Portales woman recalls serving in Land Army

It didn’t take 83-year-old Portales resident Eileen H. Loveall long to learn she didn’t like farm work.

She grew up in Great Britain and joined the British Women’s Land Army in 1942.

At 16, she was the youngest in her group, which worked on farms and drove heavy equipment while the country’s men were off fighting World War II.

When she turned 16, Loveall was required to become part of “something,” she said.

“I was a city girl, and I joined the Land Army,” she said.

Although Loveall expected to wait several months before starting the work, she left in three days. She then lived about 80 miles from London in Warwickshire.

Loveall thought she would like the Land Army, she said. That was before she knew she would have to do things like milk cows.

“Oh, I hated farm work,” Loveall said.

When she had the chance to learn to operate machinery, she volunteered. Loveall trained with men unable to serve in the military and finished with top honors, she said.

For the rest of her three years in the Land Army, she drove a drag line machine to help build bridges. Loveall worked with two other women in the machine.

A London native who moved to the U.S. in 1947, Loveall received a certificate last year signed by the British prime minister and a medal for her service.

The 30 or 40 women in Loveall’s group lived in a hostel with two to four bunks in a room, she said. Sometimes they went to villages and stayed in homes.

Loveall said the women sometimes had to bicycle five or six miles in all kinds of weather to reach their work sites. They had nights off, and Loveall went dancing.

“I was a jitterbug queen,” she said.

The Land Army women also worked with German prisoners of war.

“They’d aggravate us like crazy; they really would,” Loveall said.

The prisoners sang their country’s songs and goose-stepped, she said.

After she returned from weekend visits to London, which were allowed once a month, the Germans asked if the city had been bombed again. Loveall lied and told them no.

Another time, Loveall said, two Germans pushed a barrel down a hill towards her and her two co-workers. The men were trying to kill them, she said, but the women escaped.

Loveall said a German saved her life one time.

She was in her machine on a farm bridge when the structure started to shake. She said the Germans hadn’t secured it.

When Loveall drove off the bridge, the English guard taunted them, saying women were “chicken.”

“Not me,” Loveall replied, and she drove back on the bridge. It collapsed.

A German called out for her to jump. Loveall did, and the man pulled her away from the falling equipment, she said.

Loveall credits God with her survival of such dangers and of the tragedies or the war.

“I love the Lord, and he just took care of me for everything,” she said.