23022 Diana Mary Charlton WAAF I enrolled as No 884859 ACW2 WAAF (47 Wilts)
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force on 19 September 1939 at RAF Old Sarum
Called up and posted to RAF Rollestone — the RAF Anti-Gas School on October 27 1939.
Having enlisted on September 19 1939 at RAF Old Sarum, I was called back there, with about thirty others, on October 27 1939. Here we were given our service numbers, never forgotten, and issued with gas-masks, gas capes and identity discs — one red, one green, proof against fire and water, before piling into an open-backed three-ton lorry, our baggage thrown in after us, and driven out into the wilds of Salisbury Plain. I think we had been told we would be stationed at RAF Rollestone — the RAF Anti-Gas School — half-way between the Army artillery camp at Larkhill and the village of Shrewton.
Here we quite literally fell into the arms of the waiting airmen as they helped us down from the lorry, and we were officially welcomed by our WAAF Officer, Assistant Section Officer Margaret Wade, in her smartly tailored uniform. She was usually referred to at ‘Maggie’ of formally at Ma’am.
We were to be housed in a row of wooden huts, previously Airmen’s Married Quarters, about six of us to a hut. You entered directly into a scullery, which had a large white china sink and a cold tap, also a copper which had to be filled with a hand basin from the tap — and a fire, literally our only means of hot water. We had a coal allowance in a large cast-iron bin, and kindling had to be foraged for. The bathroom had a cold water tap in the bath, and a lavatory led off. There was a large living-room with a coal fired range, our only source of heating. The room took three beds, and in addition there was a small single-bedded room and a twin-bedded room.
The bed were cast-iron, springless ‘Macdonalds’, left over from World War I. The lower half left telescoped up under the top half. If they still exist, I hope they are in a RAF museum at ‘ancient relics’. We were instructed in the art of making them up from the three biscuits — hard mattresses about two feet square, with four brown blankets of doubtful cleanliness, two coarse narrow sheets and a sausage-shaped straw-filled pillow.
Spread a blanket crosswise over the bed — place the mattresses down the centre — then the sheets and finally add the other blankets, folding them over to make a cocoon which was surprisingly snug and comfortable once you get the hang of it. All this to be made up by bedtime, dismantled and stacked before breakfast.
Directed down to the cookhouse for tea, we were given tinned kidneys in gravy (never seen before or since), coarse bread with marge and mugs of sweet, Carnation milked tea, from a bucket.
Following this we were assembled in a lecture room for a pep talk from Maggie and given some of our duties.
After an uncomfortable night and breakfast, we were assembled on the parade ground still in our civilian clothes, high-heels and stockings, tight short skirts and hats. It was a music hall act, an absolute shambles. Our poor station Drill Sergeant! After this performance, down to the stores where we were issued with some items of equipment. Knife, fork and spoon (irons), button stick (brass), shoe-brushes (I still have mine — all stamped with our number) and a hussie (housewife — mending kit). Also, surprisingly, two officer material shirts and collars (detached, needing studs), two pairs of grey lisle thread stockings, one pair of black lace-up shoes, one black necktie, two pairs of navy-blue directoire knickers (P.K.s — passion killers) two Vedonis lock-knit vests reaching to the knees, an air-force blue cardigan, navy cotton overalls, navy blue slacks, air-force blue raincoat and a navy beret and RAF cap bridge — brass — to be highly burnished. A proud possession.
We were a very mixed bunch from the Hon. Lady Lettice Ashley Cooper (immediately promoted to Corporal in charge of the Orderly Room) to a little scullery maid from the Isle of Wight who had to be forced to have a bath and supervised. However, we all settled down remarkably well. It was certainly a culture shock from our mostly comfortable houses to something approaching St Trinian’s. We had cooks, clerks, M.T. drivers and three telephonists — Ruby Elliot, a very pretty girl and a shop assistant from Weymouth, Tommy Ferguson a colourful girl and a laundress from Portsmouth (an expert on starching collars and ironing) and me who had been rather idling about at home, doing odd jobs, while waiting for the inevitable. We had a brief training session with our local GPO exchanges and could always ask politely ‘Number, please’ but whether we could ever get through was another matter.
It was a very hard winter and bitterly cold up on our windswept plain, with deep snow over Christmas and in the New Year. We had torrential rain which froze as it fell on the cold ground, encasing everything with ice. The scenery was spectacular, but tree branches came down, unable to carry the weight. So also did our telephone wires, so we were jobless. This also coincided with a bout of German measles so we were deployed to other tasks, self to the cookhouse tin room, washing up large greasy cooking tins, including a cast-iron porridge pot which took two to lift. I had only my own stove to light and stoke for hot water, shovelling coke from under the snow to fuel it. There were no detergents in those days (they had not been invented) so a large bar of hard yellow soap from which you shaved off flakes for lather with a potato peeler was the only addition to the water. I found it hard going and was thankful when our ‘phone lines were restored and we were back to our cosy sandbagged exchange hut, but still with our own stove to stoke.
As the weather improved, we became more active outdoors. The old balloon hanger had been used for badminton, netball and volley ball and the airmen had a good soccer field but in that more religious age it was not encouraged to play on a Sunday, so those off duty would often, as a group, walk over the Plain, picking up mangol wurzels en route and kick them along towards Stonehenge which in those days was open to everyone with many of the top stones on the ground and in some disarray. Here we would have an impromptu game of soccer, using the stones as goal posts.
Along the road, in the hedge, were cast-iron commemorative plaques to the many young Army pilots who had lost their lives attempting to fly in the lethal early aircraft. They are no longer there so I hope they are safe somewhere in a museum.
This pleasant state of affairs ended abruptly with the invasion of the Low Countries and the evacuation of Dunkirk in May and June.
I will never forget the endless busloads of exhausted and battered soldiers brought back on to the Plain from the Channel Ports. They just slept out on the grass in the glorious weather. One of them gave me a sixpence with a hole in it as a good luck token. It had got him through. I still have it.
And so ended the Phoney War — from then on the War began in earnest.
The saddest and most stressful time of my W.A.A.F. service was the winter of 1943-1944 when stationed at R.A.F. Thornaby, on the outskirts of Stockton-on-Tees. It was a Coastal Command station training Air-Sea Rescue crews, with three squadrons of Warwick aircraft, Nos 279, 280 and 281, continually patrolling the North Sea, in the vain hope of spotting any debris and possible survivors of ‘downed’ aircraft, and to alert the nearest Marine Craft unit which would send a fast launch out to retrieve what it could. There were few survivors. Hyperthermia and sea-sickness were the killers, even if they had survived the ‘ditching’. R.A.F. stations were allocated designated areas in which they were responsible for ‘collecting’ any ‘fatalities which occurred to service personnel within these boundaries, and then making all the necessary arrangements, up to the funerals. I was the Assistant Adjutant at Thornaby and, apart from my mundane duties of postings, leave passes, ration cards etc., this distressing task fell to my lot.
It was a hard winter, with freezing fog added to the hazards for bombers returning from their dangerous missions, often badly shot-up, and many crashed on landing. There was a Canadian Bomber station at nearby Middleton St George which suffered heavy casualties. They often got lost and crashed up in the Dales.
A ‘death’ from whatever reason has to be registered and signed by the Registrar in whose district it occurs. He then issues a Death Certificate, without which no funeral can take place. The Registrars had fixed routines covering their scattered villages, so in the event of our airmen landing and being killed in one of these remote villages a despatch rider had to be sent out with instructions to intercept the Registrar and obtain this essential signed Certificate. These despatch riders were the unsung heroes of the War years. They operated a network service throughout the U.K. — D.R.L.S. (Despatch Rider Letter Service) — and, like the Royal Mail, they always got through.
Local undertakers (or village carpenters) would coffin the bodies which were then brought down to our mortuary. I then had to arrange with our local railway (L.N.E.R. in those days) for the coffin/coffins to be taken to Harrogate where there was a R.A.F. cemetery, or be sent back to the family. All coffins were sent by goods trains as it was considered unlucky to send them by passenger train. ‘Goods’ had no priority so were constantly shunted around and the railway clerks were always on the ‘phone telling me of the revised times when to expect ‘my coffins’ to arrive. This meant I was constantly on the ‘phone to my opposite W.A.A.F. in Harrogate who unenviable job it was to receive the coffins, arrange the funerals and welcome any family or friends who could attend.
One particularly sad crash I well remember was a British bomber, returning home, probably damaged and at the limit of human endurance, making a crash landing and bursting into flames a short distance from Thornaby. We could see it, and our Emergency Services rushed over but there were no survivors. The night sky was lit up. Our local undertaker had the difficult task of collecting what he could to put in the coffins, so I do not think the victims were separated in death, being unidentifiable.
You could not become sentimental about these young men, so lately full of life, but you grieved for them and their families. I tried to look upon them as temporary postings, ensuring that all was carefully and correctly done for them when they left for their last journey.
One particular ‘personality’ who remained in my care for a while was a Sergeant Sacre — a ‘Colonial’ — washed ashore near our Marine Unit at Season Snook. There is a different procedure in such cases as the actual time, date and place of death cannot be confirmed and it often takes longer to sort out. Meanwhile the Sergeant’s identity discs, still on their grubby lengths of string, were in my safekeeping for quite a while. I have wondered since about his family, probably in Australia, because it is an unusual name.
The War finally ended. I married a R.A.F. Pilot and we had two sons. My husband’s last posting was to R.A.F. Rufforth, near York. We often went over to Harrogate as it was an excellent shopping centre, but I never visited the cemetery.
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