Browse Items (2051 total)

  • Tags: ground personnel

AHabberfieldM180111.mp3
Margaret Habberfield was born in 1923. At sixteen she joined the Royal Air Force after giving her age as eighteen. She began her six-week general training at Harrogate and was billeted with around 20 other girls. Margaret was then posted to RAF…

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ADayMH171128.mp3
As her father was in the Royal Navy, Margaret attended school in Gibraltar, Portsmouth, and (after her mother’s death) Malta, before returning to Gosport in the UK when she was eleven. In 1939, she was fifteen and working for a company making soft…

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PHouriganM1804.jpg
Margaret Hourigan grew up in and around Nottingham. Despite holding Labour principles she volunteered for the WAAF’s as soon as War was declared and was called up in January 1940. She Hourigan served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as a…

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PLongmateMS1601.jpg
Margaret Longmate came from a family, from Edinburgh, with long links to the RAF. Her uncle had been in the Flying Corps in the First World War and various other friends and family joined the service during the Second World War. Therefore, it seemed…

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AYoungM150515.mp3
Margaret Young grew up in Scotland and worked in a ladies shoe department. She volunteered for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force at the age of 18 and served as a wireless operator. She talks about the medical and reception centre and training,…

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PHollierM1701.jpg
Marion Hollier served as a wireless operator in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force from February 1944 to September 1946. Before the war she worked in a construction firm, The George Wimpey Company, which built aerodromes. She learned the Morse code in…

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ACattyMA180822.mp3
Martin Catty grew up in London and was evacuated, with his school, to Westward Ho! at the beginning of the war. He completed a short training course at Cambridge University in 1942 and joined the Royal Air Force. After training, he flew 40…

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PLairdCraig1701.jpg
Mary Stanley Foister grew up in Buckinghamshire, where her father's farm was taken over as Bomber Command Headquarters. After leaving school, she served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. Following training, she had a variety of administrative posts…

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WardM [Pesaro].jpg
Roy Ward joined the Meteorological Office when he was 18 and served as a Meteorological officer with 517 Squadron. He returned to the Meteorological Office as a civilian after the war and his final job before retirement was as a weather forecaster at…

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WardM (Pesaro).jpg
Mary Ward grew up in Bloxham. She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in 1940 and was posted to RAF Driffield, on general duties in the officers’ mess. She describes a German daylight attack on RAF Driffield on the 15 August 1940 and the…

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WardM (Pesaro).jpg
Mary Ward joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in 1940. She served, briefly, at RAF Driffield but mostly at RAF Linton on Ouse. She trained as a cook before being moved to duties as a map officer, where she prepared maps for briefings and…

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PStevensS-M1601.jpg
Sidney was inspired to join The Air Force when he was working as an Air Raid Precaution Warden and one night his own home was bombed. The house next door was also destroyed and the lady who had offered him a cup of tea only hours earlier died. He…

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SRAFIngham19410620v070001-Audio.mp3
Mieczyslaw Maryszczak was born in Bokyivka, Ukraine and served in the Polish Army and then the Polish Air Force. An early memory of the war is throwing bread to starving Russian prisoners being marched from Lviv to Podlesice. At seventeen he was in…

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PBlakeMMD1801.jpg
Muriel Blake was born in 1922 in Oakham, Rutland. Being interested in flying and aeroplanes from an early age, Muriel volunteered when her job prospects ended. Called up in 1944, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. Being too short for driver,…

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AHarrisNG160128.mp3
Neil Harris wanted to join the RAF because he was looking for an exciting life experience and an opportunity for further education. He started as a flight mechanic before training as a pilot. Remembers being trained in different locations across the…

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AFreemanN170219.mp3
Norman Freeman was born in London, his wartime preference to be a pilot was thwarted by poor eyesight so he became a wireless/radar mechanic. After training he served all over Britain, and then France at the end of the war. Norman told of why he…

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PShakesbyFN1801.jpg
Norman Shakesby was a radar mechanic on 405 and 582 Squadrons. Born in 1924, he was studying languages at The City School in Lincoln at the outbreak of the Second World War. His language teachers were quickly called up to act as interpreters, so on…

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PCoxOV2003.jpg
Owen Cox went to a grammar school in York and joined the Home Guard when the war started. At 18 he joined the Royal Air Force, although his parents were not keen. His initial trade was ground wireless operator (Morse), waiting to attend a gunnery…

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AHarrisIR-SW180324.mp3
Pat Harris’ brother John ‘Jack’ Harris joined the RAF straight from school as an apprentice. During the war he volunteered for aircrew and trained as a navigator. He was reported missing when Pat was serving in the Wrens. His death was finally…

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PYoungP1601.jpg
Patricia’s family lived in a 500 year old thatched cottage in Waddington. There was a bakery in the grounds, which had been started by her grandparents. Patricia’s father joined the Royal Flying Corp and one of her earliest memories was of him…

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Patrick Rowland volunteered for the RAF in Belfast. He trained as a mechanic. He was posted with 149 Squadron. He volunteered for overseas posting because his brother was a prisoner in the Far East. He did not know at the time that his brother had…

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PAlexanderPM1901.jpg
During the war, Pauline's siblings Bernard, Guy, Robert and Peter served in the air force and army, her mother volunteered for the Red Cross, and her father volunteered as an air raid warden. Inspired by her brothers, Alexander joined Women’s…

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ACourtPR171211.mp3
Percival Robert Court joined the Air Training Corps in March 1941, volunteering for the Royal Air Force at the earliest age of seventeen and a half. Training at RAF Cardington, he became a flight mechanic. He then moved to Skegness to continue into…

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ABeckettPC180317.mp3
Peter Beckett grew up in Mildenhall village. He attended the local Air Training Corps which enabled him to visit the airfield and take the opportunity to have air test flights with operational aircrews and help the ground staff with their work. He…

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AJonesPWA171207.mp3
Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) speaks about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force). Peter Jones discovered a memoir written by his father, Thomas Jones, a flight engineer, just after he passed away. Peter…

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