Joan was on duty in the operations room of HQ No. 11 Group, Fighter Command at RAF Uxbridge when the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, visited at the height of the Battle of Britain.   She was one of ten WAAFs surrounding the plotting table maintaining the plot of incoming enemy raids on 15 September 1940.  During the afternoon, the Luftwaffe launched a mass raid against London and the AOC, Sir Keith Park, scrambled all his squadrons.  Churchill asked  how many reserves there were, to which Park made his famous reply. “There are none”.  Joan later served at RAF Tangmere and watched as the D-Day convoys sailed with her fiancé, Lieutenant Tom Fanshawe DSC, in command of a leading corvette.  After the war she accompanied her husband during his long career in the Royal Navy.  She flew an aerobatic sortie on her 97th birthday.

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