The Queen on Her Platinum Jubilee: Her Reign, Part 1
The Princess wrote: ‘I thought it all very, very, very, wonderful, and I expect the Abbey did too. The arches and beams at the top were covered with a sort of haze of wonder as Papa was crowned, at least I thought so.
‘When Mummy was crowned and all the peeresses put on their coronets it looked wonder-ful to see arms and coronets hovering in the air and then the arms disappear as if by magic.’
The coronation was the last enactment of pomp and circumstance before Europe was plunged into war. The Princesses were ‘evacuated’ to the relative safety of Windsor Castle, which once again became a fortress. There they continued with their lessons, knitted com-forts for the troops, dug for Victory, and produced and acted in their own Christmas pantomimes.
They slept beneath one of the castle towers, in a fortified room, and when they ventured out into the park, by then disfigured by trenches and barbed wire, an armoured car waited close by to whisk them to safety in the event of a raid. In 1941 Princess Elizabeth began to accompany her parents on their morale-boosting tours of bombed towns and cities, and, in 1942, when she was 16, she succeeded the Duke of Connaught, the third son of Queen Vic-toria, as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards. In egalitarian contrast, like every other fit girl of her age she registered for National Service, choosing to wear her Girl Guides uniform when she attended at the Labour Exchange.
The teenage Princess Elizabeth begged to be allowed to ‘do her bit’ in the Armed Forces, and was allowed to enlist in the Auxiliary Transport Service, the ‘ATS’, in February 1945, commissioned as Number 230873 Second Subaltern Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. She took a course in motor mechanics and driving and was an enthusiastic recruit, prompting the Queen to remark: ‘We had sparking plugs all last night at dinner.’
The identification of the Royal Family with a nation at war reached its patriotic peak on VE Day, 8 May 1945. Buckingham Palace became the magnet for the rejoicings over the German surrender, and Princess Elizabeth, wearing her ATS uniform, appeared with her parents, Princess Margaret and Winston Churchill, on the Palace balcony.
See also: The Monarchy in the 21st Century – A Platinum Jubilee Tribute
