Spitfire Women of World War II
The story of the unsung heroines who flew the newest, fastest, aeroplanes in World War II – mostly in southern England where the RAF was desperately short of pilots.Why would the well-bred daughter of a New England factory-owner brave the U-boat blockades of the North Atlantic in the bitter winter of 1941? What made a South African diamond heiress give up her life of house parties and London balls to spend the war in a freezing barracks on the Solent? And why did young Margaret Frost start lying to her father during the Battle of Britain?They – and scores of other women – weren't allowed to fly in combat, but what they did was nearly as dangerous. Unarmed and without instruments or radios, they delivered planes for the Air Transport Auxiliary to the RAF bases from which male pilots flew into battle. At the mercy of the weather and any long-range enemy aircraft that pounced on them, dozens of these women died, among them Amy Johnson, Britain's most famous flyer. But the survivors shared four unrepeatable years of life, adrenaline and love.The story of this 'tough bunch of babes' (in the words of one of them) has never been told properly before. The author has interviewed all the surviving women pilots, who came not just from the shires of England, but also from the U.S.A, Chile, Australia, Poland and Argentina. Paid £ 6.00 a week, they flew – in skirts – up to 16 hours a day in 140 different types of aircraft, though most of them liked spitfires best.
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SPITFIRE WOMEN OF WORLD WAR II
Giles Whittell
For Karen
Contents
5 All Over Europe the Air Was Free
8 We LIKE You In Your Harness!
Amy Johnson RAF Museum
Gordon Selfridge and Rosemary Rees From ATA Girl, Memoirs of A Wartime Ferry Pilot by Rosemary du Cros
Rosemary Rees with a Miles Hawk Major From ATA Girl, Memoirs of
A Wartime Ferry Pilot by Rosemary du Cros
Audrey Sale-Barker Courtesy Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
Sale-Barker and Joan Page Courtesy Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
Gerard d’Erlanger Courtesy Robin d’Erlanger/British Airways Museum
Pauline Gower in a Tiger Moth Imperial War Museum
Lt. Col. J.T. Moore-Brabazon Imperial War Museum
The ‘First Eight’ Eric Viles/ATA Association
The men of the ATA Imperial War Museum
Lettice Curtis climbing into a Spitfire Courtesy Robin d’Erlanger/British Airways Museum
Curtis and Gower in the cockpit of an Anson Imperial War Museum
Gabrielle Patterson climbing out of an Avro Anson Imperial War Museum
Diana Barnato Walker Courtesy the collection of Diana Barnato Walker
Derek Walker Courtesy the collection of Diana Barnato Walker
Joan Hughes Imperial War Museum
Jackie Sorour Hulton Getty
Mary de Bunsen Photograph by J.D.H. Radford, from Mount Up With Wings by Mary de Bunsen
Freydis Leaf Courtesy Freydis Sharland
Joan Hughes standing with a Short Stirling Courtesy Robin d’Erlanger/British Airways Museum
Maureen Dunlop Hulton Getty
Ann Wood Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
Ann Wood with her fellow flying pupils Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
Waiting to be cleared for take-off in a Spitfire Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
An ATA Anson Courtesy Robin d’Erlanger/British Airways Museum
Ann Blackwell in a Typhoon Imperial War Museum
Jackie Cochran Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
Helen Harrison, Ann Wood and Suzanne Ford Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
Pauline Gower at White Waltham Courtesy Robin d’Erlanger/British Airways Museum
Cochran and Gower Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
Eleanor Roosevelt at White Waltham Courtesy Robin d’Erlanger/British Airways Museum
Helen Richey Courtesy Robin d’Erlanger/British Airways Museum
Flt. Capt. Francis ‘Frankie’ Francis Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
Bobby Sandoz, Opal Anderson, Jadwiga Pilsudska and Mary Zerbel-Ford Imperial War Museum
‘A tough bunch of babies’ Courtesy Robin d’Erlanger/British Airways Museum
Stewart Keith-Jopp Courtesy Robin d’Erlanger/British Airways Museum
Betty Keith-Jopp Courtesy Katie Hirsch
Lowering the flag A.G. Head/ATA Association
Dorothy Hewitt with Lord Beatty Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
Ann Wood on Remembrance Sunday in London Courtesy the Collection of Ann Wood-Kelly
‘Under the bridge goes Lady Penelope’, Daily Express, 21st March 1968 Express Newspapers
Margot Duhalde Courtesy author
Diana Barnato Walker in 1963 Popperfoto
‘Everyone is equal before the machine … There is no tradition in technology, no class-consciousness.’
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
‘Indaba’ is Zulu for ‘conversation’, and at the Indaba Hotel on the northern outskirts of Johannesburg a conversation is what I hoped for. If it materialised it would be with an elderly lady who had insisted several times on the telephone that she really had nothing to say. But we both knew this was not quite true, and now, as she walked carefully down the steps to the hotel entrance, with a grandson hovering at her shoulder, she looked up with a smile.
‘You must be Betty,’ I said.
She was easily recognisable from the one blurred picture I’d seen of her in a smart blue uniform, leaning on the wing of a Fairey Barracuda over sixty years earlier. Now she wore a gold-coloured woollen shawl and carried a stick. She was tall and alert, and gave the impression she might even be looking forward to our meeting. Her name was Betty Keith-Jopp.
Soon after that photograph was taken in late May 1945, Betty and a fellow pilot named Barbara Lankshear took off from Prestwick on the west coast of Scotland, the eastern terminus of the great Atlantic air bridge that had kept Britain supplied with bombers since before Pearl Harbor. They were both ferry pilots, unarmed and untrained to fly on instruments, with less than eighteen months’ flying experience between them. Both were in Barracudas – lumpy, underpowered torpedo bombers with unusually large cockpits and a history of unexplained crashes. They were bound for Lossiemouth, 200 miles to the north on the rugged Moray Coast.
