BUSSELTON resident Brenda Edwards, who was involved in D-Day, will be joining other ex servicemen and women in paying her respects to fallen comrades at tomorrow’s Anzac Day.
Born in Brighton in England, Brenda finished school at 16, then studied fashion design at Revilles fashion and design school in Hanover Square in London.
At 18, she began four years of service in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.
“They asked me what I would like to do, and I said dress designing, so they made me a lorry driver,” Brenda said.
She was first stationed at Morecambe in Lancashire, but was moved to the Blake Hill Farm to work as an ambulance driver, just prior to the D-Day assault.
At the time the location of the base was a closely guarded secret, and Brenda said the road-signs nearby were removed to further conceal the location from even armed forces.
“We were the first five WAAFs to arrive at the airfield,” she said.
“There were three aerodrones specially built for D-Day, where they trained to tow gliders in preparation.”
Brenda shared a tin hut with 11 other women at the base, freezing during the nights, huddled around the old bogie and hoping no one snored.
Air Force personnel from Australia, New Zealand and Canada soon joined the British forces, as the D-Day assaults loomed, though the exact date was kept a secret.
“You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife,” Brenda said.
Finally, everyone at the base received a letter from Dwight D Eisenhower, informing them the assault would take place within 48 hours.
“We stayed up all night, waiting. Just waiting,” Brenda said.
“The Dakotas were the first to go, and then the first lot of wounded came back.”
As ambulance drivers, Brenda and the other WAAFs taxied the wounded soldiers back to tents erected at the base, where they could be assessed for treatment at hospitals around the country.
Even hours after their shifts finished, Brenda and the other women continued to bring the wounded men back to base.
“We did it even in our spare time, because we felt at least we were doing something,” she said.
“They thought we were nurses.
“Some were so badly burned and wounded. Eventually, we couldn’t get the smell of gangrene out of our battle dresses.”
The war was eventually won, and Brenda’s time at the base drew to a close.
“On the very last day, we knew the war was over,” she said, adding that everyone at the base let their hair down a little.
“A friend and I climbed on board one of the planes the RAAF were taking up for a sound test,” she said.
“We sat in the gun turret at the back. The plane went up and down, and pitched and rolled.
“We felt so sick afterwards, and it served us right!”
As respect to her comrades and the fallen diggers, Brenda attends the Anzac Day and Armistice ceremonies every year.
