I trust you chaps will allow a woman at the bar. My daughter told me recently about this thread on PPRuNe and I have found it very interesting. I am sorry to have missed Cliff & Reg (RIP) but it’s good to see Danny carrying the flag.
Rather than wait to be conscripted, I volunteered for the WAAF in 1942. I did not reach the lofty heights of you Brylcreem boys but some of this may to relevant to earlier postings.
After basic training, like aircrew-in-waiting, I was parked at Upwood, also Silverstone (now the racetrack).They tried to keep us busy with lectures, drills and route marches but we had free time and played lots of ping-pong in the NAAFI and Tarzan and Jane in the trees on the station. We walked to the local pubs. We had two bob a week to spend, You boys had three.
Eventually, I was assigned to No 1 Radio School at Blackpool. I was not at the Avalon Hotel but know someone who was and he has pictures.
A battle-axe of a WAAF officer warned us that the rats had left the sinking ship and all the crime and vice had left London and come to Blackpool. She warned us of other dangers to our virtue but, looking back, we were all a bunch of just-left-school kids.
After qualifying, I was posted to Cranwell Signals Flying Training School where we were given the opportunity to fly. My first flight was in a Proctor. The fly-boy was strutting his stuff. I had eaten liver and onions for lunch which proved to be a waste of time. In the evenings, in Lincolnshire, hundreds of aircraft could be seen taking off to join the huge formations on their way to attack Germany. In the pub, at night, we would raise a half pint to those who “failed to return” with some of those who did.
I volunteered for service overseas and found myself on a Dutch luxury liner (converted trooper) sailing across the Indian Ocean. Heady stuff for a Leicestershire village kid. We disembarked at Colombo. Yes, we were encumbered with those sola topees, only to have them collected from us as we disembarked. Would you believe that we were then issued with those scratchy, woollen RAF forage caps?
After Colombo, I was posted to the flying boat base of Koggala from where S/ldr Birchall, ”the Saviour of Ceylon” had taken off and spotted the Japanese Fleet about to do a Pearl Harbour on Colombo and Trincomalee. Churchill described this as the most dangerous moment of the war. They gave us canoes to play with. Nobody had said anything about a flight path and one day we found a Catalina quite close to us.
When the Army had tidied up Burma, my brother, who had been with the 14th Army, was regrouping near Bombay, preparing for Operation Zipper. I asked for and received permission to visit him. I flew in a Dakota transport with seats along each side. We put our feet up on the cargo piled along the centre. We had 3 or 4 stops on the way. The WAAF were quartered in one of the several identical 4 storey building along Marine Drive in Bombay. Shortly before, one close by had collapsed due to poor construction.
Yes, we were miffed when, in May 1945, the rest of the world was celebrating the end of the war. One of my contacts was RAF Records. I was sending details of discovered downed aircraft in Burma and their occupants.
After the bomb, I was posted to Hong Kong but disembarked at Singapore because they needed a w/op. The Army had roughly cleaned up the Tanglin Barracks after the Japanese had departed. We finished the job and took occupancy.
In Singapore I met a sailor who took me for a ride on his minesweeper.
“Wiv bin tergevver nah fer nearly 69 years”
M.
PS Are there any more ex SEAC WAAF out there?