The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs (/ˈwæfs/), was the female auxiliary of the British Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 181,000 at its peak strength in 1943, (15.7% of the RAF)[1] with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.
The Women's Auxiliary Air Force was created on 28 June 1939, absorbing the forty-eight RAF companies of the Auxiliary Territorial Service which had existed since 1938, following the Munich Agreement.[2] Conscription of women did not begin until after December 1941 when the UK Government passed the National Service Act (No. 2), which was issued by Royal Proclamation on 10 January 1942. It only applied to those between 20 and 30 years of age and they had the choice of the military auxiliary services, the civilian Women's Land Army or factory work in support of the war effort.[1]
Training
Women recruited into the WAAF were given basic training at one of five sites, though not all of the sites ran training simultaneously. The five sites were at West Drayton, Harrogate, Bridgnorth, Innsworth and Wilmslow.[3] All WAAF basic recruit training was located at Wilmslow from 1943.[4]
Roles in the WAAF
WAAFs did not serve as aircrew. (The use of women pilots was limited to the Air Transport Auxiliary, which was civilian, but 30 WAAFs did transfer to serve as pilots in the ATA).[1] Although WAAFs did not participate in active combat, they were exposed to the same dangers as any on the "home front" working at military installations. They were active in parachute packing and the crewing of barrage balloons in addition to performing catering, meteorology, radar, aircraft maintenance, transport, policing,[5][6] communications duties including wireless telephonic and telegraphic operation. They worked with codes and ciphers, analysed reconnaissance photographs, and performed intelligence operations. WAAFs were a vital presence in the control of aircraft, both in radar stations and iconically as plotters in operation rooms, most notably during the Battle of Britain. These operation rooms directed fighter aircraft against the Luftwaffe, mapping both home and enemy aircraft positions.[7]
WAAFs were paid two-thirds of the pay of male counterparts in RAF ranks.
By the end of the Second World War, WAAF enrolment had declined and the effect of demobilisation was to take the vast majority out of the service. The remainder, now only several hundred strong, was renamed the Women's Royal Air Force on 1 February 1949.
Flying Nightingales
Nursing Orderlies of the WAAF flew on RAF transport planes to evacuate the wounded from the Normandy battlefields. They were dubbed the Flying Nightingales by the press.[8][9] The RAF Air Ambulance Unit flew under 46 Group Transport Command from RAF Down Ampney, RAF Broadwell, and RAF Blakehill Farm.[10] RAF Dakota aircraft carried military supplies and ammunition so could not display the Red Cross.[11]
Training for air ambulance nursing duties included instruction in the use of oxygen, injections, learning how to deal with certain types of injuries such as broken bones, missing limb cases, head injuries, burns and colostomies; and to learn the effects of air travel and altitude.[12] Although supplied with parachutes, they were instructed not to use them if the plane was shot down on its return from Europe and instead stay with the wounded soldiers onboard and provide medical support should anyone survive the crash.[13]
The first three Flying Nightingales to arrive in France, a week after D-Day, were Corporal Lydia Alford, LACW Myra Roberts and LACW Edna Birkbeck.[14][11]
In October 2008 the seven known nurses still living were presented with lifetime achievement awards by the Duchess of Cornwall.[10]
Directors
On 1 July 1939, Jane Trefusis Forbes was made Director of WAAF, with the rank of Senior Controller, later, Air Commandant. On 1 January 1943 she was appointed to the rank of Air Chief Commandant with its creation. On 4 October 1943, while Forbes toured Canada, assessing the Royal Canadian Air Force Women's Division, she was relieved by Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, who had been head of the WAAF since 1939, again with the rank of Senior Controller, then, Air Commandant, being gazetted to Air Chief Commandant on 22 March 1943. Forbes retired in August 1944, and the post of director was given to Mary Welsh, who was appointed Air Chief Commandant. After the war, the rank of Air Chief Commandant was suspended and in December 1946, the final director of WAAF, Felicity Hanbury, was appointed.
Initially, the WAAF used the ATS ranking system, although the director held the rank of senior controller (equivalent to brigadier in the British Army and air commodore in the RAF) instead of chief controller (equivalent to major-general or air vice-marshal) as in the ATS. However, in December 1939 the title was changed to air commandant, when the ranks were renamed and reorganised. Other ranks now held identical ranks to male RAF personnel, but officers continued to have a separate rank system, although now different from that of the ATS. From February 1940 it was no longer possible to enter directly as an officer; from that time all officers were appointed from the other ranks. From July 1941 WAAF officers held full commissions. On 1 January 1943, the rank of air chief commandant (equivalent to air vice-marshal) was created with the director's appointment to that rank.
Assistant Section Officer Noor Inayat Khan (9901), posthumously Mentioned in Dispatches and awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Gold Star and the George Cross, Britain's highest award for gallantry not in the face of the enemy.[17]
The Operations Room at RAF Fighter Command's No. 10 Group Headquarters, Rudloe Manor (RAF Box), Wiltshire, showing WAAF plotters and duty officers at work, 1943
^Narracot, A.H. (1941). "9 - Woman in Blue". How The R A F Works. Frederick Muller Limited. pp. 108 (n115). Retrieved 30 July 2009.
^Escott, Beryl E. (1989). Women in air force blue : the story of women in the Royal Air Force from 1918 to the present day. Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 131. ISBN9781852600662.
^Pitchfork, Graham (2008). The Royal Air Force day by day. Stroud: Sutton. p. 258. ISBN9780750943093.
^Air Ministry, Women's Auxiliary Air Force: Notes for the Information of Candidates, 5th edition, 1941.
Further reading
Escott, Beryl, Women in Air Force Blue, Patrick Stephens, 1989. ISBN1-85260-066-7
Escott, Beryl, Our Wartime Days, The WAAF in World War II, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1995. ISBN0-7509-0638-3
Escott, Beryl, The WAAF : A History of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Shire Publications, 2003. ISBN0-7478-0572-5 (also quoted at [1][dead link] in context of Czech WAAFs)
Gane Pushman, Muriel, We All Wore Blue: Experiences in the WAAF, Tempus, 2006. ISBN978-0-7524-4130-6
Halsall, Christine, Women of Intelligence. Winning the Second World War with Air Photos, The History Press, 2012. ISBN978-0-7524-6477-0
Manning, Mick & Granström, Brita: Taff in the WAAF (English Association Award Winner), Janetta Otter-Barry Books (Frances Lincoln), 2010. ISBN978-1-84780-093-0
Rice, Joan, Sand In My Shoes: Coming of Age in the Second World War: Wartime Diaries of a WAAF, Harperpress, 2006. ISBN0-00-722820-1
Settle, Mary Lee, All the Brave Promises: The Memories of Aircraft Woman 2nd Class 2146391 (1966)
Stone, Tessa. "Creating A (Gendered?) Military Identity: The Women's Auxiliary Air Force in Great Britain in the Second World War", Women's History Review, October 1999, Vol. 8, Issue 4, pp. 605–624, scholarly study
Turner, John Frayn (2011). The WAAF at War. Barnsley, Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Aviation.
Watkins, Elizabeth, Cypher Officer, Pen Press Publications, Brighton, 2008. ISBN978-1-906206-27-7 A first-hand account by a young WAAF cypher officer on active duty in the Egypt, Kenya, the Seychelles and Italy in World War II.
Younghusband, Eileen, Not an Ordinary Life. How Changing Times Brought Historical Events into my Life, Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning, Cardiff, 2009. ISBN978-0-9561156-9-0 (Pages 36–70, 251–55 and 265–67 describe the experiences of a WAAF radar Filterer in World War II.)