The Boom of Feminism During The Battle of Britain | The Many Against The Few | Timeline

in June 1940 with the forces of Nazi Germany threatening invasion every able man was being called to arms to defend the country Britain called upon the women they left behind to fill the gaps in the country's workforce the whole country really would have come to a standstill without the help of the women everybody had something to do and everybody was pulling their weight and some women left at the chance of this new form of liberation I'd have paid them to let me do it it seemed a superb job the women of Britain were about to step away from their kitchens and help save the nation [Music] on the 4th of June 1940 the British forces sent to aid the collapsing French army were finally driven from the beaches of France by the advancing German now every able-bodied man was called to arms to defend Britain's Shores against this seemingly unstoppable enemy at the time everything was so uncertain I mean we just imagined the enemy landing on our shores and and and taking out everything over and and it really wasn't until things got going and the Battle of Britain started that we thought well here we are fighting you know how long is it going to last the women of Britain weren't about to let their men fight alone they were determined to play their part in the conflict even if it meant overturning traditional ways of thinking World War one all the people in this armed services were men in World War two women were in the war just as much as men were I mean the First World War I know there are ambulance drivers and nurses but the Second World War definitely was they women coming into their own and that was the revolution really of a women taking men's jobs I mean there were women on buses they were women everywhere through these some end people have to accept that we could do just about everything that the men could do and accept us on on on the level I suppose that was the beginning of the feminism that perhaps went too far at the time the tide was turning from doing only basic jobs in the First World War the door to women's freedom had been unlocked and many were eager to step through it but not all the men they met were happy about it that was the first woman on tram orbiter to others and that was a very much a male-dominated place they were horrified to see women coming in so he had a guard outside who used to escort us to the classroom the man suddenly didn't think that women would cope and frontline stations we were the first women closures on the station I don't think curved some of the male plotters were very happy about having to leave and go fight to start with they're very resentful they didn't like it because if we release them they were going to go on active duty in 1940 the front line was the shores of England and the enemy was soon to attack from the sky the Air Force sent women into the male-dominated RAF operations rooms to work as plotters signalers and radio operators or as they called it Clarke special duties the first time I went on was a night duty there were all men sitting there on the wireless sets and teleprinters and all arrested and wasn't a big room at all there was a counter in front and you had to log everything that happened on the station you were plugged to the operations table by little cable and earphones and your information was sent in on those plugs from the observer Corps or whoever was plotting at that stage or finding the enemy aircraft for coming at you and what they were and there weren't a great many at the beginning there but eventually sort of got more and more busy as time went on if some found this transition to the established masculine world the wildering others would soon find themselves drafted into very non-traditional and specialized areas of the defense network I had seen pictures on the movies of girls with what looked like croupiers rakes kind of bending over a table pushing things around that my thought is withdrawn from when I asked if I could be one of them the man said oh well that's a radar operator and he put me down for the trade of radar operator there and then when of course he was wrong but people leading over the table with groupies rates for plotters I don't know whether he made a mistake and put me in that trade by accident or whether he was being devious and cunning because he wanted me to be a radar operator radar would play a vital part in the coming battles detecting enemy aircraft by means of radio waves the warning signals would appear on a small screen as an echo trace of light the radar operators job was to interpret this display providing essential information that would allow RAF fighters to intercept incoming enemy aircraft and destroy them we were interviewed by a very very senior RAF officer only he got us all lined up and he said if anybody's got any conscientious objections to being involved in bombing they must say so now and we will have no hard feeling as you go back we've come from well nobody moved an inch everybody was simply delighted to get a chance to get back at them as soon as we saw them building update but used to go around like wildfire all 200-plus are coming up you know and we're for it it is a very tense time because you've got to get it absolutely right because everybody is depending on you especially the pilots then the controller would say from readiness to scramble and off they would go and then Matano I would still be on so we would hear them in battle it's a vector mm you know and then they'd say bandits forehead or bandits below and these were coming and going the whole time so the atmosphere was quite electric blue section Tallyho which I think very often broke the center the suspense of the thing as I'm I remember mostly anything thank God for that it's you know there is it's all now and you know please go on let it be over quickly signals would be coming in they were coming our way and we were going to get boned and all this was coming in and going out the wireless was going mad absolute mayhem but people were calm the controller would broadcast all personnel not on duty take cover [Laughter] once the raid have finished then all the signals would come in of who's missing if somebody was down in the drink who had been shot down who was definitely dead who was missing so all the signals had to be collated people informed you can't ever detract from the work that these young ladies did on duty probably up to eight hours they had to be able to pick up and run with an engagement or stand or sit for long periods of inactivity I tend to think that the lady was far better than the man at doing this job lady's voice is normally clearer and comes over the mic much more clearly than a male voice and very cool calm and collected so they did an absolutely vital role during the battle the girls were very very good at plotting their captain gives a controller at the assistant they're excellent what much much better than the men really because the men were too impatient where the girls had said that all night gentle little bit of knitting and sewing and just listening to the phone and the main turn then they don't respect us and realize that we would sit through any air raid anything that they throw at us and as women we were no more scared than they were they had no fear of rolling their sleeves up and getting a hands dirty either women moved on to the factory floor learning traditional email skills are trained to be a welder which you had to have a test you had to weld two bits of metal together and if they didn't come apart then you passed which I did although I set myself I was the good way order I was trained to become an aluminium welder which was much more difficult the women were soon to make up the bulk of the workforce manufacturing the weapons of war be a row of girls in a law and doing these thing guns and you would be passed another one you'd will be ki play on what was called then on to this sting cannon to sling Herman another one would come over and we used to turn him out by the hundreds women were becoming an essential part of the war effort taking up trades and occupations never previously considered but during the Battle of Britain women were to break into the most male-dominated area of law when you see a neatly uniform duffle laughs walking along the streets you mostly think of her as doing clerical work but there's much more to it than that this is a squad visit servicing one of the trainers in 1940 as the threat to Britain group women were determined that their expertise of capabilities should be recognised and applied to defending Britain against Nazi aggression everybody had something to do and never thought he was pulling their weight that I knew about and I met because they wanted to win the war as the Luftwaffe sent larger and larger formations of bombers and escorted fighters across the channel every trained pilot in Idaho [Music] clearly this was a very male girls flying airplanes was was almost a sin at that time I'd have paid them to let me do it it seemed a superb job but even though many men saw it as highly inappropriate some adventurous women had already become qualified pilots [Music] I wanted to get away from governesses and nannies and chaperones we will never left to learn then those days you see and I thought well if I go flying I can't come with me I started flying when I was a school girl because I was not very good at that's hockey and so I was allowed to go to the aerodrome and have a flying lesson instead of playing hockey and from there on and I thought that was great with hundreds of new fighter aircrafts rolling out of the factories someone had to fly each one of these machines to the hard-pressed squadrons around the country this was the job of the Air Transport auxiliary the ATA a newly created organisation but with only a limited number of male pilots available who were not eligible for combat flying the service was severely understaffed it was a wonderful one called Pauline guard her idea was that women could be used to and they said oh no pool women mystery kept having Dave isn't and has kept it kicked in the sink and no good for fly Pauline pulled strings her father was a member of parliament and she got permission to start a pool of women at Hatfield and she had eight women pilots two stories I heard on the radio that they wanted pilots so I applied and and they accepted me the ATA initially said well the girls can with training of flight Tiger Moths and little aeroplanes and like that but as for anything else no they couldn't do that to start with and then gave him all the nasty jobs title most open title most room to Scotland in the winter and then after that they were gradually moved up until they were allowed to fly everything eventually we were flying all these fast and furious aeroplanes and bombers all over the country the 80 a proof that girls could do this job with the original 8 establishing their capabilities the ATA had no hesitation in calling upon the women of Britain to train as delivery pilots my interest in flying was chiefly through the interest in boyfriends who flew all my first boyfriends were the Air Force people who were trading and I don't know I probably to make intelligent conversation my sister and I used to take a book called the aeroplane it's a monthly journal I believe it still exists and in there one day we saw that ata had used up all its qualified pilots and were training a padishah and we both applied and we both got in and so I suppose it wasn't any deep interest in flying as such because I knew nothing about flying but if the women thought they were going to be trained to the level of combat pilots they were to be disappointed they scaled down our training to what they thought what we would need to pick up an aircraft and deliver it safely from A to B and they said if you run into bad weather don't be a trying to be hero land and wait till it clears because the aeroplane is most important once proficient in basic flying skills the women of the ATA had to take further training in many other types of aircraft from single-engine fighters to multi-engine bombers very private moment of course you were given your chitti's and you went off to London and got measured for your uniform and you couldn't wait for the first time he went home in uniform with your wings up but even after proving themselves as capable as any male pilot they still encountered entrenched attitudes we were issued everything with a skeleton then we growled about in children and we must have trousers so was a rather bad grace they issued us with Boleyn good-looking male blue bowler suits with our ranked edges on the shoulder but at the same time as they gave us these border suits and nurses went on today noticeboard in the various Harry Polson all women pilots will remove their trousers immediately after landing you weren't allowed to dine in the mass within trousers in those days you were given your meal in the ladies room as I remember it and you were you were given a bed in the the wife's quarters which was well away from the mess and usually on substations not the sort of the big pre-war ones but in many stations it was the coldest Nissen Hut in the coldest farthest corner of the airfield with the women now established as regular pilots in the ATA they soon settled into the wartime routine of the job we go out with our parachutes and a map bag which was one of the most important things that case you should spend about three hours waiting for the aircraft to be ready then you get in you go to the control tower permission for takeoff don't you laughing and they tell you it was okay to go so you get in start up and then you get a green light and take off we didn't have video not video well you lose maps and you finger like the back of your hand you had to have your roots to avoid the balloons which were round all the big cities there were occasions when when you couldn't rely on the map earn and the weather together because you couldn't see so you had to follow the railway line and it was very disconcerting when you suddenly discovered there's no railway line and this thing had gone into a tunnel it was terrified and in spite of the danger and flying alone in the skies about England in 1940 these women pilots were denied the chance to defend themselves of attacked we might had ammunition in but the guns weren't caught so will virtually unarmed who couldn't shoot back anyway who hadn't been taught how to steal just the deliberate pilot that was all taking it somewhere they didn't teach us to instrument fly because we were supposed to fly within sight of the ground so that our glam defenses could defend us in fact they often forfeit us by mistake especially over the Bristol Channel difficult to tell the difference you know a hurricane have fallen annealed German aircraft but I think we had far less barriers if we'd been taught how to finance it was just a little bit I was shot at when I was flying a Spitfire but the weather was very bad actually and I think I strayed across the coast near Bournemouth which I should not have done and I saw these puffs and I thought oh my goodness I'm being shot at so I quickly turned round and then I had to find the aerodrome which was not very far away and I landed quite happily no damage done but hard work delivering them getting all the different ones and your mind was on a good landing and handing it over and and the papers all signed and handed over properly I once remember flying a Spitfire to the Sun place and as I landed another Spitfire landed exactly the same and we were both on the runway at the same time going different ways having just landed and we hadn't seen each other at all so it was a absolute miracle that we didn't collide too many the appearance of a female pilot emerging from the cockpit of an aircraft came as a complete surprise as I landed a little car came out with a notice on the back of it saying follow me so I taxied after its to dispersal and then when I got to dispersal I switched off and did all things one does and let myself I've done the ladder with my parachutes and things and there was a crowd of RAF people waiting there to take me to the control and I said well can we now please go to the control so that I can get my papers signed and they said well no we're waiting for the pilot and I said I am the pilot and they wouldn't believe me and so two of them went up in the aeroplane to search and they came out and said nobody dare [Laughter] remember pudding now they're my helicoptered something always using too much juice so I've got dozen for some petrol and the man who was going to fill it up he's a good Lord it's a girl I heard him say the pilots of the RAF soon began to appreciate the job these women were doing this 88 the service was really very important and the fact that the girls were there it is great credit to them this was a really active part in in in the war as close as they could get of course it was a wonderful feeling people say you have no contact with the ground but it was very nice that one didn't one felt on one's own up there as though you were flying you couldn't have someone from the ground saying you shouldn't be there it's time to come down you're too high or you're too late you were completely on your own a better job than working in the factory or on the guns I saw some of the awful jobs that people had to do we run it was best job in the world wasn't it nation being given all those wonderful efforts to fly their new most of them women now had the taste of freedom but these steps towards equality brought problems as the women moved ever further into may eternity the preconceived concepts and customs of both sexes were about to be shattered [Music] thousands of swelling [Music] we'd had a thing called SFI which stood for free from infection and it was really rather horrendous there were lines and rows of wife's lined up with nothing but a bathtub and a pair of knickers on and you had to queue up and wait your turn to see the MF and being duly inspected to make quite sure you and wanted as a young pleasant and I must admit at the sight of some of the other wife's gave me a bit of a cultural shock because I hadn't realized that people came in such shapes and sizes we were billeted just outside the main gates in Wood Lane in the married quarters very few wife around and Molly the CEO I never knew her second name she was a section officer and she was around around on the back saying you were right girls you know I'm Molly and that's how informal it was then I went into where straight in the first time and saw an officer coming towards me I thought what a good idea I'll try my salute out on him for fellow I forgot that I had a bag of apples under mine he was cotton he sprayed with that never left him before and when I arrived I was shattered by the the company I had to keep in a large dormitory about 12 of 15 people and who sport each other he was most costly language you didn't have to like them necessarily and they said you didn't like you but you were all doing the same government when the war was on everybody was pulling on the same side everybody was helping they were a friend we delivered was your little war effort one in the eye for hip slack the women were soon taking on the pressures of active service 24 hours a day you go like 8 to 1 and then you're off duty until midnight then go on 12 to 8 and then go on 6 to 12 and then you had 24 hours off and then you start to cycle all over again and your body never gets adjusted to being asleep and on the the huts were shared between the watches so you get people coming crashing in how were you trying to get your sleep in after being on Nightwatch 1300 hours to 1700 hours came off at 1700 hours went on at 23:59 - Oh 800 came off at over 800 went on at 1700 hours - 23:59 came off at 23:59 went on a doe 800 to 1200 again so we didn't have a lot of time so 1 in 3 nights was asleep and you think that we could enjoy ourselves from your absolutely shattered they also experienced the challenges of remaining alert during long hours of tedium some days where he was sitting around weather was foul and you couldn't do anything you were just sitting in the mess all day very bored not having done anything all day except sit and wait when they were quiet times you put your head on the wireless or a telly printing try and have a Kip but then you knit oh oh you play cards or or something oh you chat but they're very few times when you hadn't got anything to do of course everybody smoked in those days absolutely everybody smoked especially on radar because you were not allowed on the set operating for more than one hours of time when you were off you went to a little restroom and of course you mediately had a cigarette a cup of tea or coffee in this environment it wasn't long before the realities of the situation entered previously sheltered lives now was quite innocent when I first went there but working with men it brought my hint occasionally some twit would leave his radio on which would educate the wife operators on the control board and no doubt it increased their as a swearing vocabulary we were all mixed together and because of war was on possibly we learned a lot of rude words and cursing and swearing and things like from the men quite right at times I mean I learned a few words I've never heard before I suppose it was the adrenaline going you know although my memory as a man is that they were very sweet about that they they did try to keep their language as clean as they could working and living in such close proximity other barriers were being broken down one of the absolute criminal things in the air forces you must never walk in front of the COS car so me Bradley ignoring all the red tape no rest of it dozy is anything what straight across the sea earth in front of the sea is calm and avoid said um who walked in front of the COS car oh dear turn round walk back gave us the old kiss and say sorry sorry it was a six-week training and in the middle of it all I got mumps it wasn't as bad as it might have been because I was his rather nice Canadian pilot though and as he was the only one with mumps apart from me we were told to rather sort of get together and amuse each other which we do lead in without much difficulty that's my story and I'm sticking to for some women life amongst the men had its teasing moments I went off wouldn't start and it would stop for three days so every diagram I see I said something wrong as I said often I'd press the button nothing happened you know so he brought wall up sex he wanted his aircraft back for his other pupils to fly not being sitting with some stupid little cadet who couldn't get it going and once it was if they'd taken all the plugs out and I couldn't go now is there for three days and that's where I met my fiancee [Music] with the uncertainty of war came a dramatic overturning of the beginning of the revolution later generations they used to phone my wife from outside the camp one day I went to the telephone box the phone the wife and inside the telephone book it was the couple hmm not phoning but got old of one another's phones oh you know the whole world of radar totally and completely secret you could hear these people muttering and mumbling and say they do say that if you stand in front of the aerials you'll be safe for the evening with your girlfriend because it makes you sterile and they would all go and they get as close as they could without the barbed wires dropping them in order to have a jolly evening there was no truth in that story at all because a lot of my good friends have had very large families to some women it was a good time to go out with men and I mean the world that one's on the banks definitely and the pilots knew them but on the whole they respected expected the girls that said no everybody was scared of getting pregnant we've been brought up in those days that don't you dare because if you bring trouble home here my girl you're out the door well then I was a bit naive I think I found out a few girls did get pregnant and if they were in their services they were immediately reduced quite frankly I never got involved with the well it was too near home it was dangerous [Music] well if you can't enjoy yourselves at 17 18 19 year old I don't know when you will are you allowed to go out with boys for the first time we had lots of boyfriends and the boys had lots of girlfriends and it was a perfectly relaxed relationship we didn't belong to each other in any way at all woe betide you if you gave your young around the impression that he belonged to you because that was a kiss of death he would sugar off as fast as he could go because he'd be scared that you've got your clothes into him you had to treat you to as I was a very life but it didn't mean that you didn't have a nice relationship he had a very nice relationship but you might even love even nicer one with another boy had asked you out and that wasn't being grotty and unfaithful because it wasn't incumbent on you to be faithful unless somebody asked you to marry him and then you were engaged and that was that you didn't go out with other people who didn't want to with the grim life-or-death struggle emotions and the pace of life intensified many young men and women lived their lives and fast forward as death could be just around the corner I didn't really think of being killed I don't think anybody did because you're so busy if he was sitting in a cockpit sinking I wonder I will be killed you'll probably run into something we weren't allowed to walk in pairs on the station during the battle Britain it was all singles you you could not walk in pairs because of machine-gun e we heard bombs dropping so we we realized that there were enemy and meters something was happening I started walking and then my friend stopped and shouted at me don't move and I stood there and there were I looked down and there were I didn't know how to describe it actually I thought they were crickets or something goodness movement in the ground and when it finished he said there's a live bullets and I was rooted to the spot remembered I just didn't I couldn't believe it you didn't think you just felt that well it was somebody else it would never happened to you [Music] [Music] I didn't hear it you never hear the one that come down I was blown through the doors of ops right through over-the-counter signals counter on to a wireless that had my back broken which wasn't very pleasant and I reported sick because I couldn't move and the mo said to me that's the only time I did report see he said I would have got plenty of dead bodies around just leaned against a radiator for 48 hours and then you're back on duty suddenly decided that we'd all go down to Leicester Square there was a nightclub there or club and I said you can go if you like but I'm not going and it was nice but it got bombed I couldn't bring myself to get the strange or strange but in September 1940 the Luftwaffe changed its tactics on orders from Hitler and the high command the attacks on Britain were to concentrate on London and other centers of population now the violence and destruction of war was to come to the people of Britain cities and towns as Nazi warplanes brought [Music] with britain cities bombed repeatedly by night and day the terrible reality of aerial warfare was brought home to all whether military or civilian can war old all sections of society lived for the ever-present threat of destruction at death you would arrange to meet people and they just wouldn't be there and somebody would tell you John Alford today he wouldn't be here and it happened so many times enjoy the flying the blood son didn't enjoy was numerous friends old relatives getting killed which wasn't funny was happened to everybody you went out a lot [Music] partly to forget you've lost friends it was if it's just you felt that let us enjoy ourselves why we can because we might not be here tomorrow and your partner who took you out to dinner might not be there we live for today it was a very sad time really because boys I'd known at school with and and I can see now I will after I flew I realized how little experience they had had they were having 12 14 15 hours on a Spitfire after learning to fly and then being put into the Battle of Britain and quite a few of the boys are at school with the news was coming back in that that they were there we'd had the casualties my fiance Humphrey go but if I ran up and couldn't get heard of him and I've heard of course countries took me over he's dead daily station and I couldn't find his aircraft and his aircraft was a stick with the blue nose and so the blue nursed it wasn't there and because it wasn't there I realized he must have got bumped off felt terrific sorrow speaking to a pilot one day I was passing a joke with him one day and he was killed feeling miserable about it but then you've got to get on with it you can't you can't grieve you can't fret and the news came through the many wife had been killed I think they were probably the first wife killed during the war and we were all of us absolutely shattered and that they would be women casualties I think they're shocked respond anything and one accepted the casualties I think far more than they do today when we lost a friend it it was rather horrid and really unsinkable because I lost a friend who will happen to be billeted in the same house as myself but I was not allowed to fly for two or three days and and then I was flying again and one had to think well that's life and so carry on [Music] in the hardship and horrors of war once the victory was won and fighting men returned the old order began to reassert itself women had six years of managing without their men and they did it you know they had they took on the whole responsibility of the household and not only that but they went out to work because before the war if you were working and you got married you had to leave your job you weren't allowed to work if you were married and they found that they were capable and after the war they didn't want to go back to being just the little housewife I wanted to go on flying and doing this wonderful job I mean we were so lucky I still look back and think how did I manage it a lot of the more experienced women in ata would have loved to have gone on in some capacity and by the time I believe in the fifties that diner took the first women pilots of course our more senior people were getting a little older them so they had no chance it didn't come overnight this this equality faced with the uncertainty and the destruction of war the women of Britain rose to the challenge the door of equality had been thrown open but it would be their daughters that would finally rush through it we have a lot to be thankful for for the the women what they did join the war I mean there wasn't a job going that a man did that that the women didn't take over the whole country really would have come to a standstill without the help of the women being an hae pilot was fantastic I hope that everybody had as much fun flying was ID which wouldn't have happened if she hadn't in the war I happened to be the right age I haven't been in the right place at the right moment I wouldn't have missed it it was the best part of my life I was wicked I never wanted the war to end

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 546,305

Keywords: British aviation history, British documentary, British history, British military, British war history, History documentary, History documentary service, Hurricanes, Interviews with brave women, Netflix for history, Spitfire deliveries, Spitfires, TIMELINE, Timeline - World History Documentaries, Women in STEM, Women in leadership, Women in wartime logistics, Women on the frontlines, Women's empowerment, Women's equality, Women's rights

Id: cb4VNKdRnHI

Length: 46min 59sec (2819 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 16 2019