With a throaty roar, the Wellington bomber touched down on the runway and taxied to a halt. It was wartime, and such was the urgency for deliveries to RAF Bomber Command that the plane was immediately surrounded by ground crew. Presently the hatch door opened, a ladder was put out, and a young woman climbed down it, carrying a parachute.  She was alone. ‘There you are!’ she said cheerfully.  ‘A lovely new aircraft for you.’ The men were nonplussed. ‘Where’s the pilot?’ asked one. ‘I am the pilot,’ she replied.

First Officer Mary Wilkins was one of a little-known but highly skilled band of aviators employed by the Air Transport Auxiliary. Set up in 1939 on the outbreak of the Second World War, the ATA’s mission was to ferry aircraft from manufacturing and maintenance sites to RAF airfields throughout Britain. Civilian pilots were encouraged to join, thereby freeing up RAF pilots for roles in combat.

Initially, only male pilots were chosen to fly for the ATA: these were qualified pilots who did not fit RAF eligibility criteria. But although there were many women who were just as qualified, the RAF initially baulked at the idea of employing them. Instead, it was suggested that they could take on other jobs in the war effort. Within months, however, they had changed their minds, thanks largely to an influential woman named Pauline Gower.

Pauline Gower, Commandant of the Air Transport Auxiliary women’s section, in a de Havilland Tiger Moth, 1940

By setting up an air taxi service in Kent and then touring the country in a flying circus, Pauline had become Britain’s first female commercial aviator. Now working as a Civil Defence Commissioner in London, she was well placed to voice her support of women pilots and their role in the war effort. Emphasising their sense of duty, she argued: ‘A woman who had flown for ten years or longer had to seriously ask herself whether she ought to let her flying go rusty, when it might be of real use to the nation. Could a woman pilot help to win this war without robbing a man of his job?’

After much debate, it was conceded that women could fly in the ATA, but they would be restricted to light training aircraft such as Tiger Moth biplanes. A women’s section of the ATA was set up, and Pauline was put in command of it.

 

Pauline Gower with the first eight women pilots to join the ATA. L to R: Pauline Gower, Winifred Crossley, Margaret Cunnison, The Hon Margaret Fairweather, Mona Friedlander, Joan Hughes, Gabrielle Patterson, Rosemary Rees, Marion Wilberforce.

The first eight women pilots to join the ATA all had impressive flight records, and some were qualified instructors. However, because they were doing work that was traditionally seen as ‘a man’s job’, the news of their recruitment didn’t receive universal public approval. An aviation magazine complained about women accepting jobs of which they were ‘quite incapable,’ and continued: ‘The menace is the woman who thinks she ought to be flying in a high-speed bomber when she really has not the intelligence to scrub the floor of a hospital properly.’  A reader demanded to know: ‘When will the RAF realise that all the good work they are doing is being spoiled by this contemptible lot of women?’ 

Critics said that the women were given small, light aircraft because they could be fixed easily if they were damaged.  Knowing that the slightest mishap would attract a glare of publicity, Joan Hughes recalled that ‘it was a case of, “for God’s sake, don’t break an aeroplane.”’ But Pauline Gower remained steadfast and professional: ‘Today,’ she said, ‘I saw a woman pilot set off on her first delivery flight. I cannot tell you how proud I felt. We are a small group of women pilots with a job to do. We are just helping, along with others, to win the war. Our job will not be obtrusive. But it is going to be well and efficiently done.’ 

Most of the deliveries involved short flights from the women’s base at Hatfield to airfields in central and southern England and Wales.  Usually, a ‘taxi’ aircraft such as an Avro Anson would drop the pilots back to base. But there were also regular deliveries to Scotland, for example to Kinloss, Lossiemouth and Prestwick, and in a small plane this required several stopovers for refuelling and sleep. Then, having spent days freezing in an open cockpit, the pilot would catch a night train south, sometimes sleeping on a luggage rack, ready for a new schedule of deliveries the next morning.

As the war progressed, aircraft production soared. More pilots were needed to deliver them, and in the summer of 1941 it was decided that women should be allowed to fly operational aircraft. After all, as Pauline Gower pointed out, the first women pilots had not broken the 1,000 or so Tiger Moths they’d been in charge of. At the same time, more and more women were applying to join the ATA. Two all-women ‘ferry pools’ were set up on airfields at Hamble and Cosford, in order to be close to the Vickers Supermarine factories in Southampton and Castle Bromwich respectively.  

 

A Supermarine Spitfire. Over 20,000 Spitfires were made for the RAF during the war. At one point, the factory at Castle Bromwich alone was manufacturing 320 per month.

By this time, so many different types of aircraft were being deployed in the war that it was impossible to offer training in every make and model. Instead, they were grouped into six classes, from single-engined fighters to heavy bombers, and pilots progressed up the scale.  ‘People often wonder,’ recalled Mary Wilkins, ’how we could fly as many as three or four different types of plane in a single day. The answer, of course, was the very thorough basic training and the wonderful little Blue Book, the Pilots’ Notes which had been produced by very experienced pilots in the technical section of the organisation.’

Joy Lofthouse, who started work in May 1944, described a typical morning: ’You reported at 9.00 am to the ops office, got your programme for the day.  You’d get a set of chits telling you which aircraft you’d be taking. If it was a plane you hadn’t flown before, you’d get handling notes which, if you were lucky, you’d get a chance to look at on the way. You always had a loose leaf book with a printed set of salient features of all the aircraft you’d be flying.’

Joy recalled the day when she walked onto the airfield and saw a Spitfire waiting for her.  Once in the air, she fell in love.  ’It was so powerful,’ she recalled, ‘…so light, compact, and incredibly easy to move. You almost had to breathe on the controls and they moved.’  Molly Rose, who was 22 when she joined the ATA, fully agreed. ‘Of all the planes I flew,’ she said, ‘my favourite had to be the Spitfire. It was rather like putting on an overcoat: you fitted. It was a woman’s plane.’ Joy’s older sister, Yvonne Macdonald, went even further: ‘I think women were much better when it came to flying Spitfires.  Women have a lighter touch. They’re not as ham-fisted.’

 

Diana Barnato Walker, who joined the ATA in 1941, climbing into a Spitfire. Diana also piloted Blenheims, Mosquitos, Mitchells, Whitleys and Wellingtons.

ATA pilots didn’t use radio: instead, they learned how to navigate by map and compass, which restricted them to daylight hours. Good visibility was also essential. If the weather closed in once they were in the air, they had to decide whether or not to turn back. It wasn’t just their lives at stake: they were equally concerned about the aircraft and its value in the war effort.  Barrage balloons, attached to the ground by chains and positioned to protect sites against enemy attack, were a particular hazard:  when an air raid was imminent, clusters of them would be released into the sky, and an ATA pilot with no radio couldn’t be forewarned. 

However, no amount of skill or experience could guard against mechanical failure.  Molly Rose was flying a Fairey Swordfish over the Wrekin in Shropshire when the engine cut out and refused to restart.  At a height of less than 2,000 feet, Molly quickly chose a field for an emergency landing, but didn’t fully appreciate that it was sloping downhill. The Swordfish had no brakes so it went through a hedge into the next field, to the surprise of a boy who was ploughing there with a couple of horses. ‘I missed him,’ Molly recalled thankfully, ‘but it turned the plane over and there I was, hanging onto the straps.’

Likewise, Mary Wilkins was in the skies above the New Forest when the engine of the Fairchild Argus she was piloting suddenly stopped. Keeping a clear head, she landed it safely in the grounds of a hotel. But Mary’s nerves were tested to the full on another occasion, when the entry hatch in the floor of a Wellington flew open mid-flight. She explained: ’As I looked down from my seat, there was the earth whistling past, and the draught was almost blowing me through the roof.’ Because she was flying solo, Mary had to deal with it herself.  She set the Wellington onto an even keel, undid her straps and went to close the hatch, taking care not to fall through the hole. ‘Within seconds,’ she said, ‘I’d returned to my seat and strapped on my parachute again.’

 

The Vickers Wellington was a long-range medium bomber. On military operations they generally carried five or six crew. ATA pilots flew them solo.

Not all ATA pilots were so lucky.  Fatal crashes did occur. Joy Lofthouse reckoned that ’80 per cent were due to bad weather. Not many were pilot error, maybe 20 per cent.’ When bad news came through, close friends were told to take a day off and then report back for duty.   As Mary Wilkins observed, on losing two friends in the same accident:  ’I didn’t talk to anyone about it. It was just too sad. Every day, we knew this was a reality. But, at the same time, we never expected anything to happen.  You knew the danger but you kept it right at the back of your mind. If you didn’t concentrate completely on what you were doing in the air, you’d be the danger.’

Throughout the war, 168 women flew as pilots for the ATA, out of a total number of 1,245 ATA pilots and flight engineers. Their versatility is staggering:  Mary Wilkins flew 76 different types of aircraft, from the single-seat Hawker Hurricane to the 20-ton Vickers Warwick, and landed at over 200 different airfields. She delivered more than 400 Spitfires for the ATA, ‘and enjoyed every second of them.’ These pioneering aviators were not exclusively British: they were joined by women from Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina and Chile. 

 

Born in Argentina, Maureen Dunlop was featured on the cover of Picture Post magazine in 1944 next to a Fairey Barracuda. After the war, Maureen became a flying instructor.

The first women to serve as pilots in the ATA were taken on as Second Officers and received a salary of £230 per annum, plus £8 per month flying pay. This was £80 per annum less than the earnings of a man at the same grade. But thanks to the determined lobbying of Pauline Gower, equal pay for women pilots was achieved in 1943, representing the first instance in UK history of equal pay for equal work. 'In a way,’ recalled Joy Lofthouse, ’we were trailblazers for women’s emancipation.’ She added: ‘We weren’t like the Pankhursts.  But people will always be able to look back at us and say: “Look what these women did during the War.”’

When the war was over, a few of the women managed to find jobs in aviation. Others continued to fly occasionally as volunteer reserves, but most found that maintaining their level of skill with regular flying hours was a costly business. All were facing lives that were changed beyond recognition, especially those who had lost husbands or siblings in the war. And as Molly Rose pointed out, ‘while the women of the ATA were unique as a group of civilian women pilots flying for Britain during the Second World War, they weren’t the only female wartime pilots. Russian and Czech women were flying too - and they were in combat.’ 

In 2018, Mary Wilkins was one of the last women ATA pilots to pass away, at the age of 101. ’The ATA years,’ she once said, ‘when I look back, were the best time of my life.’ Her fellow pilot Margaret Frost agreed that it was ‘an amazing time, such a different world that we lived in.’  And meanwhile Yvonne Macdonald remembered the absolute freedom of flying a Spitfire: ‘Once, on a cloudy, rainy day, I ran my right wing through a rain cloud:  rain on the right wing, on the left there was sunshine. You could do almost anything with those planes. I’m so lucky to have had that experience.’

 

ATA pilots (including Joy Lofthouse, standing) by a Fleet Air Arm Barracuda at Sherburn in Elmet, 1945

 

Mary Ellis (Wilkins) pictured on the cover of her memoir, ‘A Spitfire Girl’

It is interesting to note that both Pauline Gower and Mary Wilkins were inspired to become aviators after their parents took them for joy rides in the Flying Circus set up by Sir Alan Cobham, who was awarded the RSGS Livingstone Medal in 1928.  The Air Transport Auxiliary, whose motto was Aetheris Avidi (‘Eager for the Air’), was wound up in 1945.

Quotes and further reading:

Jacky Hyams, The Female Few

Mary Ellis (Wilkins), A Spitfire Girl (as told to Melody Foreman)

Royal Air Force Museum:  Air Transport Auxiliary https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/air-transport-auxiliary/

Mary Ellis: Touching the Sky - Mary Ellis (Wilkins) interviewed by Dan Snow for History Hit