It was the 15th of August,

I think it was in the afternoon.

Valerie and Mary and I, and two other girls, were on the day shift, which was rather fortunate, because

Commander Williams, our superior officer, came into the room, smiling, and he said,

well done, girls, the signal has been intercepted from Tokyo to Geneva, and the Japanese

are surrendering.

And we just sat there in complete silence, and then Commander Williams shuffled about,

and then he said, well, you bloody will get on with their work now, which broke the ice.

We all laughed. And then he did say, a message has gone to the king and to the prime minister.

And I'll come back when it's been confirmed,

because it cannot be announced until Geneva has sent on the message to London

for very obvious reasons, because they would have known we'd have been listening.

A handful of people at Lechley obviously knew before it became public knowledge.

You knew before the king and the prime minister?

I should think about the same time.

I don't think they wasted time doing that.

But yes, it was a great moment.

Is it seem like any sense of privilege, or was it just sort of everything stops kind of moment?

A sense of relief, I think. After all, all of us who are young girls, we all knew young men who were

out fighting somewhere or were prisoners, brothers, boyfriends, cousins, we all had.

And it was just a wonderful moment to think that they would actually be coming home.

I was billeted in Bedford then, so I think we just quietly went home on the train to Bedford.

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