This is why I joined the RAF

MTurnerBM2146029-170131-03.jpg

Title

This is why I joined the RAF

Description

A poem written in December 1942 after her first love was shot down over France. After his death Betty resolved to join the Royal Air Force and became a wireless operator. According to a note, she later found out that some of what she wrote down went to Bletchley Park to help break the German secret code.

Creator

Date

1942-12

Temporal Coverage

Spatial Coverage

Language

Format

One typewritten sheet

Rights

This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.

Contributor

Identifier

MTurnerBM2146029-170131-03

Transcription

[inserted] This is why I joined [underlined] RAF [/underlined] Dec 1942 [/inserted]
He was twenty-two I was seventeen
I thought he was lovely &
he seemed very keen

But he was a bomber pilot
didn’t stand a chance
when singled out by fighters
shot down over France

That evening, as usual, I waited
His friend came instead
I sobbed as he told me
my lovely friend was dead

Since then I’ve loved a dozen times
But first love’s so sincere,
Remember him? Of course I do,
Especially this time of year.

After this happened within days I joined the RAF and after training at Compton Bassett, became a wireless operator. Very boring listening in to signals writing down pages of groups of letters. Found out many years later, some of which we wrote down went to Bletchley Park to help break the German secret code.

Betty Turner (nee Baldock)
Aylesbury

Collection

Citation

Betty Turner, “This is why I joined the RAF,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed December 14, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/1273.

Item Relations

This item has no relations.