Eileen Younghusband
Eileen Younghusband


Eileen Muriel Le Croisette was born in July 1921. In 1940 she volunteered to serve in the WAAF. She worked in the Filter Room of HQ Fighter Command at Bentley Priory, the key element of the air defence operations room. Her section filtered intelligence reports and then presented a coherent picture of the air situation to the plotting room and the fighter controllers. She was on duty during the D-Day landings and the launching of the V1 flying bomb campaign.

In December 1944 she joined a team in Belgium, trying to identify the launch points of the V2 missile. Within 15 minutes of a V2 launch they had to calculate the position of the launch point and brief patrolling fighter bombers for an attack. By early March 1945 most of the launchers had been destroyed.

On May 6th 1960 Eileen, her husband Peter and son Clive moved to the Duke Inn at Bratton. They opened the restaurant and business quickly picked up, helped by full occupancy of rooms by people building the Westbury cement works. They trained additional staff and encouraged them into catering careers.

As the menu went up market they added Spanish waiters on six-month contracts and The Duke gained an entry in the ‘Good Food’ guide and the ‘Egon Ronay’ guide. Many famous people visited the Duke over these years including Robert Morley the actor, members of the ‘Dambusters’ crew, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and Idi Amin.

On leaving The Duke they lived at Court Farm House before moving to Wales in 1984. At the age of 87 Eileen completed a degree from the Open University and was named as one of the students of the year. Between 2009 and 2016 she published an autobiography and two books about her wartime life. In 2012 she was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to lifelong learning. She died on 2 September 2016.




[Return]
Bratton History Association.

The Bratton History Association aims to provide all those curious about local history with an opportunity to meet, exchange ideas, and discover more about the history of Bratton and Wiltshire. Activities include monthly meetings, talks by professional historians, visits to places of interest to historians, and our own local history project.

Copyright Bratton History Association 2015-2026

Bratton History Association Privacy Statement
Web Design by Blue Engine Web Development © 2008-2026