Female WWII pilots to be honoured in Britain
Posted by: Jenny Penny in Europe, History, War and militaryBritish pilots who served in the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) during World War II will be given a special merit award. Of the people who worked for ATA, 15 women and 100 men are alive today. Their job was to fly Spitfires, bombers and other aircraft between bases and back to factories for repair, and also to ferry them up to the front line where the fighter pilots would take over.
Even though they were not allowed to fight, ATA duty was not without danger. Amy Johnson, the first female pilot to fly alone from Britain to Australia, was one of the 154 ATA pilots who were killed during their work.
Another female pilot was Wendy Sale-Barker, aunt of the Conservative politician Lord James Douglas-Hamilton. From the BBC article:
Lord James said that on one occasion his aunt crashed on her way from Cape Town to Cairo and had to be rescued from the Kenyan bush.
Speaking about the honour, he said: “I think they were able to fly every bit as well as the men and they did not receive the recognition which many of us feel they deserved.
“It is very refreshing indeed that they are now receiving that recognition belatedly, but they did give invaluable service to their country - notwithstanding their quite excessive modesty.”
I wanted to be a fighter pilot when I was younger, but physical obstacles made that impossible. These ladies were so cool and I would never have their guts!
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