Kath Wozniak

Womens Land Army, South Devon

"I'd been home with my mother just working, well doing everything. From cooking for the evacuee kids we had, at that time the house was full of evacuee children.....You had to register for service at seventeen. Of course I went to register to get away from home, I thought the ATS or something. The lady there knew my family quite well.....'Oh well your mother needs you at home' she said, 'we'll put you in the Land Army'. They gave me a uniform and sent me back home.."

"They started gathering around us for D-day.....eventually it was nearly all Americans.....We knew that they were training down in the South Hams district.....the troops from the camp were going down there."

"There were two young officers, Woods and Tucker.....well, we got to know them. They used to come down to the farm and make sure we weren't being annoyed by the lads at the camp. Mum would invite them down for a cup of tea and we'd talk and write their letters home.....This lad came down this day in a bit of a state, Mum asked what was wrong, He said 'I can't tell you, something terrible has happened, I don't think I can take any more'.... He was sent home, this was Woods, and shortly after the boy Tucker was sent home also."

"My brother was in the Home Guard by this time.....they thought he had been in an accident or something as they were picking up dead bodies along the coast. After (we found out) what had happened at Slapton Sands. I think U-boats had got in amongst the landing crafts that were training down there.....I don't quite know the full history of it, but there were a lot of disasters down there. It came out that they were using live ammunition and firing on their own men."