Copyright

Justin Smith

Published On

2024-12-19

Page Range

pp. 203–308

Language

  • English

Print Length

106 pages

Media

Illustrations15

5. Victory in Europe

(especially Paris and Somerset, Spring 1945)

Chapter of: The Birds That Wouldn’t Sing: Remembering the D-Day Wrens(pp. 203–308)
In the third part of this book the regular correspondence of Joan Prior, now promoted to Leading Wren, takes centre stage as the principal source, interspersed in Chapter 5 with the fortnightly summary reports on the progress towards the European war’s conclusion entered in the official Naval War Diary by ANCXF. Wrens supported the continuing work to clear and reopen key channel ports damaged by both allied bombing and the fleeing German forces, and the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches was finally closed. Meanwhile, cross-channel traffic and supply routes were extended amidst the ongoing menace of German U-boats, E-boats and midget submarines, and Hitler’s V-weapons, and the Channel Islands remained under Nazi control.
As the grip of a harsh winter gave way to spring, the social attractions of Paris were augmented by ENSA concert parties featuring the likes of Noël Coward, a visitation from the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Luna Park funfair. While the cinema was still the staple and frequent entertainment, Montmartre became Joan’s favourite haunt, accompanied by her regular Royal Marine consorts. Meanwhile, her family at home were divided between Barking where V-weapons take a heavy local toll, and rural Somerset where her parents find safe retreat. It was there that Joan spent VE Day on leave, when it came at last, while her fellow Wrens partied with abandon in central Paris.

Contributors

Justin Smith

(author)
Professor of Cinema and Television History at De Montfort University
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4141-9150

Justin Smith is Professor of Cinema and Television History at De Montfort University Leicester, where he is Director of the Research and Innovation Institute in Arts, Design and Performance. Since 2010 he has been Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded projects Channel 4 and British Film Culture (2010-14), Fifty Years of British Music Video (2015-2018), Transforming Middlemarch (2022-3) and Adapting Jane Austen for Educational and Public Engagement (2024-5). He is the author of Withnail and Us: Cult Film and Film Cults in British Cinema (I.B. Tauris, 2010), and co-author (with Sue Harper) of British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure (EUP, 2012). With Karen Savage, he is the co-author of ‘Deference, Deferred: Rejourn as Practice in Familial War Commemoration’, in Pinchbeck, M. and Westerside, A. (eds) (2018), Staging Loss. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97970-0_3 . Smith’s interest in digital innovations in the archive is illustrated by https://middlemarch.dmu.ac.uk/ (2023) which is considered to be the first digital genetic edition of a screen adaptation of 19th Century literature. Smith is an archival historian with special interests in post-war British cinema, television and popular music, exploring issues of cultural identity, popular memory and family history. https://www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/academic-staff/technology/justin-smith/justin-timothy-smith.aspx