WAAF: THE WOMEN WHO KEPT THE MEN FLYING
by Peter Robinson
excerpts from the memoirs of Vera Baker
"I remember one night, when neither of the squadrons were flying and there were only two WAAF flying control operators on duty. There was a Mayday call from the only survivor on board a U.S. Flying Fortress returning very late from a raid over Germany...the mid-upper gunner, slightly wounded but all the other members of the crew were either dead or too badly wounded to fly the aircraft.
He was calling for help or guidance, but the frequency on which he was transmitting was not the same as ours. Although we tried everything, we couldn't get through. I called the nearest U.S. Station but they couldn't hear him; we put on the lights of our flarepath but that was no use if he couldn't land, so we had to sit and listen to his lonely voice fading away into the distance...
All we knew was that 617 was continually practicing low level flying and usually over water.
Each watchkeeper suffered a tirade of complaints from farmers whose cows had gone off milk, or hens off lay because of the low-level flying, and all we could do was apologise. Security was intense, even our mail was censored, and not a word seeped out.
One of the very few people who knew from the beginning all that there was to know about the proposed operation was a WAAF Intelligence officer, the only woman on the team involved with planning. She attended every briefing, but never gave the slightest indication of her knowledge. Even on the night of the raid, when she was pressed by another officer to tell her what was going on, she wouldn't say anything other than “If it comes off, it's going to shorten the war!” And then she left the Ops room.
On the night of the raid I had been visiting friends in Lincoln before going on duty. When I entered the Ops. room it was obvious that this was the night when all speculation would be at an end and all questions answered. By the chance of the roster I was the watchkeeper on duty that night, and the only WAAF NCO present.
The aircraft took off; even at this stage security was intense, and I was taken to task very severely by the 5 Group Controller for not being able to give details of the squadron's destination, purpose or the estimated time of arrival at the English coast on return.
When I couldn't answer his questions, he said ominously “Very well, on your head be it!”...We will never forget the training we learned on bomber stations; we bear the sorrow of talking, laughing and dancing with boys one evening when next morning they were gone. To sit in the mess, eating our meals, looking at the faces of young men from many countries of the world, knowing they could die in the course of their next operation; it was something we as young girls never imagined, and yet in the WAAF we bore it all - the work, responsibility, and understanding the pain of others.
Life in the service has marked us all indelibly, no matter where we served and whichever job we did. There is a bond between us, and when we hear someone say “I was in the WAAF during to war” we smile, and say “so was I.”24 year old Wing Commander Guy Gibson DSO and Bar had already completed some 170 operations as a bomber pilot and night-fighter pilot. Gibson later wrote the book Enemy Coast Ahead.
Lancasters, modified to carry UPKEEP, the famous bouncing bomb.
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