The
youngest and arguably the most dynamic and egalitarian of the womens' services
was the WAAF. While the other women's services were grafted on to institutions
with hundreds of years of traditions without women, the WAAF was founded at
exactly the same time as the RAF itself. That proved to be a significant
advantage, reflected mostly in the attitudes of the men with whom they served.
As the recruiting poster suggests, WAAF didn't "free a man" to go
elsewhere -- they served alongside them except in the air itself.
Despite being founded at the
same time as the RAF, the original women's service associated with the
fledgling air force (the Women's Royal Airforce or WRAF) was short-lived.
Founded on 1 April 1918, it was already disbanded by June 1919. Yet in that
short space of time, 556 officers and 31,000 other ranks not only saw service,
they convinced the "powers that be" in the RAF that women could be
useful -- at least in wartime.
Thus, despite being disbanded,
the WRAF was not forgotten. On the one hand, many of the women who had served
stayed in touch and in the late 1930s helped form a voluntary organization
known as "The Emergency Service." On the other hand, senior RAF
officers declaimed that the WRAF was to the RAF like a wife, a sister and a
sweetheart. Even the founder of the RAF, Lord Trenchard, considered the
"W" in front of RAF as "an unnecessary initial" and
insisted the WRAF was "part of the RAF" and -- significantly --
"would be again." [Quoted in: Katherine Bentley Beauman, Partners
in Blue: The Story of the Women's Service with the Royal Air Force, 55-56]
By 1938, women were receiving lectures and drill from active service RAF on an
informal basis. Among the women who availed themselves of these opportunities
were the wives of some of the most senior officers in the RAF including the
Chief of Air Staff.
Officially, however, the WRAF
was not resurrected as the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) until June 1939.
With war obviously approaching, the RAF leadership decided that women were to
be recruited for service in 1) motor transport, 2) clerical duties, 3) cooking
and catering, 4) other "general duties" that might include
messengers, telephone and teleprinter operators. At its inception, 2,000 women
who had signed up for the ATS transferred immediately to the WAAF. The WAAF
proved popular throughout the war and fully 84% of all WAAF were volunteers.
Indeed, early on, there were more volunteers than could be accommodated and
many women were turned away or sent home to await a letter calling them to the
service.
Contemporary expectations had
been that the Germans would launch massive air raids on the United Kingdom at
the outbreak of the war. Fortunately, conventional wisdom was wrong and Britain
was granted nine months of grace before Britain's air war started in earnest in
June 1940. During the period of this "phony war," while most people
weren't looking, the RAF was recruiting selected women "special
duties" clerks. These WAAF for destined for some of the most important
jobs of the war.
On the one hand, more mature
women deemed particularly discreet and reliable were selected and trained for
work in codes and cypher. (The Royal Navy did the same, incidentally.) More
exceptional was that the forward-thinking C-in-C of Fighter Command, had
requested in 1936 -- three years before the WAAF was officially formed! -- that
women to be trained to perform new, technologically-advanced jobs that had
never existed before. Even more astonishing, the jobs he wanted them for were
positions absolutely vital to the success of Britain's entire air defense. They
were also high-pressure jobs that would have to be performed when under fire:
wireless and radar operators, filterers and plotters. Air Marshal Sir Hugh
Dowding not only insisted WAAF could do the work, he insisted that they receive
commissions as appropriate, scuppering RAF policy about commissions only for
women in administrative positions.
When the Battle of Britain
brought terror to Britain's skies, WAAF were at the front lines and rapidly
demonstrated by sheer competence their worth. They worked at radar stations and
plotting tables while the radar towers or their airfields were bombed. Time and
again, they got up and dusted themselves off to continue working as the raid
receded. Six WAAF received the Military Medal for bravery during the Battle of
Britain. Unsurprisingly after this record, women not only dominated these
trades, later in the war they moved from these jobs into the more senior and
more responsible position of controller.
In addition, in 1941 WAAF were
tasked -- initially only experimentally -- with manning Britain's barrage
balloons. This was a task requiring physical strength and skill. Balloons were
filled with hydrogen and were 63 feet long and 31 feet high when inflated. They
weighed 550 lbs and were controlled (as best as possible) by steal cables. The
hydrogen was inflammable, of course, and handling of the winches and cables was
dangerous. The balloons had to face "bow" to wind, which meant they
had to be re-oriented whenever the wind direction changed. The work was 24/7.
Yet the WAAF did so well handling the balloons, that women began replacing men
in the balloon squadrons. Eventually 15,700 WAAF became balloon operators and
made up roughly 60% of Balloon Command.
The WAAF expanded to other
trades as well. In addition to taking on the maintenance of radar and wireless
equipment (a natural extension in some ways of operating those systems) they
were also soon serving as military police, meteorologists, intelligence
officers, doing photographic interpretation, acting as interpreters, working as
laboratory assistants, air traffic controllers, as
draughtsmen and cartographers, stores clerks, parachute packers, and
accountants. (The recruiting poster below shows a WAAF Air Traffic Controller.)
More astonishing, perhaps, was
that the RAF also trained WAAF as electricians, airframe and engine mechanics
(riggers and fitters), and as instrument repairers, highly technical trades
traditionally done by men. Altogether, the WAAF worked in 110 different trades,
and twenty-two officer branches were open to WAAF officers. The WAAF,
meanwhile, had already in 1941 come under the Air Force Act making WAAF
officially members of the Armed Forces.
WAAF officers played a
particularly important role in the latter years of the war as controllers and
wireless operators at bomber stations, and also as intelligence officers
debriefing returning bomber crews.
In addition, fifteen WAAF
officers were recruited for the Special Operations Executive (SOE), fourteen of
which were sent to France while one parachuted into Yugoslavia. Of these, one
WAAF was executed by the Nazis and another tortured but survived, while the
rest returned unharmed.
The WAAF did not serve in the UK
alone. Women code and ciphers officers were in high demand across the globe,
including in the U.S., Canada and the Middle and Far East. Women photo
interpreters were likewise coveted. Airwomen were also sent overseas to serve
in domestic and clerical trades. Finally, WAAF followed the RAF as it advanced
across continental Europe in the closing months of the war. Altogether, 7,556
WAAF served overseas in the USA, Canada, the Bahamas, India, Ceylon, Singapore,
the Middle East and Mediterranean, and across Western Europe.
Of all the women's services, the
WAAF was the most integrated and this was reflected in the uniform which
followed RAF uniform in design and colour with only marginal or necessary
modifications, such a skirts rather than trousers for dress uniforms. WAAF
working in jobs such as balloon handling or aircraft and radio mechanics wore
RAF overalls. WAAF were also entitled to wear "battle dress" with
trousers and short tunics. (Below a WAAF aircraft mechanic in overalls.)
At their peak, the WAAF numbered
more than 181,000 including roughly 6,000 officers, which made it only
marginally smaller than the ATS (190,000), but more than twice the size of the
WRNS, who maximum force was 75,000. The vast majority of the 217,000
women who served in the WAAF in the course of the war were volunteers,
although 34,000 were conscripts. At the end of the war, WAAF accounted
for 22% of the RAF's overall strength in the UK, and 16% of RAF strength
worldwide.
WAAF are leading characters Helena P. Schrader's latest release: Cold Peace. This is the first novel in a three-part series, Bridge to Tomorrow, which describes the causes, events and aftermath of the Berlin Airlift (1948-1949). Schrader is a multiple award-winning novelist, who has published three books set in Britain during
WWII: Where Eagles Never Flew, Grounded Eagles and Moral Fibre.
You can find out more about her, her books, reviews and awards at: https://CrossSeasPress.com.