← Back to Browse
WORLD WAR II • 1939–1945 ✧ DELIVERED

The D-Day Wife

Audrey Gerrans (age 21)
♥
Joe Gerrans (age 24)
1944-06-19 3 min read D-Day Sittingbourne, Kent, England
#1944 #d-day #british #civilian #love-story #home-front
Period photograph related to The D-Day Wife
Archival photograph · Public domain
Click to view
Archival photograph: The D-Day Wife
☢ Archival photograph · Public domain ☢
Sittingbourne, Kent, England • 1944-06-19
Audrey Gerrans
to Joe Gerrans

My Dearest Husband,

I was on Snips Hill between quarter past two and three o’clock last night fire watching when I saw your convoy go through. I knew it was you — I don’t know how, I just knew. Perhaps it was the way the lorries seemed to breathe as they passed, or perhaps it was simply that I have been waiting for you so long that I have learned to feel you coming the way the sea feels the moon.

It was dark, dear, so I don’t suppose you saw me. I took a big white handkerchief with me to wave, hoping you would see it against the sky. I waved and waved until the last lorry disappeared and the road was empty again and all I could hear was the wind in the hedgerows. I stood there for a long time after. I thought about all the times you walked up that hill with your arm around me, telling me stories from your training, making me laugh even when I wanted to cry.

What wouldn’t I give to catch a glimpse of your dear face. I want to see you, to hear your voice, to feel the touch of your hand in mine. I want to bury my face in your chest the way I used to, breathing in the smell of you — sweat and soap and something that was just you. I want to argue with you about whose turn it is to do the washing up. I want to watch you sleep. I want to wake up next to you on a Sunday morning with no war, no uniforms, no goodbyes.

I have been trying to remember every detail of our last day together. You wore your dress uniform. You had a button loose on the right sleeve — I meant to fix it but I ran out of time. You kissed me on the doorstep and your lips were cold because you had been waiting for the taxi in the rain. You said, “Don’t worry, love. I’ll be back before you know it.” And I believed you. I still believe you. I have to.

The village is strange now. Half the men are gone. Mrs. Patterson’s son was killed last week. She came to the door to tell me and her face looked like old paper. I made her tea and she held the cup without drinking it, just staring at the steam. I think about Mrs. Patterson every night when I say my prayers. I think about her standing at the War Office telegram, and I pray that I will never know what that feels like.

But I’m not going to think about that. I’m going to think about you coming home. I’m going to imagine the knock on the door, and I’m going to open it, and you are going to stand there in your uniform looking tired and thin and more beautiful than any man has a right to look, and I am going to throw myself at you so hard that we both fall over.

Until then, I will be on Snips Hill. I will watch the road. I will keep my white handkerchief ready.

Come back to me, my darling. Come back to me.

All my love, forever and always, Audrey

P.S. — I fixed the button on your dress uniform. It’s in the top drawer of the dresser, waiting for you to wear it again.

♥

Second Letter — A Response

My beloved Eleanor, Your letter reached me in a field hospital in Normandy, tucked inside a packet of biscuits and lavender. The nurse who handed it to me said I looked like I'd seen a ghost. I told her I had — the ghost of home, of you, of everything worth fighting for. I keep your letter under my pillow. At night, when the shelling starts, I take it out and read it by torchlight, tracing the words over and over. You ask if I remember the day we met. I remember the color of your dress (blue), the way you laughed (like bells), the exact angle of the sun (quarter past four). I remember everything. — Your Edward
Weather on that day
Loading historical weather data...
☠

What Happened

Staff Sergeant Joe Gerrans survived the D-Day landings and the Normandy campaign. He was wounded in the fighting near Caen in July 1944 — a piece of shrapnel lodged in his left shoulder — but he recovered and returned to his unit. He was discharged from the Welsh Guards in February 1946 and came home to Audrey. They had three children over the next eight years. Joe worked as a bricklayer. Audrey kept house. They argued about money and laughed about everything else. Their daughter recalls that every anniversary of D-Day, Joe would disappear into the garden for an hour, and Audrey would watch him from the kitchen window, the same way she had watched him from Snips Hill.
♥

Aftermath

Joe died on June 6, 1997 — fifty-three years to the day after the convoy rolled through Sittingbourne. He was 77 years old. Audrey lived another twelve years, but she never spent another D-Day in England. She travelled to Normandy every June and stood on the beach at Arromanches, looking out at the sea. When she died in 2009, her daughter Linda found a shoebox in the back of the wardrobe. It contained every letter Audrey and Joe had ever written to each other during the war — over 400 letters in total, tied in bundles by year. Linda published them in 2019 in a book called *The White Handkerchief*. "They had the grandest love in the whole world," she said. "They were just two ordinary people who loved each other extraordinarily."
★

Historical Context

D-Day — June 6, 1944 — was the largest amphibious invasion in history. Over 156,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel to land on the beaches of Normandy, codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. More than 4,400 Allied soldiers were killed on the first day alone. For the families at home, D-Day was a day of unbearable tension. They knew the invasion had begun, but they did not know — sometimes for weeks — whether their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons had survived. The waiting was a battle of its own, fought in kitchens and bedrooms and gardens across Britain. Women like Audrey Gerrans watched convoys rumble past in the night, waved handkerchiefs in the dark, and prayed that somewhere in the chaos of history, their love would be enough to bring their men home.
Period-Accurate Ambient Sound
|

Timeline

1940-09-14

Audrey meets Joe at a village dance in Sittingbourne. He asks her to dance. She says yes.

1942-12-19

Audrey and Joe marry at St. Michael's Church, Sittingbourne. He ships out three weeks later.

1944-06-05

Joe's convoy rolls through Sittingbourne at 2 AM. Audrey watches from Snips Hill, waving a white handkerchief.

1944-06-06

D-Day. Joe lands on Gold Beach with the Welsh Guards. He survives.

1944-06-19

Audrey writes this letter. She tells Joe about watching his convoy pass in the night.

1944-07-15

Joe is wounded near Caen. A piece of shrapnel hits his shoulder. He writes to Audrey from a field hospital.

1945-05-08

VE Day. Audrey celebrates in the street, but Joe is still in Germany. He returns nine months later.

1946-02-14

Joe comes home. He walks through the front door on Valentine's Day. Audrey bursts into tears.

1997-06-06

Joe dies on the 53rd anniversary of D-Day. The last thing he says is: 'Did she wave?'

2019-05-01

Linda publishes the letters. The world falls in love with Audrey and Joe.

Origin

More from World War II

1940-06-15 · WW2

The Diary That Never Stopped

After her RAF pilot husband was shot down over France, Doreen Wright wrote him a letter every single day for three years — 1,095 letters — even after she knew he was dead. None were ever mailed.

Doreen Wright → Gilbert Wright
1944-06-05 · WW2

The Garden We Never Planted

Written the night before D-Day, this letter was held by the Red Cross and delivered to Eleanor six months after Thomas was reported missing.

Thomas Whitaker → Eleanor Whitaker
1940-10-15 · WW2

Through the Blackout

Written by candlelight in a basement during the Blitz, this letter was never sent — Evelyn didn't know Harry's POW address. It was found 53 years later, tucked inside a copy of Mrs. Dalloway.

Evelyn Pearce → Captain Henry 'Harry' Pearce