For the staff of the Naval Command headquarters just outside Portsmouth, the fetid air and lack of natural light underground meant the steps provided welcome exercise on their way back to the surface.ĭay and night meant nothing to Marie and her colleagues: the wireless operators, plotters, planners and telegraphists from across the services, who sat at their stations in the windowless offices or slept in small, cramped rooms on three-tier bunks.Įven so, they knew their hardships were nothing compared to the men they would be speaking to on the other end of their wireless sets. Living, working and sleeping in the tunnels was not very pleasant: eight-hour watches in a 24-hour duty, then off for a day. In June 1944, as a Switchboard Operator recently trained in the new technology of VHF radio, 17-year-old Marie Scott practically skipped down all 350 of them, deep into the tunnels underneath the cliffs of Fort Southwick. The steps were no difficulty for her back then. It has an estimated read time of 20 minutes
This article was initially published 5th June 2019 as part of the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
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