Brits Auxiliary Territorial Service service dress, Scottish Command, van Vera Bell, met foto

Jacket ATS, khaki, brits service dress. Bijzonderheden ; op de mouwen embleem van Scottish Command, op de schouderstukken koperen speld ATS. Intergrale khaki riem , In de rechter mouw een stempel; W pijltje omhoog D / P 91. Label aan de binnenkant van rechter voorpand nauwelijks leesbaar. De jas is van 1940. In de linker zak onder zat een (onklare) granaat, ongeveer 18 mm in doorsnee , bewerkt en dicht gesoldeerd. Deze granaat zit nu niet meer in het jasje. gaatje in linker achterpand. De Auxiliary Territorial Service was de eenheid voor vrouwen in het Britse leger en kwam voort uit de Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. Vera Bell was chauffeur van transport, krijgsgevangenen en personen, in zowel vrachtwagens als normale auto's. Verklaring van David Lomax, dochter van de draagster, Vera Bell: My Mother, Vera Bell was born in Sunderland on 12th November 1919 and had a normal childhood. She was working as a Hotel chambermaid prior to joining the ATS after the outbreak of the second world war in 1939. During the early years of the war she served in a number of locations in Scotland including a period based in Edinburgh Castle. It was during her time in Edinburgh that she had a very serious accident whilst driving a lorry. Her lorry crashed into the basement of a building on one of the steep hills in Edinburgh and all she remembered was waking up a few days later in hospital and was told that she had deliberately avoided a collision with another car and almost certainly saved the lives of the occupants. After recovery she returned to her duties which included not only driving lorries transporting everything from ammunition to POW’s but also staff cars taking High ranking officers to and from meetings. She on occasion transported ENSA celebrities to moral boosting entertainment events. On the run up to the D-Day invasion she was based in Hereford and was working almost none stop ferrying supplies and men from all over the area to the South of England dispatch areas. The ATS drivers were expected to carry out basic maintenance operations on their vehicles and my mother was always proud that she had shown one of her fellow ATS members what was required on a 3 Ton Truck. This person was Princess Elizabeth (Now Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II). Dad was a British Royal Engineer involved in the Market Garden operation as part of the land advance that could not make it through to Arnhem. Along with the Canadian Royal Engineers and Polish troops, he took part in the evacuation of Paras across the river to Driel. The brother of one of the girls serving with my mother had asked if she would ask her mates to write to the lads serving with him in Africa to keep their spirits up. Letters were exchanged regularly and after the war mother and father were married My parents regularly visited the Netherlands and attended the commemorations in Arnhem. They became good friends with Jan and Ina Rudolphie in Oosterbeek. My mother died on the 2 April 1990 but Dad continued his visits to Jan and Ina and attendance at the annual commemorations. I came with him on a couple occasions and it was on one of those visits that he told me that Mothers uniform had been donated to the museum in Groesbeek.