Interview with Joyce Exton Wallace. One

Interview with Joyce Exton Wallace. One

Joyce Exton Wallace recalls reattaching a loose barrage balloon with the help of the commanding officer.

00:02:12 audio recording

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AExtonWallaceJ[Date]-01

It got out of hand because you had to keep them all facing you in wind and down the Barry Island where we were was down the Irish Channel I think it is, whatever it is there, the big water and the wind used to come down and blow the balloon every way. Well, this one particular day it snapped some of the ropes so we had to go out to try and get the balloon back in onto the wires. And with the, holding them down were these blocks of concrete. I think they were about two hundred and forty pound each which we used to pick up and run with, it would kill me now, and tie them on to the end of the balloon as best we could to try to bring the balloon back down and we had to phone up the heavy gang because we just couldn’t manage it. The wind was too much and I was underneath this balloon being battered and biffed about everywhere trying to tie off this piece of concrete and a pair of trousers walked by with shoes on the end. Of course, I was very polite in those days. I said, ‘Instead of walking up and down and looking down at things,’ I said, ‘Why the hell don’t you get down here and give me a hand?’ [laughs] It was all thick mud because it was pouring with rain of course and this pair of trousers came down, tied off and everything. We finally got it down and we got the balloon back under order and then we crawled, I crawled out and got up and this chap got out and it was only the CO [laughs] He said, ‘Don’t apologize. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.’ I didn’t know where to put myself because I was rude to him [laughs] Oh dear. He was a nice CO though. I can’t remember where we were. Switch off a minute.