Winner of The People's Book Prize 2013

One Woman’s War (and children’s edition, Eileen’s War) tells the remarkable story of living through the Blitz, acting as a guide in a liberated Nazi concentration camp and hunting down V2 rocket launchers!

Eileen le Croissette was just an ordinary teenage girl. Living with her parents, she spent her days roller skating with friends, studying for exams and daydreaming about travelling the world. But on September 3rd, 1939 Britain declared war on Germany and everything changed. With Britain standing alone Eileen was determined to help defend her country. She joined the RAF as a Clerk Special Duties and found herself in the top secret Filter Room – a place so hush-hush she had to sign the Official Secrets Act to work there!

In 2011 Eileen said: “Our calculations were vital to help pilots in their Spitfires and Hurricanes find the enemy. We determined where air raid warnings would be sounded and where rescue boats would be sent to pick up downed Allied airmen. Truly these were life and death decisions.”

On the map table in the Filter Room, Eileen saw the invasion fleet heading for the Normandy beaches on D-Day; she received the coded warning of the first V2 rocket as it approached London, and later was one of a handful of WAAF sent to hunt the V2 launchers in Belgium. Alongside this were encounters with celebrities like film star Rex Harrison and comedian Kenneth Horne, together with a personal story of love and loss to match any work of fiction.

As a teenager visiting pre-war France and Germany, Eileen had the first intimation of the horrors to come. She continued: “I caught glimpses of the sinister side of the Nazi regime. Every shop in the busy centre of Bonn had a framed photo of Hitler in the window.”

Eileen also noticed “Heil Hitler” salute was becoming accepted. She continued. “On one occasion two of us went into a greengrocers, gave a smart British Army salute and said: ‘God save the King and a kilo of plums please,’ in our accented German. The shopkeeper did not think it was funny at all; in fact he looked frightened and glanced around him to see if anyone had noticed.”