Part 49.

November, 1940

W.A.A.F. IN AIR RAIDS

BY A FLIGHT OFFICER

I DON'T suppose airwomen on stations feel any different during raids from what ordinary people do in towns when they are bombed. If you've got a job of work to do you get on with it. Otherwise most people go to the shelters, except of course, those who are on station defence duty.

You'll want to know which of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force are on duty during a raid. Well, the switchboard operators for one; they are usually airwomen. Then there are first-aid workers, sick quarter attendants, anti-gas squads, and of course the plotters in the operations room.

Plotters particularly have proved that those members of the R.A.F. were justified who said that women could be trusted to carry out operational work in air raids. They have shown they have plenty of nerve. So too, have the telephone operators. These W.A.A.F. who got the Military Medal this week were all telephone operators, and it was a good thing they kept their heads and stuck to their job, because the station defence really depends a great deal on them. As for the plotters, I know of one who had half a table where she was working bombed away, but she went on with her job. Two others had a shed blown down over them, but when they were dug out they were still sticking to what they had been doing before the bomb fell.

And it isn't only on the station that airwomen show how cool they can be in an emergency. One W.A.A.F. was coming back from leave by train when an incendiary bomb fell in the carriage. Her cap was burnt, all but the badge. She herself was almost unhurt and only suffered slightly from shock. She was off work for one day, but was quite recovered by evening and came on duty again ready for the next raid that night.

There seems to have been something about that train. When it stopped during the raid, another W.A.A.F. ran out into the fields. A bomb came very close so she threw herself on her face and felt that she had landed on something hard. When she had got to her feet she picked up the object and asked an airwoman who was with her if she had dropped it. They looked more closely at it and found it was an unexploded bomb. The little crowd who had gathered round scattered in no time, while the W.A.A.F. very calmly replaced the bomb on the ground and walked away.

We rather like to feel, you know, that members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force keep their heads in a crisis. We are proud to feel that we have been trusted to work in the front line helping the R.A.F.


Instrument mechanics repairing aerial cameras.


Instrument mechanic testing an automatic pilot.


Packing parachutes.