‘Big Three’ – Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill – at Yalta on the Black Sea. The Prime Minister’s party departed on the night of 29 January by air for Malta and, once again, Churchill was unwell:

Though my father had an amazing constitution the heavy injections before these trips sometimes made him feel ill, and once again he was to start out on a journey not feeling his best. At first the plane was very cold, so all the heating was turned on and in a few minutes we were screaming for air. My father asked for a thermometer. His temperature was up and it subsequently rose to 102 degrees during the night. My heart sank and I thought, ‘Oh Lord, here we go again’, but there was nothing to do but settle down. Nobody slept much.

An 8-hour car journey over appalling roads followed from the airport to Yalta where the conference was held in the Lividian Palace. With victory in sight, the discussions of the Big Three centred on the shape of Europe when Germany surrendered. Her father’s health caused worries, and he was evidently brooding deeply on the horror and suffering in the world. Sarah wrote to her mother:

Last night just before he went to sleep Papa said: ‘I do not suppose that at any moment in history has the agony of the world been so great or widespread. Tonight the sun goes down on more suffering than ever before in the world’.
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Helena Ewen managed to make an unofficial visit to her parents living in Lille, northern France in 1944.

Sarah and her father arrived back in England on 19 February 1945.

Two months before Sarah’s trip to Yalta, Helena Ewen in Second Phase had been making plans to see her parents:

I came to England in 1937 when I was in my early twenties – and later joined the WAAF after my application was much vetted. My parents stayed in my home town of Lille, in NW France, and during the whole war I had no news from them. I could only send them a monthly Red Cross message of 25 words, wishing them well and saying I was in good health and living in the country! I was very keen to go there as soon as I could, so when I saw a possible opportunity, I jumped at the chance. An American officer came to Medmenham in November 1944 from Dijon, General Leclerc’s HQ – sent by him and other Allied heads to get the latest positions on the German Army, who, after being on the retreat appeared to be planning another assault from the East. I contacted this American to whom I proposed that, being a PI, I could explain better than he to the General, the latest covers we had for him to take back the following day.

He was very reluctant to include me in his trip and added that he would not take any responsibility for me if I did go. I went to our CO, Wing Commander Kendall, to explain. I also told him that I was due seven days leave. He emphasised that I could spend my leave as I pleased, but added that I had to be sure to return on time for duty; he would not sponsor my trip nor take any responsibility. I was keen – nothing could stop me!
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American friends at Medmenham gave Helena boxes of candy recently received from the USA, and she bought 7lb of coffee beans, leaving just enough space for a change of clothes and a toothbrush in her bag. The next morning she set off with her companion to RAF Northolt and they flew to an airfield just north of Dijon:

I was longing to put my feet on French soil after so long – and I thought also that I would celebrate with a glass of French wine! But there had been lots of floods that year so we landed on a metal grid. The end of my hopes of stepping onto French soil, as we were immediately picked up and placed in a waiting Jeep!

The papers were safely put away at HQ and I went to the Mess for dinner. I remember we had turkey, such a luxury after our meagre fare in England. But I could not get a glass of wine, (only several bottles!), so I went out and found my way to the Grand Place and went into the largest café, typically French with a long mahogany counter and pewter top. All eyes were on me – who was this woman soldier in RAF uniform, dropping in and speaking French? Everyone gathered round me, bombarding me with questions. The first was, ‘Do you know Churchill?’ I said no, but I knew his daughter! This was true as Sarah and I often shared a Good Night milky drink together at the end of a shift!

Next day Helena presented herself at the HQ and, after explaining the photographs, was asked about her wish to get to Lille. The Americans gave her a travel pass, which helped considerably with getting a flight to Paris, where she stayed overnight in the Hotel Georges V, requisitioned for the accommodation of British officers, and had another turkey dinner. In the morning she caught a ‘Micheline’, a two-wagon train, to Lille. The journey was slow, sometimes travelling at walking pace, as they went over Bailey bridges very recently constructed by the Royal Engineers in the Allied advance through France. At Lille, the travel pass ensured a lift to her parents’ house:

They, of course had no previous knowledge of my arrival; nor that I was in the Forces. When my emaciated father opened the door he screamed for my mother and I cannot describe the delight and crying that followed. I poured out on to the kitchen table my hoard of real coffee, purchased only a few days before in Reading. My father took some to the local café and sold it on the black market; that money would enable them to buy meat for a while.

The next morning I found a Jeep to take me to Brussels as I knew a detachment of PIs from Medmenham was working there and they would help me get back to England, and so they did.

That evening the Mayor of Brussels was giving a reception for British troops who had delivered the City from the enemy in the previous fortnight or so. There was a big banquet and I was asked, as there was a great shortage of women! It was a wonderful evening and I remember being taken to the house of the Rothschilds which had a round ballroom where they were giving a Ball. Being the only woman in uniform I had plenty of partners, although my WAAF service shoes kept slipping on the floor.

Next day, with great relief, I got a plane, a Hudson I think, back to England. We landed on grass at Croydon airfield and from there I travelled back to Medmenham having accomplished my dream of seeing my parents. I reported for duty on time and incidentally saw Wing Commander Kendall in the Mess, who gave me an understanding smile.

Notes

  
1
. Colles, Dorothy, IWM papers.

  
2
. Rice, Joan,
Sand in my Shoes
, p.235.

  
3
. Scott, Hazel,
Peace and War
,
pp.54–6.