9th July 1944

Sunday
‘Planes going out in hundreds between 7 and 8.  Rain began about one, just as I got to the Post, and kept on all afternoon.  Lot of bombers went out, and one Liberator, marked 4NK, circled round for 2 hours, passing low right over the Post a dozen times.  We thought he was in trouble, and reported, but Centre apparently made enquiries and were satisfied that there was nothing the matter with it.  It flew at less than a thousand feet, and we could see the crew at their places quite clearly.

“Diver” [V1 flying bomb] was on most of the time and there was an alarm about 4.  We could hear them talking about “divers” over S. Essex but nothing came this way.  When they travel in the clouds there is no possible means of defence against them.

Weather cleared, and when I got off at 5 went to Lt. Rivers.  Pattinson, the fruit farmer was there with an extraordinary pretty girl there called Jacquetta Gordon-Fox, who is in the Ministry of Information in London.  There was an alarm soon after 9, the sky clear and blue.  We could hear the diver thumping, the cut-out, and the crash.  Nobody took the least notice of it.  Had a lovely supper, Pattinson brought cream and butter from his farm, and we had strawberries.

Back to Woodside at 10.30, lovely calm evening, yet felt unusually nervous.  No ‘planes before midnight.

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