The RAF is still “my” service

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When World War II was declared I was still at school, fifteen years old. Further education was the furthest thought in my mind. I was determined that when I reached the age where I could enlist, the Women’s Royal Air Force was for me. I enlisted in June 1941 and the exciting day when I could report was October 1941 and I was to report to Gloucester. When I arrived there it was to join forty or so other girls, some were drafted as they were older and a few of us were volunteers. Volunteers had four days to think over their enlistment, if they thought it was a mistake to enlist, they were given a railway ticket to return home.

Most of the next week was spent being kitted out with a uniform and all the other things deemed necessary to turn a 17½ year old civilian into a useful member of the WAAF. We were even given a sort of sewing kit — called a “Hussif” with needles and thread and any other useful sewing aids. Some of the girls had a good weep, missing their families already, the others just got to work familiarising themselves with the rules and regulations which were to control our lives for the foreseeable future.

On the sixth day at Gloucester we were taught how to pack all that we owned into our kit bags and we were off by train to Morecambe on the Lancashire coast. Here we were billeted with civilian families, provided with food and lodgings. I was lucky, in a very comfortable billet sharing a bedroom with one other girl and our landlady was a wonderful cook. Good job too, the PE sessions on the sea front every day certainly gave us huge appetites. Our 8 weeks here changed us from a sloppy lot of misfits into a squadron of smart members of the Women’s Air Force. Once we had “passed out” we were all sent off to wherever our trades were to be taught. I had to report to “Cranwell” the RAF College to be trained in my chosen trade which was a teleprinter operator. This was also my first experience of sharing a hut with 29 other WAAF’s and learning to manage with a bed space of about 4 yards square, and any modesty was soon lost. There were no curtains, in fact, no privacy at all!

Our training started the first day — we marched to school to take a course four months long. To enable the school to train maximum numbers we worked 2 months days and two months nights. Almost before we knew it, we were qualified and then sent to our first station. Mine was Yoxhill, a small aerodrome in Lincolnshire where I could slowly learn the other aspects of my trade, i.e. the distribution of signals, learning to send them on the printers was the easy part, I now had to learn what went where. It was also my first experience of actually living on a station. Once you get to know the regulations that we all had to live by, everything slotted into place. Apart from my job, there were all sorts of off duty activities. There was always a cinema, a dance, a concert, a gym. Then other stations, army and RAF within a few miles, always sent invitations for 40 or so WAAF to go to a dance on their station. An NCO went with us to supervise and we usually had a supper provided, all in all we were never short of something to do in the evening, it was made easy for us to fit in. I was here at Yoxhill for about 10 months and then I was moved to Aston Down, an OTU where pilots were in training and one had to go through all the settling in routine again. When a posting came through it was always interesting to get out and about when off duty, and this particular part of the world was very pretty and so very peaceful. The war seemed far away, until you looked around on camp and saw all the trappings of our war effort.

My next move was to Coastal Command to North Coates and the beautiful home of Lord and Lady Londesborough. We had taken over about ¾ of this lovely home and turned it into a small signals unit. The little church had been adapted to an ops room, and we actually had bedrooms — no huts for 30!! We even had permission to play the golf course belonging to our hosts. We missed some of the advantages of a regular station like the cinema, gym, NAAFI, dances, concerts, but it was well worth it to live so comfortably. I was here for about a year and then moved to my last station — Netheravon. This was one of the stations very involved with D Day as it was where the gliders trained and flew from for the landings. This was a really busy posting, and a good area with Stonehenge within a few miles, Salisbury Cathedral a bus ride away and the small market town of Amesbury. As we always worked shift work, when we had our days off we could always find something to visit, and of course, now I was back on a regular station the facilities of cinema, dancing etc were available, life settled down again.

We were aware of the preparations for D Day. Aircraft towing gliders were in our skies day after day, and standing anywhere on Salisbury Plain there was armour of every kind as far as the eye could see, and of course our signals section was busy 24 hours a day. After the excitement and success of D Day we were extra busy for a time, and then as our troops advanced, we slowed down considerably and before we knew it, another year had gone and all the talk was of demob. I had made some very good friends over the years, and I had lost some good friends as well. We had to learn to cope with these times, but once our Air Force adventure was coming to an end, the memories often came alive. I look back on my years in the RAF with satisfaction and pride. The RAF is still “my” service, and the men who served were brave and took on the Luftwaffe in a way that one had to admire and applaud.

In no time at all I found myself on a train from Manchester trying to prepare myself mentally, at least, for the next phase of my life — but that’s another story!!!

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