D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Elizabeth Green

Elizabeth Green, Age 96, Evacuee 

Interviewed 4 July 2023

A teenage evacuee at the time of D-Day, Elizabeth Green saw troops and lorries assembling during the long build-up to the invasion when miles of military vehicles queued up on the roads of Southern England.

Later she saw casualties she was told had come back from Normandy after being wounded during the invasion.

She said:"When the war came I was ten years old.

"After I was 15 I was working in a factory making aircraft bits. In the end I decided I had had enough and the bombs used to drop. I decided to join the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force). 

"When I was evacuated we sometimes saw the trucks with all the wounded. This is when they were coming back (from Normandy).

"We didn’t know who they were and where they were coming from. They were hanging over the edge. Some of them hardly have any clothes on.

Elizabeth Green was told had come back from Normandy after being wounded during the invasion. Credit: ITV Meridian

"And the ladies in the shops and houses used to throw them buns and sandwiches, jugs of cocoa used to go.

"Just like it was when D-Day was coming and all the traffic was going (the other way) down the road. 

"Parents kept quiet about it. They were worried. You could see their faces. A blank.

"I don’t think they wanted panic. No-one was excited about it. They were far too upset.

"I supposed they had their boys and their grandsons in it.

"Some of the fathers were First World War veterans and they knew how bad it could be and it was bad."

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