By Ellenor Lambert
I joined the WAAF in September 1941 and after initiation at Gloucester was posted to Blackpool to train for my choice as an MT Driver, having visions of driving staff cars with the VIP's that go with them. Unfortunately, I was late in the queue, so it was to be vans, tractors or lorries for me! In spite of my efforts it soon became clear, after several trips along the Preston by-pass, where my Instructor once introduced me to George Formby, that I was not going to make it and I was informed that I should remuster to something more suitable to my talents. Having come from a rural background, these, I must admit, were limited. My other main memory of this time were the living quarters provided for us. These were the boarding houses taken over for the duration complete with owners, the famous seaside landladies, still in charge. Conditions were spartan and overcrowded with as many girls as possible under one roof and it wasn't only food that was rationed. We were not allowed to have baths and once a week were inarched to Derby Baths for this purpose, any benefit being dissipated on the march back!
Perhaps the biggest insult we suffered was the landlady constantly stating that she preferred men to women being billeted on her and it was a relief when I found myself on the way to Stradishall for training as a telephone operator. Here, under much better conditions, both Stradishall and Newmarket being operational, I was taught my new trade by RAF Instructors before being sent to Hull for "finishing" by GPO operators. In May 1942, after a delay awaiting posting, I had the good fortune to pick out a plum, another operational
station, Pocklington.
For a girl brought up in deepest Norfolk I had been lucky to see such a lot of the country, with six different bases in eight months, but now I was to settle down to an important job with 4 Group which started just before the 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne and lasted to the end of the war.
As a LACW, I was employed on normal station telephone duties but, after passing tests and being promoted corporal, I was moved into the Operations Room, having been made aware of the confidential and secret nature of the work. We should never forget that Bomber Command was still on its own in taking the fight to the enemy and I consider it a great honour that I was so intimately concerned with the runnng of such an important part of that campaign and to have been involved with those men of 102 and other squadrons, a large number of whom made the full sacrifice for us.
During my stay at Pocklington I served with several Station and Base Commanders, including the great Gus Walker who I met again when he was SASO at Group HQ. I remember many tales of his efficiency, his almost magical ability to obtain the best out of people, his fairness and his concern for all ranks. But, perhaps, the most interesting, as far as I am concerned, and quite typical of him, came many years later at Durham, where I live, in 1976. My husband discovered that the Boys' Brigade Annual Conference was being held at the University with Gus, its President, in the Chair. So I dropped him a note pointing out that only a short distance away from where he was lived a lady who worked with him during the war and sometimes made his cocoa during the long hours of waiting for aircraft to return. In a very short time he was on my doorstep to renew our acquaintance and to talk about old times.
My final memory of 102 squadron is flying in one of its Halifaxes over Germany at the end of the war on what was known as a Cook's Tour: but I have never obtained a driving licence!
Helen Woodward, (formerly 2012776 Cpl.Lambert, WAAF)
August 1998 - RECOLLECTIONS OF A WAAF |
March 2005 - LANDING WAS NOT ALWAYS EASY
March 2008 - (Coming Soon) |
November 2008 - (Coming Soon)
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