ONE Bude resident who has vivid memories of D-Day is 95-year-old Mrs Shelagh Clayton.

In 1944 she was in charge of a watch in a radar operations room at RAF Hope Cove in South Devon. With earphones clasped on her head her regular job was to navigate fighters on to targets out to sea and on the French coast.

Whenever German planes were spotted, her task was to scramble spitfires at neighbouring Bolt Head airfield to take off and deal with them.

On June 5 she was informed that D-Day had arrived, only for it to be postponed until the next day because of adverse weather conditions.

Because she had secret information she was not allowed to leave the premises or to contact anyone, so she had to spend the night there.

The next day after a dispatch rider came and gave the CO the news that D-Day was going ahead her task changed to air sea rescue which involved contacting Lysander aircraft to retrieve Allied aircrew, who had been shot down. Asked how tense things were she said: “We were too busy doing our job for the enormity of the D-Day operation to register.”