Tributes to D-Day wireless operator (From The Northern Echo)

Tributes to D-Day wireless operator

3:02am Wednesday 16th January 2008 in News

TRIBUTES have been paid to a North-East businesswoman who played an important role in the D-Day landings.

Jean Galloway, who has died aged 83, was on duty on June 6, 1944, when Morse code messages were received signifying the start of the Allies' invasion.

Mrs Galloway, from Middleton Tyas, near Scotch Corner, North Yorkshire, was an RAF wireless operator in Carlisle, responsible for communicating with pilots all over the country. She received and announced news of the landings as it happened.

"She didn't believe it when the signals came in," said her daughter, Jill McMullon, yesterday.

But despite being offered a chance to continue her promising military career as an intelligence officer after the war, Mrs Galloway left the Armed Forces.

She went on to defy post-war convention by becoming a successful professional woman when she was appointed commercial manager of Darlington company Woodhead Engineering in her late 20s.

She later raised three children, was a tireless fundraiser and became a well-known face in the local community.

Mrs McMullon said: "It has been the greatest of privileges for us to have had such a wonderful, caring mother and grandmother. For all our lives she has been the one person we could always rely on in both good times and bad."

Mrs Galloway met her late husband, Graham, on Croft Bridge, overlooking the River Tees near Darlington, when she was 16.

Mr Galloway's parents knew nothing of his sweetheart until they returned home one day to find photographs of her around the living room, with their son declaring that one day he would marry this woman.

But his wife-to-be was not at first as convinced. "She thought he was incredibly good-looking, but very big-headed," said Mrs McMullon. "But they were very much in love from the moment they met. It is a wonderful love story."

Mrs Galloway was a committed fundraiser for the Royal British Legion's Poppy Appeal where she spent over 25 years collecting.

Stephen Harwood, of the Royal British Legion Aldbrough St John branch, said: "Mrs Galloway was by far our star collector. She was a great asset to the Royal British Legion and the Poppy Appeal, and she will be sorely missed."

Mrs Galloway's funeral took place yesterday at St Michael and All Angels Church, in Middleton Tyas.

Her ashes will be scattered in the same place as her husband's - from Croft Bridge.