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This story was sumbitted to the People's War website by Garry Lloyd on behalf of Joyce Davies. She has given her permission for her story to go onto the website and understands the terms and conditions of the site.

While my fiancé (now my husband) was in the Royal Navy, at one time escorting convoys through the perils of the Atlantic war, I had a quieter quest in the uniform of the WAAF. So quiet it was hush hush. I worked in a top secret listening station at Chicksands Priory in Bedfordshire.

Such was the secrecy none of the WAAFs knew what we were doing there. RAF Chicksands was called the “Y” service, maintaining a silent watch on the enemies of our country. But we were kept so much in the dark we later referred to the Y as “why are we doing this?”

In fact the “Y” service was covertly listening to German High Command radio traffic, extracting call signs and frequencies, and passing on their messages to Bletchley Park the famous spy headquarters where the German Enigma code was broken.

Chicksands communicated with our network of agents behind enemy lines using coded seasonal greetings, trivial-sounding messages and even poetry to disguise what we were doing. Though I worked there for three years, and went home on leave to Glasgow, where my parents lived then, neither they nor my fiancé had any idea of what we did.

A buzz bomb landed in the men’s camp, which was separated from ours. But it fell harmlessly into the River Flit. When we were off duty we WAAFs would go into Bedford Corn Exchange for concerts by Glen Miller’s band. But we were forbidden from discussing our work even with each other, and we obeyed. We were more scared of the Official Secrets Act than the bombing. I still retain friends from Chicksands and we have regular reunions of the “Y” service.

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