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- Womens Auxiliary Air Force during the Second World War -


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World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

Womens Auxiliary Air Force



       The Womens Auxilliary Air Force was the women's branch of the Royal Air Force throughout the Second World War. Although women were not allowed to fly in combat, some served as ferry pilots delivering aircraft to active airfields. Most of the WAAFs were employed in ground based tasks such as administration, driving, parachute packing, radar, plotting and communications.

    8th Dec 1940 On the Move

    9th Dec 1940 Change of Command

    26th Sep 1942 Postings

    9th Nov 1944 Tragic Find

    6th Dec 1944 In Court

    10th Jan 1945 Airman Accused

    10th Jan 1945 Accused Recalled

    16th Mar 1945 Sentence Carried out.


    If you can provide any additional information, especially on actions and locations at specific dates, please add it here.



Those known to have served with

Womens Auxiliary Air Force

during the Second World War 1939-1945.

The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please Add a Name to this List

Records of Womens Auxiliary Air Force from other sources.


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Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the War? Our Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text.




Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to WW2. We would like to obtain digital copies of any documents or photographs relating to WW2 you may have at home.

If you have any unwanted photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted. World War 1 One ww1 wwII second 1939 1945 battalion
Did you know? We also have a section on The Great War. and a Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.



Want to know more about Womens Auxiliary Air Force?


There are:1332 items tagged Womens Auxiliary Air Force available in our Library

  These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War.


Cpl. Elenar Goodfellow MID

My late grandmother, Corporal Elenar Goodfellow was stationed at RAF Thornaby from 1939 until 1945, we believe. I have a certificate which states she was Mentioned in Dipatches for distinguished service, whilst serving in the Women's Auxillary Air Force. The certificate is dated 14th June 1945. I have tried to locate this in the London Gazette archives, but can find no evidence.

I remember her talking of making parachutes, working in the fabric workshop. She also mentioned earning extra rations for packing some chemicals which turned her skin and urine yellow!

I would be grateful for any information or ideas where I can search further.

Nicola Clifford



Vera Craddock

My late aunt Vera Craddock nee Davidson was in the Airforce, stationed at Wickenby and was on duty on the night her husband Flt Sgt Ronald Gerrard Craddock failed to return from mission over Karlsruhe. He was a W-Op/Air Gunner, on Lancaster ED424, lost April 24th, 1944. Their daughter, my cousin Joy was born in November 1944. I am investigating my family history and would be grateful for any info.

Keith Oliver



LACW. Sally Spenceley

My Mother Sally Spenceley served in the WAAF as a cook, based at the Grand Hotel in Brighton cooking For New Zealand aircrews and other countries aircrews. She the worked at a rehab center in Torquay, Devon.

Sally with two Australian Fighter pilot POWs who had been repatriated from Germany, she walked with  the pilots to get them exercise from injuries for a faster recuperation.

She is now 86 but still has vivid recollection of those times.

Dave



Sgt. Ellen Harris

My mother was stationed at RAF Usworth during the Second World War. Her name then was Ellen Harris and she was 25 years old in 1939. She was a sergeant in the Catering Corps and she often talked about her friends and the good times she had on the base.

This is a photo of her at Usworth with her friends in the Catering Corps. She is pictured sitting bottom right. Does anyone know any other names in this picture?

Fred Cooper



Eveline Bunt

My Mum, Eveline Bunt joined the Women's Royal Air Force in September 1941 not long after she had married my Dad, Claude, who was serving in the RAF, they had met at RAF Netheravon where she had been working in the NAAFI. After training she was posted to RAF Andover as account's clerk, whilst at Andover the station was badly bombed and she was posted to Cranwell to train as a teleprinter operator eventually posted to RAF Madley, Hereford.

Philip Bunt



Barbara Edna Bayly

My father and mother both served in the Second World War. Both enlisting in England. My mother, Barbara Edna Bayly was a telephonist in the WAAF but I don't know much about her postings or anything other than she was stationed at different airfields around Kent.

My father Sydney Beeching, enlisted in the Navy and after spending some time at Royal Arthur served at Pembroke and on the Kittywake from 20 December 1940 to 2 July 1943 according to his papers. Then he served on Pembroke 4 Steadfast from 3 July 1943 to January 1946. He also went to America on the Queen Mary when she went over for refitting as a troop carrier.

Heather Osborne



Hilda Laws

Both my mother Hilda Dopson, née Laws, and father Trevor Dopson served at RAF Linton on Ouse and were married in uniform in 1941 (I have the photo). We have just found a electro-silver plated drinking tankard that was given to my father who worked in the officers mess. The person the tankard belonged to told him that if he didn't come back he had to have it. The initials on the tankard are G A, we were wondering does anyone know who G A was?

Keith Dopson



Joan Parlour

My wife, Joan Parlour was stationed at Croft from 1942 until demob in 1945 as a MT Driver. Her home was in Darlington and being with the Canadians who were more relaxed, she was fortunate to be able to live out most of that time. I remember her mentioning friends, Jane Storrar, Ann Misset, Jane Corbett, Moira and others.

Joan died in 2006 after we had shared 63 years wed.

Ken Stokes



Pat "Paddy" Leonard

Paddy Leonard, front row, left, plotter, Glamour Watch RAF Biggin Hill during the Battle of Britain

Patty Leonard, age 20 WAAF Plotter, RAF Biggin Hill

LAC Patty Leonard, WAAF, entertaining the injured soldiers from Dunkirk at Sunday Tea 1940 when she was not on duty as a plotter at RAF Biggin Hill

27th August 1942, wedding of John McKinley Carswell and Pat Leonard wedding.jpg

Paddy Leonard, AC2, WAAF, as everyone knew her at RAF Biggin Hill during the Battle of Britain, was a member of the "Glamour Watch." A plotter working in the Ops Building as part of a skeleton crew, she had volunteered for the work duty the day that a 500-lb bomb came through the roof, bounced off a safe and blew up in the back room where it was redirected. Somewhat protected by the heavy plotting table under which she dove, she was not injured by the flying glass, metal and wood shards that resulted from the explosion. With the crackling of a fire heard behind them, the staff in the Ops Building quickly exited the room through the blown out windows. Because of the events of that day, two non-commissioned officers in the building later received the Military Medal. As tradition has it it was most likely also presented to them on behalf of the crew on watch that day.

Paddy Leonard spent a year at RAF Biggin Hill through the period that made the station famous. Part of that time was spent in the old vacated butcher's shop in the Pantiles, which was a temporary new home to the Ops Room plotters until other more permanent facilities could be arranged. Picked up by lorry, the WAAF personel were transported daily to and from the shop which they entered from the rear to avoid any attention to their presence there.

As the need for WAAF officers grew with the ever expanding war, the early veterans of RAF Biggin Hill rose to fill those rolls. Personally selecteed by Assistant Section Officer Felicity Hanbury who would eventually become the head of the WAAF during WWII, Paddy Leonard's next claim to fame was becoming the first WAAF officer, (in fact, the first WAAF) and cipher officer at RAF Wigtown in Scotland, No.1 Air Observer School. Within 2-1/2 years Paddy Leonard grew from an art student at the Croydon School of Art to the rank of Section Officer in the WAAF, senior officer to a 250-WAAF contingent at RAF Wigtown. She also logged 60 hours of flying time as a passenger of various aircraft arriving at of flying out of the station, a requirement of all officers according to her CO so they would know what the flyers had to endure, even though it was against regulations for WAAF to fly early in the war. When she resigned her commission she was only 22 but a seasoned veteran of WWII. Married to a Canadian pilot in the RAF in 1942 she left the WAAF in November 1942 after more than 2-1/2 years of service as she was expecting the first of her four children. Two were born in Harrogate England during the war where she went to join her husband after he was reposted and two others were born in Montreal, Canada after the war.

Paddy Leonard, or Pat Carswell, as eveyone came to know her after her marriage, lived on the Island of Montreal from 1945 to 1974 when her husband took early retirement from his corporate executive job and they moved to the Rideau Lakes area about 25 miles north of Kingston, Ontario. In more than 30 years of retirement she and her husband enjoyed living by the lake, numerous trips, camping, international travel, visiting Scotland and England and touring Europe with their daughter and son-in-law who had settled in the Netherlands where he grew up.

Born in London on February 23rd, 1920 within the sound of Beau Bells, she was the granddaughter of a Irish blood but English-born London Dock Worker who she never knew and a Swedish-Finnish carpenter who learned his trade at sea. They both married English girls in London. As a switch from her ancestral background she was the daughter of a James Leonard who rose to become a member of the London Stock Exchange. She came from a very unusual background. But like her father who had served in WWI she felt it was her duty to serve in WWII. She believed that had her father had any sons, they would have done the same as did a number of her second cousins who were pilots in the RAF. She lived a happy life dying peacefully at the age of 85 on September 12th, 2005 in her home by the lake less than a month after returning from an Alaskan Cruise. She live life to the fullest and enjoyed every minute of it. May she rest in peace.

Bob Carswell



Aircraftwoman 1st Class Ivy Emily Perham RAF Stradishall (d.25th Aug 1942)

My Aunt was killed at RAF Stradishall on 25 August 1942. I would very much like to get in touch with anybody who knew her or anybody who has information related to her death, believed to have been crushed by an ambulance although this is not that clear.

Martin Cole









Recomended Reading.

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British Women's Uniforms in Colour Photographs (World War 2)

Martin Brayley & Richard Ingham


This reference book contains the uniforms of the women's services during World War II. Nearly 200 colour photographs of rare, original uniforms from private collections are featured with detailed explanatory text. This really is an extraordinarily good book if you're looking for details of women's uniforms from the WWII period. Every page has a large, clear photograph of a uniform (worn by a modern model, but with 40s styling), plus detail shots of shoes, insignia, berets and so on.


The 1940s Look: Recreating the Fashions, Hairstyles and Make-up of the Second World War

Mike Brown


"The 1940s Look" tells you everything you need to know about the fashions of wartime Britain and the impact that rationing, the Utility scheme, changing tastes and the demands of everyday life had on the styles people wore. People had to 'Make Do and Mend' - with varying degrees of ingenuity and success. Hair styles, glasses, jewellery, and tattoos were essential in creating your own fashion statement. Women's magazines advised readers on the difficulties of dressing growing children, offered instructions for making clothes and accessories, and hosted debate over whether by dressing up, women were helping or hindering the war effort. Thoroughly researched and lavishly illustrated, "The 1940s Look" tells you how civilian men, women and children dressed - and why they looked the way they did during the Second World War. It draws on contemporary sources including government advice, periodicals and books, and benefits from an entertaining narrative by author Mike Brown.


Voices of The Codebreakers: Personal Accounts of the Secret Heroes of World War II

Michael Paterson


a comprehensive look at the undercover war, revealing just how much of WWII was won away from the battlefields and how each side desperately tried to get into the 'mind set' of their enemies' code makers.From the British cryptologists to the Navajo Indians whose codes helped win the war against Japan, this book reveals the stories of extraordinary people and their chance finds, lucky accidents, dogged determination and moments of sheer brilliance, to expose how the war was really won.It includes an intriguing glimpse of the early history of the computer - its spectacular uses and subsequent development. It features vivid first-hand accounts from the staff of Bletchley Park, French and Dutch resistance fighters, the American secret agents and members of the Services Liaison Unit who passed on vital coded information to field commanders. It also includes a 16 page plate section with rare archive photographs.


Wartime: Britain 1939-1945

Dr Juliet Gardiner


Juliet Gardiner's 'Wartime' provides a marvellously rich, and often entertaining, recreation of life on the Home Front, 1939-45, drawing on an enormous range of oral testimony and memoir.
More information on:

Wartime: Britain 1939-1945









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