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The Battle of the Atlantic Ends

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Fading Stories

Fading Stories

to grow with more wrens joining to run the games and more officers arriving to complete their training, which ran every week uninterrupted until the end of the war. The work of Roberts and the wrens had increased to an unbearable degree, but their dedication to their work had changed the course of the war: the Germans were losing.

After a final decisive battle in which a convoy used WATU tactics and was able to fight off a large-scale attempt by Doenitz to dominate the sea as he did in the early months of war, the German force began to dwindle significantly. In July of 1943, the rate of Allied ships launched had finally overtaken the rate of those that had been sunk. The hard work of Roberts and the women of the Wrens had won the Battle of the Atlantic, and Doenitz was forced to withdraw the use of his tactics, and eventually his U-boats.

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The wrens continued to monitor the situation and support the Navy as well as generate strategies against the Japanese force at sea. But with the main threat becoming almost non-existent, many of the wrens left the service to get married or transferred to other departments. Janet Okell was promoted to leading wren, and Jean Laidlaw, ever Roberts’ right-hand woman and the largest contributor to their successes at sea, remained at WATU with him. Roberts was awarded for his contributions to the war at Buckingham Palace. Laidlaw had gone along to join him at his request, though her age, rank, and most of all gender meant she would unfortunately not be a recipient. The work of WATU had been a secret the entire war but was eventually made public, and the skilled women of the Wrens were praised through the Honours List and the press.

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