This is a true hero...

[DoctorStrangelove]

Er, yes.

Flying anything from a Tiger Moth to a Wellington bomber.

So not "just" a delivery "girl".

10% of whom got killed whilst doing it.

[GhostofTarbera]

She was only 93 here

Spitfire Girl https://youtu.be/whmh_QKGosQ via @YouTube

[SueEllen]

Ok don't get me wrong but am i right in saying she just delivered the planes? She was delivery girl, admittedly of planes.

You also forget women weren't allowed to be fighter pilots.

[Zigenare]

You also forget women weren't allowed to be fighter pilots.

And she wasn't. Your point is?

[vwdan]

And she wasn't. Your point is?

That in an era where women weren't believed to have the required skills/intelligence/whatever to pilot aircraft she not only did just that, but she excelled and flew an insane range of types often with little to no differences training including fighters and bombers. I believe she also single-crewed aircraft designed for multi-crew.

[Gibbon]

How come the girls serving with FANY don't seem to all get the same recognition.

Why do we praise the last few survivors of WWII as 'remarkable' when the millions who died before them get forgotten. Her age is remarkable but her deeds were in no way elevated above the vast majority of other women, esp. the SOE and the AA gunners.

The times were remarkable and most people rose to the occasion, as they do now.

I in no way wish to diminish her, but in context of her times she wasn't remarkable.

[vwdan]

How come the girls serving with FANY don't seem to all get the same recognition.

Why do we praise the last few survivors of WWII as 'remarkable' when the millions who died before them get forgotten. Her age is remarkable but her deeds were in no way elevated above the vast majority of other women, esp. the SOE and the AA gunners.

The times were remarkable and most people rose to the occasion, as they do now.

I in no way wish to diminish her, but in context of her times she wasn't remarkable.

Because she was the last one - it's what she represents moreso than what she herself specifically did. Nobody is saying all the other women she was with were rubbish, but we're only human. Why can't we just have a moment to remember her and her accomplishes without people being desperate to undermine what she (and her fellow air women) achieved for women in aviation?

And I don't believe for a minute WWI has been forgotten, nor those who served with them. Certain stories will naturally stir people more than others but it's impossible to remember every single person by name.

Her age is remarkable but her deeds were in no way elevated above the vast majority of other women,

How do you define this? What she did was remarkable and impressive and would be borderline impossible nowadays. And the 10% fatality rate is nothing to laugh at, either. You don't have to diminish, say factory workers, to accept that she was pretty special. There was only 168 of them for a start.

Not that I'd expect anything less from a CUK thread.

[Gibbon]

How do you define this? What she did was remarkable and impressive and would be borderline impossible nowadays. And the 10% fatality rate is nothing to laugh at, either. You don't have to diminish, say factory workers, to accept that she was pretty special. There was only 168 of them for a start.

Not that I'd expect anything less from a CUK thread.

She was one of 1,230 pilots

The ATA recruited pilots who were considered to be unsuitable for either the Royal Air Force or the Fleet Air Arm by reason of age, fitness or gender. A unique feature of the ATA was that physical handicaps were ignored if the pilot could do the job, thus there were one-armed, one-legged, short-sighted and one-eyed pilots, humorously referred to as "Ancient and Tattered Airmen".

Like I said nothing remarkable, unless you mean she was special because she could do the job of a man, which would be patronising as lots of women were flying aeroplanes before WW2.

Of course factories workers had a breeze ......

WW2 – ‘Canary Girls’


Around 950,000 British women worked in munitions factories during the Second World War, making weapons like shells and bullets. Munitions work was often well-paid but involved long hours, sometimes up to seven days a week. Workers were also at serious risk from accidents with dangerous machinery or when working with highly explosive material.




In February 1944 there was a serious accident at the Royal Ordnance Factory in Kirby, Lancashire. In one building 19 workers, mainly women, were filling trays of anti-tank mine fuses when one of the fuses exploded, setting off the rest of the fuses in the tray.




The Daily Telegraph reported what happened next:




The girl working on that tray was killed outright and her body disintegrated; two girls standing behind her were partly shielded from the blast by her body, but both were seriously injured, one fatally. The factory was badly damaged: the roof was blown off, electric fittings were dangling precariously; and one of the walls was swaying in the breeze.




Some munitions workers handled toxic chemicals every day. Those who handled sulphur were nicknamed ‘Canary Girls’, because their skin and hair turned yellow from contact with the chemical.





A Canary Girl's story:
Former WW2 munitions worker, Gwen Thomas from Liverpool remembered her work vividly:



...there was no training. You were put into what they called small shops where they made different sizes of shells and landmines and different things like that…you were just told what you had to do, filling them with TNT.

And there was a lot involved in doing them, and they had to be filled to a certain level and then you had to put a tube in which was going to contain the detonator. Then it had to be all cleaned and scraped until it was exactly the right height inside the shells or the mines.




It was quite heavy work actually because they used to have like a big cement mixer, type of thing and this was hot TNT. The smell was terrible and you had to go to that with something like a watering can, and take it up. There was a chap on it who used to tilt it and fill your big can, and you'd have to carry that to where you were working and then fill the shells from that.




I slipped on the floor with one of these big cans and I was covered in TNT. My eyes were concealed and everything, up my nose, it was everywhere. Some of the chaps that were working there got hold of me and put me onto a trolley and took me down to the medical place and obviously I had to wait for it to set on my face. I had quite a job getting it off my eyelashes, you know and that sort of thing. And of course my face then was red and scarred with the hot TNT, you know. They put me on the bed for an hour or something, and then it was straight back to work after that.
----------------

Fly boys and girls always get the glamour as its seen as clean cut, and I should know as I served with the RAF for 16 years.

[Zigenare]

That in an era where women weren't believed to have the required skills/intelligence/whatever to pilot aircraft she not only did just that, but she excelled and flew an insane range of types often with little to no differences training including fighters and bombers. I believe she also single-crewed aircraft designed for multi-crew.

That's bull. There were plenty of Women pilots. The rule of the day was "You don't send a woman in to battle".

[kaiser78]

KUATB.

https://forums.contractoruk.com/gene...ml#post2572598

Er, not really a celebrity though ?