My favourite cousin Eric Padfield, two years older than I, had volunteered several months before the war for the Royal Air Force," Eileen Younghusband recalls. "He had always wanted to fly." Many of Eileen's male school friends had volunteered to serve with the British military services at the outbreak of war, and a rising feeling of patriotism, born out of the Blitz and the havoc, death and destruction it was wreaking, was growing throughout the country.
Before long Eric was fully trained and commissioned as a pilot officer with the RAF. When he was killed in August 1940, Eileen, along with the rest of her family, was devastated. "I was deeply affected by his death," she remembers. "It made me realise that helping in a YMCA canteen and working in a comparatively safe and comfortable office was not enough. I had to do more for my country." Eileen was 19 years old when she applied to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), and she was delighted to receive a summons to the Air Ministry in London for an interview.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the looming threat of another world war in the second half of the 1930s had forced the British military services to consider potential manpower issues. The British Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF had looked to Britain's female population during the First World War to fill roles at home in Britain that would release men for service on the front lines. All three had demobilised their female personnel at the end of that conflict, and no peacetime women's military services existed.
Denne historien er fra Issue 118-utgaven av History of War.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 118-utgaven av History of War.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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COUPS & CHAOS
How the French armed forces lost the war in Algeria and almost destroyed French democracy in the process
BATTLE OF ALGIERS
When the Front de libération nationale FLN) took its war to the streets of the capital, France’s military responded with merciless wrath
THE RISE OF ALGERIAN RESISTANCE
How the anti-colonialist struggle around the globe helped inspire Algeria’s liberation movement to organise and fight back
ROOTS OF REVOLUTION
A century of French occupation led to a genocide in Algeria that provoked one of the bloodiest showdowns of the modern age
DWIGHT W BIRDWELL
In the opening hours of the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, this Specialist Five led his armoured cavalry detachment in repulsing a fierce communist assault against Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon
THE FIVE STRATEGY AND LEADERSHIP
Phillips O’Brien discusses how this quintet of national leaders impacted the course of the Second World War
Great Battles FLODDEN
On the morning of 9 September 1513, King James lV of Scotland stood atop Flodden Hill with what seemed an insurmountable advantage over the English. Yet by the day's end he would lay slain and his army shattered
FERDINAND 'THE BLOODY'
Known for his brutal martial punishment and execution of his own men, Ferdinand Schérner’s ruthlessness was matched only by his devotion to Nazi ideology
AIRBORNE UNDER SIEGE ARNHEM
For nine days the heroic 1st Airborne fought desperately, waiting vainly for relief that never came
SCANDINAVIA UNDER ATTACK
Hitler’s forces smash through Denmark and Norway ina grim foretaste of the terrible fate awaiting the rest of Western Europe
