Helen Denton Luncheon

Helen Denton, WWII WAC, Speaks at Chapter November 2007 Luncheon

Helen joined the WACS during WWII and had a very interesting job!

Helen was raised on a farm in South Dakota with eight brothers and sisters. In 1942, as the war escalated, she joined the WACS. She was called up and sent to Des Moines, Iowa for six weeks of basic training. After basic training, she was sent to Kansas City to do recruiting. In 1944 she was sent to Ft. Crook in Omaha, NB. She was selected to be the secretary for the Post Commandant. One day he told her she had been picked to be part of a staff assigned to General Eisenhower in London.

Once selected for her post with Ike, she was given a long weekend and sent to GA to be trained for her new assignment. The FBI told her she would be doing top secret work for General Eisenhower. The impression the FBI made on her was so great that she never told anyone what she did, not her family, her husband, son or even the girls she roomed with on base. On the 50th anniversary of D-Day, she told her story for the first time.

In March of 1944, she arrived in London. When she reported for duty, she was put in a small room with a manual typewriter, carbon paper and paper on which to type. Everything she worked on was stamped TOP SECRET. The name of the project she was working on was "OVERLORD."

For eight hours a day, five days a week, she typed the plans for the invasion of France. When she had finished typing, the officers came in with a book three inches thick and asked if she would like to go upstairs to present the plans to General Eisenhower. The General asked her if she knew what she had typed. She answered that "these are the plans you will use for the invasion of France." Ike then asked her if she knew her brother was in London. She was impressed that someone of Ike's stature would know about her brother. He gave her a pass to see her brother whom she had not seen in three years.

When the announcement came about D-Day, she knew exactly what was happening.