She was just a baby !! .... RIP Nora ! In Memory of Private NORA CAVENEY W/91467, Auxiliary Territorial Service attd. 505 Bty., 148(M) H.A.A. Regt., Royal Artillery who died age 18 on 17 April 1942 Daughter of John and Hannah Caveney, of Walsden, Todmorden, Yorkshire. Remembered with honour NETLEY MILITARY CEMETERY At the beginning of the war AA guns were notoriously ineffective against enemy bombers or fighters, but the effect on civilian morale was good. Illustrated by one source which states " from 11th September (1940) when General Sir Frederick Pile's Anti-Aircraft Command loosed off its first box-barrage over 200 square miles of Greater London - firing 13,500 rounds without damaging a single bomber - Londoners had, had a buoyant sense of hitting back". It was only after the development of proximity fuses and radar plotting that they became an effective weapon. One of the few places where women could take an active part in the war was on a AA battery. The first casualty the ATS suffered serving on such a battery was on the 17th April 1942. Private Nora Caveney of Walsden, near Rochdale, Lancashire was working a predictor on a gun site during an enemy air raid on the South Coast in the early hours of April 17th when she was hit and killed by a splinter of a bomb which fell not far from the emplacement.
