0:00:18 > 0:00:21Between 1939 and 1945,
0:00:21 > 0:00:27a remarkable band of 168 women helped keep Britain in the war.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30They were pioneers in aviation and equality.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33I think we were extraordinarily lucky.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35The best part of my life, I'm sure.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38It was fantastic.
0:00:38 > 0:00:45These trailblazers were part of the Air Transport Auxiliary, the ATA, a thousand-strong organization
0:00:45 > 0:00:52that delivered 300,000 aircraft to the frontline RAF during Britain's darkest hours.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58I just loved flying, I'd much rather be up in the air than down on the ground.
0:00:58 > 0:01:05Without them, the Battle of Britain may never have been won, and Britain's dominance in the air that
0:01:05 > 0:01:10paved the way for ultimate victory would never have been achieved.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14But their war wasn't all cramped cockpits and oily rags.
0:01:14 > 0:01:18If the RAF fighter pilots were the Hollywood stars of World War II,
0:01:18 > 0:01:21then these women were their leading ladies.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25No women in Britain in the war were more admired
0:01:25 > 0:01:29for doing their bit or for their uniform than the women of the ATA.
0:01:29 > 0:01:33Whether they liked it or not, they were the glamour girls of the war.
0:01:33 > 0:01:39We had lots of boyfriends, because at that time we were called the Glamour Girls.
0:01:39 > 0:01:46I don't know why, but there were always plenty of escorts around.
0:01:46 > 0:01:54If anybody pinched my behind, I was only thankful I was attractive enough to have my bottom pinched.
0:01:54 > 0:01:59But the pressure of keeping the RAF supplied with planes made it one of the most dangerous jobs in the war.
0:01:59 > 0:02:07The only time I frightened myself out of my wits was coming face to face with one of the Cotswold Hills.
0:02:07 > 0:02:14They didn't just need bags of courage to fly, they faced a constant struggle for recognition.
0:02:14 > 0:02:18I landed to pick him up and he said, "I never fly with the women.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21"Get out, I'm going to fly this aircraft."
0:02:21 > 0:02:24But their determination shone through, and they finally won the
0:02:24 > 0:02:30ultimate aviation prize of World War II - they flew the Spitfire.
0:02:33 > 0:02:38You could go up and play with the clouds, you know, and have great fun.
0:02:38 > 0:02:40It was so light, it was so with you.
0:02:40 > 0:02:41You were part of it.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44It was wonderful.
0:03:03 > 0:03:06Some of them look quite young, don't they?
0:03:06 > 0:03:09But they were! That's why they look quite young.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16At a Cotswolds country house, an elite group of ladies in their 80s
0:03:16 > 0:03:19have come together to discuss old times.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23They have one thing in common - they were all aviation pioneers.
0:03:23 > 0:03:29In World War II, they flew for the Air Transport Auxiliary, the ATA,
0:03:29 > 0:03:36delivering aircraft from factory to the RAF, and from a very early age, they needed no encouragement to fly.
0:03:36 > 0:03:39I was always saving up to try and go up and fly.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42I was always going to have a lucrative job.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45I don't know what at, make lots of money and learn to fly.
0:03:45 > 0:03:47Did you take all these with your camera?
0:03:47 > 0:03:48No idea.
0:03:48 > 0:03:49'I always wanted to fly.'
0:03:49 > 0:03:51I almost broke my neck twice
0:03:51 > 0:03:54jumping off a fence following a bird!
0:03:54 > 0:04:01In the 1920s, flying became something anyone who was rich and male could do.
0:04:01 > 0:04:06When women weren't supposed to venture out of the kitchen, one woman was to be their inspiration.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10Amy Johnson was Britain's pioneering aviatrix.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14She would also become an ATA girl in the war.
0:04:14 > 0:04:19It started in 1930, with this extraordinary flight from Croydon
0:04:19 > 0:04:25to Darwin, Australia in 12 days flat by a woman nobody had ever heard of.
0:04:25 > 0:04:31By the time she got to Darwin on Empire Day, there was a huge crowd to welcome her.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34She was a megastar for life.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38She's been described as the Posh - as in Becks -
0:04:38 > 0:04:43of her time, and that just about sums up the extraordinary
0:04:43 > 0:04:46vortex of fame that descended on her.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52It was the start of flying as a fashionable pursuit for the rest of the '30s.
0:04:52 > 0:04:56Amy Johnson inspired the women aviators, but it was
0:04:56 > 0:05:02defying gravity for the first time that hooked Freydis Sharland when she was just 10 years old.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05My brother Derek, who was up at Trinity College,
0:05:05 > 0:05:10Cambridge, rang me up one day and said there was an air display
0:05:10 > 0:05:13near us, would I like to go?
0:05:13 > 0:05:16And then he contacted my father,
0:05:16 > 0:05:20who gave us each 10 shillings because he presumed we'd want to
0:05:20 > 0:05:26go in a flight, which hadn't entered my head but, anyway, there it was.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30It was a demonstration flight, they told us,
0:05:30 > 0:05:35which meant we demonstrated all sorts of aerobatics
0:05:35 > 0:05:36and...
0:05:36 > 0:05:42after the first lot of flick rolls, my brother managed to strap me in
0:05:42 > 0:05:47and we did all sorts of different aerobatics,
0:05:47 > 0:05:49and at the end of it
0:05:49 > 0:05:54we did a great side slip down to the ground and landed,
0:05:54 > 0:06:00and when I got out, I said to Derek, I said, "If there's a war, that's what I'd like to do."
0:06:09 > 0:06:14Molly Rose fell so in love with flying, she took a job
0:06:14 > 0:06:17as an aircraft engineer after finishing school in Paris.
0:06:17 > 0:06:22It helped that her father owned the Marshall engineering and aviation empire.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26I was the only woman working on the hangar floor
0:06:26 > 0:06:29and I have to say that the chaps were extraordinarily kind to me.
0:06:29 > 0:06:35If I got stuck with a bolt, a jolly old nut I couldn't get off, there was usually someone
0:06:35 > 0:06:38around that you could say "help" and they would come and do it for you.
0:06:38 > 0:06:43I was bent double over a cockpit, rewiring this Tiger Moth,
0:06:43 > 0:06:50and suddenly I had a clip over the bow-hind, and so I gradually got
0:06:50 > 0:06:54myself out of this and looked around and there wasn't anyone to be seen.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58And so I just roared with laughter and went back into the cockpit.
0:06:58 > 0:07:03If I'd been very prim about it then I think they would have discarded me,
0:07:03 > 0:07:08but as it was, I was happy to work with them and they were happy to work with me.
0:07:08 > 0:07:13Ruined my hands for life but apart from that, it was fine.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16But it wasn't all chapped hands and tight nuts.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20If you were well-off, the thing to do was buy a plane of your own.
0:07:20 > 0:07:26Flying was the skiing of the interwar period for the very wealthy.
0:07:26 > 0:07:31At the controls of a plane, they could go to the Magyar pilots' picnic in Budapest,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34could be in Berlin for lunch.
0:07:34 > 0:07:39They could be entertained in Stockholm in the afternoon and, as Gordon Selfridge,
0:07:39 > 0:07:43the department store heir, told Rosemary Reiss, you won't have any fun without a plane.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49Wendy Sale-Barker learnt to fly so she could travel to South Africa
0:07:49 > 0:07:53with a friend for Christmas and ski in the Alps in the same season.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57They ran into a tremendous storm,
0:07:57 > 0:08:00outside Mount Kilimanjaro,
0:08:00 > 0:08:03and they crashed into a bush.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07The girls were missing and believed to have come down
0:08:07 > 0:08:11in lion-infested territory, but she wrote a message
0:08:11 > 0:08:14in lipstick, and a Maasai warrior took this message
0:08:14 > 0:08:19to the British Commissioner and help was sent.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22And this is the actual message.
0:08:22 > 0:08:25"Please come and fetch us.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29"We have had an air crash and are hurt."
0:08:29 > 0:08:34And it's signed Sale-Barker and Page, which were their surnames, in fact
0:08:34 > 0:08:39Audrey Sale-Barker was her real name, but she was always nicknamed Wendy,
0:08:39 > 0:08:45because in Peter Pan, Wendy had flown away and somehow that nickname always stuck.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55Wendy went on to become one of the first ATA girls.
0:08:55 > 0:09:01She also captained the British women's skiing team at the 1936 Olympics.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05It was here that another future ATA girl witnessed what Nazi Germany was like.
0:09:05 > 0:09:12Freydis Sharland's father won a gold medal for sailing at Kiel on the Baltic Coast.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17My mother and I, and my brother Derek were taken out each day
0:09:17 > 0:09:22in a tug or something to follow the racing, which was very exciting.
0:09:23 > 0:09:30One place we saw three U-boats launched in one day.
0:09:30 > 0:09:36We thought that surely nobody would be so stupid as to start another war.
0:09:36 > 0:09:42Having been brought up just after the First World War we could see the
0:09:42 > 0:09:49devastation and the awful mourning of all the people who'd lost things.
0:09:49 > 0:09:56Hitler came over one day to Kiel and there was this enormous crowd to greet him.
0:09:59 > 0:10:03And in the middle of it, everyone was saying, "Sieg heil, sieg heil,"
0:10:03 > 0:10:10and they all lifted up their arms, you know, and I was longing to put up my arm.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14I felt the power of it all but my mother looked at me daggers and,
0:10:14 > 0:10:20you know, I knew that I couldn't, because I would be going against my father and everyone.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24So I didn't, but it was very powerful.
0:10:24 > 0:10:29It was certainly a tremendous feeling of solidarity
0:10:29 > 0:10:32for him, and you could see what
0:10:32 > 0:10:34an influence he was.
0:10:37 > 0:10:44By the time war came, Freydis Sharland, then aged 18, had become less enchanted with Hitler.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48She wanted to fulfil her childhood ambition of flying for Britain,
0:10:48 > 0:10:51but the RAF and the flying establishment was rather against it.
0:10:51 > 0:10:57There were various articles written in the press saying that the women
0:10:57 > 0:11:01really ought to be staying in the kitchen, because if they didn't know
0:11:01 > 0:11:03how to cook their husbands dinner,
0:11:03 > 0:11:07how the heck could they fly an amazing high speed aeroplane?
0:11:07 > 0:11:10Women anxious to serve their country should take on
0:11:10 > 0:11:14work more befitting their sex instead of encroaching on a man's occupation.
0:11:14 > 0:11:20When the Air Transport Auxiliary, the ATA, was formed in 1939 to ferry
0:11:20 > 0:11:26aeroplanes from factory to the front line bases, it was, naturally, a male-only club.
0:11:26 > 0:11:31But they hadn't reckoned on the determination of one female trailblazer.
0:11:31 > 0:11:37Pauline Gower was a well-connected MP's daughter with a penchant for aerial acrobatics.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41Her daddy was an MP, so she moved in all the right circles.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46She had flown for a living in the 1930s, giving joy rides
0:11:46 > 0:11:50at the flying circuses, and she'd made a business out of flying.
0:11:50 > 0:11:57By the time war broke out in 1939, she had over 2,000 hours flying time, which was very high, and had
0:11:57 > 0:12:03safely flown tens of thousands of passengers on five-minute joy rides
0:12:03 > 0:12:05in a three-seater aeroplane her daddy bought her.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12It was Gower who first proposed that women might fly as part of the war effort.
0:12:12 > 0:12:19Pauline Gower was an establishment figure and knew, crucially, Gerard d'Erlanger, who set up the ATA,
0:12:19 > 0:12:21and Sir Francis Shelmerdine,
0:12:21 > 0:12:23Minister of Civil Aviation at the start of the war.
0:12:23 > 0:12:28There was one crucial meeting in September 1939 when Pauline Gower comes up
0:12:28 > 0:12:34to London to meet Gerard d'Erlanger and she says to him, "Why not women?
0:12:34 > 0:12:37"Why not women pilots?" To which his natural response is, "Why not?"
0:12:37 > 0:12:40And from that point they're both able to go on to meet
0:12:40 > 0:12:43with Sir Francis Shelmerdine, Minister of Civil Aviation.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47She has d'Erlanger's support and it's practically a done deal.
0:12:47 > 0:12:51She will be allowed to hire, initially, they tell her 12 pilots,
0:12:51 > 0:12:56but Shelmerdine cuts that to eight because of opposition from the RAF.
0:12:56 > 0:13:03The RAF insisted the first eight needed 500 flying hours, far more than was required for the men,
0:13:03 > 0:13:06but the press knew a good thing when they saw one.
0:13:06 > 0:13:11In January 1940, the first eight were introduced to the public.
0:13:11 > 0:13:13NEWSREADER: These women are in the news at home
0:13:13 > 0:13:17because they've undertaken a somewhat unusual war job.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20Miss Pauline Gower is their leader, and their work is to ferry
0:13:20 > 0:13:23new aircraft to the Royal Air Force from factory to aerodrome.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27The very first women pilots became known as the first eight.
0:13:27 > 0:13:31They were basically the eight women with the most hours, the most experience
0:13:31 > 0:13:34in the country, and seven of them were instructors.
0:13:34 > 0:13:39The main reason for the photo call was that the press had got wind of the fact that the ATA was hiring
0:13:39 > 0:13:44women, it was the middle of the Phoney War, there really wasn't much else to report,
0:13:44 > 0:13:48certainly nothing good or glamorous, so they flocked to Hatfield, it was a big deal.
0:13:48 > 0:13:55I think, really, that photo call was bowing to pressure and hoping that that would be an end to it.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58Of course, it ignited an appetite for the women of the ATA
0:13:58 > 0:14:01on Fleet Street that lasted throughout the war.
0:14:05 > 0:14:10But the first eight were allowed to pilot training planes, not state-of-the-art fighters.
0:14:10 > 0:14:15Over the next five years, the women struggled to overcome ingrained prejudice.
0:14:15 > 0:14:20Freydis Sharland was once asked to give a senior RAF officer a lift.
0:14:20 > 0:14:22I landed to pick him up
0:14:22 > 0:14:26and he said, "I never fly with the women. Get out!
0:14:26 > 0:14:27"I'm going to fly this aircraft."
0:14:27 > 0:14:32I felt furious about it all, but nothing I could do.
0:14:32 > 0:14:38Most people were glad to fly with me because I was a safe and good pilot.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45By June 1940, after defeat in the Battle of France
0:14:45 > 0:14:50and with the threat of invasion looming, pilots were in ever shorter supply.
0:14:50 > 0:14:55The second group of women were recruited in the summer of 1940.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58Well, that's Dunkirk,
0:14:58 > 0:15:01isn't it? It's about to be the Battle of Britain.
0:15:01 > 0:15:07The factories are churning out aeroplanes like a sausage machine, and they've all got to be moved.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10All arguments based on prejudice frankly went out the window,
0:15:10 > 0:15:13and when Churchill and those who reported to him
0:15:13 > 0:15:17understood those arguments,
0:15:17 > 0:15:21the lingering chauvinists in the RAF hierarchy really had...
0:15:21 > 0:15:26could only make a fool of themselves by continuing to resist the recruitments.
0:15:27 > 0:15:29Freydis Sharland had faced rejection when
0:15:29 > 0:15:37she first applied to join the ATA, but her cousin, a bomber pathfinder, had encouraged her to try again.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41He said, "Freydis, are you in the ATA yet?" and I said, "No, not yet."
0:15:41 > 0:15:43He said, "Why not? Write to them again.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45"It's the one thing you want to do."
0:15:45 > 0:15:47Which I agreed,
0:15:47 > 0:15:50so I did write again, and I must have written a better letter or
0:15:50 > 0:15:56something because they wrote and invited me to come for a flight test
0:15:56 > 0:16:00and after that, I was offered a place in ATA.
0:16:00 > 0:16:07Like many of the ATA girls, Freydis' contemporaries in her family served in the front line forces.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11Her brother Derek forewarned her of what fate might have in store.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15Derek was a very mature young man,
0:16:15 > 0:16:19and at the start of the war
0:16:19 > 0:16:22he'd been in Germany, he spoke German.
0:16:22 > 0:16:26He'd seen all the things we'd seen at Kiel and everything
0:16:26 > 0:16:29and he realised it was going to be a big battle.
0:16:29 > 0:16:35And he took me aside one day and said, "Once I get into action,
0:16:35 > 0:16:38"I'll be lucky enough to have a month or two,
0:16:38 > 0:16:41"but you must realise this will happen."
0:16:43 > 0:16:50Freydis joined a new wave of women recruits. They included volunteers from all round the globe.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53ATA became almost a Foreign Legion of the air.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57Their pilots came from 28 different countries.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01From Azerbaijan to South Africa, with everywhere in-between.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04The four girls who came from New Zealand
0:17:04 > 0:17:08paid for their own passage to England to join the ATA.
0:17:08 > 0:17:14And from South America came two different ladies, one from each side of the Andes.
0:17:14 > 0:17:19Maureen Dunlop came from Argentina, Margot Duhalde came from Chile,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22and nobody could say her name so they called her Chile.
0:17:22 > 0:17:27The 19-year-old Chile spoke no English and was briefly interned on her arrival in Britain.
0:17:27 > 0:17:32The language barrier would get her arrested again when she began to ferry planes.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36She had a false landing somewhere near Hatfield,
0:17:36 > 0:17:38I think in the first week, actually.
0:17:38 > 0:17:42And of course the police couldn't begin to understand why this woman
0:17:42 > 0:17:49who couldn't speak English was flying one of our aircraft around and so she
0:17:49 > 0:17:57was taken off to the police station and it did take ATA about, sort of, almost 24 hours to get her back.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01So ATA then decided she really better learn
0:18:01 > 0:18:06some English, so she went to work in the hangars and, of course,
0:18:06 > 0:18:10she took on board all the swear words the chaps had got.
0:18:10 > 0:18:15And so I think I learnt all my swear words from her.
0:18:15 > 0:18:21When I occasionally after all said, "bloody hell", it was always absolutely straight from Chile.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27The leading factions in the exotic women's section
0:18:27 > 0:18:31split into two separate types, the head girls and the it girls.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33Who attracted the attention?
0:18:33 > 0:18:36Who led the women's section of the ATA? The head girls.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40Young women with an extremely developed sense of duty,
0:18:40 > 0:18:45responsibility and the work, the sheer work they would have to put in
0:18:45 > 0:18:49to continue to persuade the male establishment they were up to the job.
0:18:49 > 0:18:55And then on the other hand from all over the world, but especially from her father's large estate in Surrey,
0:18:55 > 0:19:01Diana Barnato Walker led the contingent of it girls.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10The extraordinary Diana Barnato Walker died in 2008.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13Her son Barney is clearing out her house.
0:19:13 > 0:19:19It's packed with memories of her time flying in the war when Diana lived life to the limit.
0:19:19 > 0:19:20I don't know how they did it,
0:19:20 > 0:19:24I don't know how they found time to A, have a robust social life and B,
0:19:24 > 0:19:26do the serious bit about flying,
0:19:26 > 0:19:30but they seemed to, and so I think they led a very full life.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34At the end of a hard day's work, when she had done her job as professionally as she could, there
0:19:34 > 0:19:37was nothing amateur about her when she was flying,
0:19:37 > 0:19:40then she was off to London almost every single night.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44I don't think many of the others could keep up the pace.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55After partying all night in London, Diana would catch the early morning
0:19:55 > 0:19:59milk train down to Southampton and be in the air by 9am.
0:19:59 > 0:20:06She was always used to taking her own decisions and doing her own thing, and I suppose in ATA
0:20:06 > 0:20:11she tried to conform, but she did occasionally, you know,
0:20:11 > 0:20:15fly down to Cornwall to have lunch with a friend or something like that
0:20:15 > 0:20:18instead of delivering her aircraft straight away.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21Dear Diana, she generally got away with things like that.
0:20:21 > 0:20:26Diana always emerged from her plane with fresh war paint on.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29She always used to do her lipstick and powder her nose before she landed
0:20:29 > 0:20:33so she turned up looking, sort of, A1,
0:20:33 > 0:20:38but I mean, that was her way all the way through, to look glamorous.
0:20:38 > 0:20:44Glamour was the order of the day, but for most, sex was still a mystery.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48We hardly knew what sex was, let alone sexism in those days.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52And if anyone pinched my behind, I was only thankful
0:20:52 > 0:20:56I was attractive enough to have my bottom pinched.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00I didn't rush off and report it to someone but, no,
0:21:00 > 0:21:07I don't think there was too much, we were just all blokes together, if you like.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11If the majority didn't know what sex was, others were getting plenty of practice.
0:21:11 > 0:21:14Most of them don't seem to have had a great deal
0:21:14 > 0:21:18of sex during the war and probably wouldn't tell you if they had.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22Helen Harrison was one of the Americans that came over and vowed
0:21:22 > 0:21:29that she was going to have sex with every officer in the American army who she could lay her hands on.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32And she went about it with some gusto.
0:21:33 > 0:21:38Dorothy Hewitt was a very high-performance seductress,
0:21:38 > 0:21:45married three times, and one of those she wooed and married
0:21:45 > 0:21:46was Lord Beatty,
0:21:46 > 0:21:49the son of Admiral Lord Beatty of Jutland.
0:21:49 > 0:21:54And she subsequently had a scandalous affair with Sir Anthony Eden,
0:21:54 > 0:21:58which, had it become public, would have changed the course of history.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02But most of them
0:22:02 > 0:22:06were, I think, taking the work very seriously
0:22:06 > 0:22:11and certainly, on weekdays that ruled out sex.
0:22:11 > 0:22:16But even the most fun-loving ATA girl couldn't avoid the tragedy of war.
0:22:16 > 0:22:21Diana met 22-year-old squadron leader Humphrey Gilbert
0:22:21 > 0:22:25when she was forced to land in bad weather at his RAF base.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28Gilbert had the spark plugs removed from her plane.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31This kept her grounded long enough for them to fall in love.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34They were engaged within three weeks.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37The affair was going along swingingly
0:22:37 > 0:22:42and one day she didn't hear from him and she began to fear the worst, like you did in those days.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45You never knew when death was round the corner.
0:22:46 > 0:22:49Diana flew over, on a subsequent flight,
0:22:49 > 0:22:54the airfield where she thought he was, looking out for his Spitfire, which she knew had a blue nose.
0:22:54 > 0:22:56It wasn't there.
0:22:58 > 0:23:02On landing at her destination, Diana rushed to a telephone box
0:23:02 > 0:23:05to be told that Gilbert had been killed in his Spitfire.
0:23:17 > 0:23:22There, in a nutshell, you have the glamour of flying for the ATA
0:23:22 > 0:23:24and the tragedy of doing so in the middle of a war.
0:23:26 > 0:23:32By 1941, the girls were still restricted
0:23:32 > 0:23:35to flying antiquated planes,
0:23:35 > 0:23:39but that year, Pauline Gower, the head of the ATA's women's section,
0:23:39 > 0:23:44finally made the revolutionary breakthrough that allowed the girls to fly state-of-the-art fighters.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48There's a key moment in ATA history when
0:23:48 > 0:23:53Pauline Gower attends a party in May 1941 with Gerard d'Erlanger,
0:23:53 > 0:24:00and the question of whether or not women are ever going to be allowed to fly fighters comes up.
0:24:00 > 0:24:06She buttonholed d'Erlanger when he was a little bit harassed and asked
0:24:06 > 0:24:12him if there was any reason why the ladies shouldn't fly the Hurricanes and Spitfires just like the men.
0:24:12 > 0:24:17And he said, "Well, I don't suppose so." So she said, "When can we start?"
0:24:43 > 0:24:49Winnie Crossley, who was the first woman to fly a Hurricane, performed a perfect loop,
0:24:49 > 0:24:52climbed out and said, "It's a lovely little aeroplane, darlings."
0:25:01 > 0:25:07I believe it was a Friday but, either way, they pool their
0:25:07 > 0:25:10ration coupons and petrol money, drive down to London
0:25:10 > 0:25:13and have a slap-up dinner at the A L'Ecu de France,
0:25:13 > 0:25:18which I think then is the finest French restaurant in St James's.
0:25:21 > 0:25:27Then, in August 1941, the girls got their hands on the ultimate flying prize,
0:25:27 > 0:25:29the Spitfire.
0:25:38 > 0:25:42It was just a marvellous aeroplane. The aeroplane and you were just one
0:25:42 > 0:25:49together, and it would do just anything you wanted it to do.
0:25:49 > 0:25:52You were there with the cockpit around you.
0:25:52 > 0:25:57It was the nearest thing to flying oneself, because the slightest touch on the stick and it responded.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59Absolutely marvellous.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02It was a woman's aeroplane.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06It was poetry.
0:26:06 > 0:26:11It seemed kind of like riding a good horse.
0:26:13 > 0:26:20One ATA girl was already showing the men what a special Spitfire pilot she was.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23Lettice Curtis had been recruited in the second wave.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27In September 1941, shortly after she joined the ATA, Lettice Curtis took
0:26:27 > 0:26:34off in a Spitfire from Prestwick near Glasgow, destination White Waltham, the base of the ATA.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36It's a miserable day for flying.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42She knew the countryside,
0:26:42 > 0:26:45the mountains, the rivers,
0:26:45 > 0:26:50so she would wind her way
0:26:50 > 0:26:55up the valleys and...
0:26:57 > 0:27:01find a route to get to her destination
0:27:01 > 0:27:07when a lot of pilots, and particularly the Americans,
0:27:07 > 0:27:10who were used to wide open spaces,
0:27:10 > 0:27:17would say, "We'll wait till the weather will clear."
0:27:17 > 0:27:20There's no-one else in the air that day.
0:27:24 > 0:27:29When she lands at White Waltham there's a bunch of American pilots, all men,
0:27:29 > 0:27:35who have been on the ground all day because they'd decided it was a washout
0:27:35 > 0:27:40and Lettice says, "There must have been some consternation among those American men that a woman had
0:27:40 > 0:27:45"not only taken off from Prestwick, but got all the way down there in one piece."
0:27:45 > 0:27:49Consternation doesn't even begin how to say how upset the men would have
0:27:49 > 0:27:54been and how satisfied Lettice would have been to have achieved something that they couldn't.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58Lettice was the ultimate head girl, getting through with the plane in
0:27:58 > 0:28:01one piece using the most direct route.
0:28:01 > 0:28:07But some of the girls couldn't resist the temptation to have fun with the Spitfire.
0:28:07 > 0:28:12You could go up and play with the clouds, you know, and have great fun.
0:28:15 > 0:28:17My favourite
0:28:17 > 0:28:20was a vertical eight.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23You dived, come up,
0:28:23 > 0:28:29dived, turn, so you do a figure-8. It's graceful.
0:28:31 > 0:28:33This was the plane that you wore.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36The throbbing engine,
0:28:36 > 0:28:43the dancing through the air, the joy, the tremor in the wings...
0:28:45 > 0:28:47..it's perhaps more loyal than a man as well.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03But the joy of flying wasn't without its dangers.
0:29:03 > 0:29:08There's no doubt that weather was our worst enemy.
0:29:08 > 0:29:16I think we had about 136 casualties, and I would think that 75% of them were to do with the weather.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19This is a cloudy country, it's a hilly country,
0:29:19 > 0:29:22and the fear that
0:29:22 > 0:29:27engulfs you as quickly as the cloud is you'll simply fly into a hill, or a tree, or a church tower.
0:29:27 > 0:29:32The women were expected to fly using only landmarks on the ground to guide them.
0:29:32 > 0:29:36They were unarmed and without radios.
0:29:36 > 0:29:41I frightened myself out of my wits coming face to face with one of the Cotswold hills.
0:29:41 > 0:29:43Fortunately I'd got enough power
0:29:43 > 0:29:45to actually put pressure on to go up over it.
0:29:52 > 0:29:55Cloud meant death, or as good as.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59You had to be very lucky to fly into cloud and get out of it alive.
0:30:01 > 0:30:06This morning, there were five of us flying Spitfires.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09The weather was not good.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15I decided that I could cope.
0:30:15 > 0:30:21Dora Lang, my friend, decided she could cope.
0:30:21 > 0:30:23The other three decided that they wouldn't.
0:30:27 > 0:30:30We were both going to the same place.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36When I got to this place,
0:30:36 > 0:30:41I could hardly see the aerodrome, and as I landed,
0:30:41 > 0:30:46I was whistling down the runway and to my horror,
0:30:46 > 0:30:50another Spitfire coming in the opposite direction
0:30:50 > 0:30:54doing exactly the same as I was doing, rushing down the runway
0:30:54 > 0:30:57and there we were, two Spitfires
0:30:57 > 0:31:03landed exactly the same time in the opposite directions.
0:31:03 > 0:31:09It was an absolute miracle that we didn't touch each other,
0:31:09 > 0:31:16and didn't even see each other until we actually passed on the runway.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20That was very frightening, afterwards, thinking about it.
0:31:24 > 0:31:31We tended to keep to the left side of the runway, so I was on my left
0:31:31 > 0:31:35and she was on her left, and that saved our lives.
0:31:49 > 0:31:56If I ever started having nightmares that I was crashing my aeroplane or something, then I'd know that
0:31:56 > 0:32:01I'd been pressing on too much and frightening myself, I suppose.
0:32:02 > 0:32:06But nightmare and reality were never very far apart.
0:32:06 > 0:32:11Mary Wilkins-Ellis and her friend Dora Lang had survived one near miss.
0:32:11 > 0:32:18Dora wasn't so lucky when she was ferrying a twin-engine Mosquito with a female engineer.
0:32:18 > 0:32:25She was about to land, and for some reason, the aeroplane suddenly shot
0:32:25 > 0:32:32up into the air and then fell down onto the runway, burst into flames,
0:32:32 > 0:32:35and that was the end of everything.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39So, Dora was killed
0:32:39 > 0:32:44and so was the pretty little engineer girl.
0:32:44 > 0:32:46Very sad.
0:32:49 > 0:32:55There was something rather brutal about the way that deaths were reported in the ferry pools.
0:32:55 > 0:33:01The operations officer would simply erase the name on the blackboard
0:33:01 > 0:33:06that all the women would look at to know where they were supposed to be flying the next day.
0:33:07 > 0:33:09I missed her terribly.
0:33:09 > 0:33:13She was a very nice person,
0:33:13 > 0:33:19and for two days I was not allowed to fly.
0:33:19 > 0:33:26I didn't want to, but after that, one realised there is a war on,
0:33:26 > 0:33:31we must get on with our jobs, and we did.
0:33:32 > 0:33:39The most famous woman flier of all was ultimately to become an ATA fatality.
0:33:39 > 0:33:42Amy Johnson, the inspiration for British
0:33:42 > 0:33:47women fliers, got lost in cloud whilst ferrying a plane in 1941.
0:33:47 > 0:33:51She bailed out over the Thames Estuary and was lost at sea.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56Nearly one in ten of the women fliers were to lose their lives,
0:33:56 > 0:34:00making it one of the most dangerous jobs in the war.
0:34:00 > 0:34:03Yes, quite a few of our friends
0:34:03 > 0:34:05were killed.
0:34:05 > 0:34:07Yes.
0:34:09 > 0:34:14But that was part of the game really, wasn't it?
0:34:14 > 0:34:17You couldn't always get away with murder.
0:34:19 > 0:34:22SHE SIGHS
0:34:26 > 0:34:33By 1942, Britain's position was still perilous and ever more recruits were needed for the ATA.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36The United States had just entered the war
0:34:36 > 0:34:40and would now provide the largest contingent of foreign women fliers.
0:34:40 > 0:34:46Nancy Stratford travelled to England in 1942 not knowing what to expect.
0:34:46 > 0:34:50We got over to Liverpool
0:34:50 > 0:34:52and the first night,
0:34:52 > 0:34:55there was an air-raid siren.
0:34:55 > 0:34:58I didn't know what to do so I got under the bed.
0:34:58 > 0:35:01I realised it was a war zone
0:35:01 > 0:35:07and that it was difficult, and it was going to be difficult,
0:35:07 > 0:35:09but I wanted to help.
0:35:09 > 0:35:15The most difficult thing Roberta Leveaux had to cope with was an English breakfast.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18We were served kippers.
0:35:18 > 0:35:20Do you know what kippers are?
0:35:22 > 0:35:28The whole darn fish with its eye open!
0:35:28 > 0:35:29Greasy!
0:35:33 > 0:35:35Oh, dear.
0:35:35 > 0:35:39It was very hard to eat,
0:35:39 > 0:35:41but we did not
0:35:41 > 0:35:43want to offend the English.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47Roberta needn't have worried about upsetting her hosts.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51The American who recruited her would soon be doing that.
0:35:51 > 0:35:56Jackie Cochrane was a flamboyant American flier not known for her modesty.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00Jackie Cochrane had an extraordinary rags-to-riches story.
0:36:00 > 0:36:04Born an orphan, she picked her own name from the phone book.
0:36:04 > 0:36:05Married a billionaire,
0:36:05 > 0:36:08became a millionaire in her own right
0:36:08 > 0:36:10with a chain of cosmetics stores
0:36:10 > 0:36:14all over the United States which she serviced by air.
0:36:14 > 0:36:19She was a fanatical pilot, and she made it her mission to show the American flying
0:36:19 > 0:36:22establishment that women could fly and should fly in the war.
0:36:22 > 0:36:25And to that end she recruited 25 women pilots,
0:36:25 > 0:36:30took them over to Britain, and got them places in the ATA.
0:36:30 > 0:36:37She had a hard way, speaking was intolerant, a lot of profanity.
0:36:40 > 0:36:44We were a little in awe
0:36:44 > 0:36:48of her, and kind of embarrassed by her.
0:36:48 > 0:36:53Jackie Cochrane came swanning around like Queen Bee in her Bentley and a fur coat.
0:36:53 > 0:36:59The Americans brought something different, I think, to ATA.
0:36:59 > 0:37:04They brought American informality and American,
0:37:04 > 0:37:09shall we say, difficulty with stuffy Britishness.
0:37:09 > 0:37:14They had a ball, and some of the Brits, I don't think, could cope with this.
0:37:15 > 0:37:21At our headquarters, which was called White Waltham,
0:37:21 > 0:37:28I remember saying they look at us as if we were a bad smell.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32One person in particular turned her nose up at the Americans.
0:37:32 > 0:37:34Lettice Curtis.
0:37:36 > 0:37:41And she just didn't waste any time talking with us.
0:37:41 > 0:37:45She was really horrid to a lot of the young people
0:37:45 > 0:37:47when they came into ATA.
0:37:47 > 0:37:52I could have kicked her sometimes, she was so beastly, but she couldn't help it.
0:37:52 > 0:37:55She was just born like that, I think!
0:37:55 > 0:38:00Cochrane's newly-arrived Americans were on a collision course with the British.
0:38:00 > 0:38:06They might have thought that they would be welcomed with open arms and gratitude.
0:38:06 > 0:38:11They were, instead, read the rule book at a meeting in London
0:38:11 > 0:38:14when they finally got down from Liverpool,
0:38:14 > 0:38:17taken out to White Waltham and asked to strip...
0:38:19 > 0:38:22..because the doctor there, Arthur Barber,
0:38:22 > 0:38:26who turned out to have a predilection for 16mm adult films,
0:38:26 > 0:38:31insisted that all ATA recruits, male and female,
0:38:31 > 0:38:33strip for their medicals.
0:38:35 > 0:38:39Jackie Cochrane wasn't about to let the Brits get away with it.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43When Jackie Cochrane found out about this, she tore down from
0:38:43 > 0:38:47London to White Waltham and said, "Where is it written that my pilots have to be examined in the buff?"
0:38:47 > 0:38:52And because she was a pal of Roosevelt's, they backed down
0:38:52 > 0:38:57and the American recruits had their medicals with their clothes on. But that's an example
0:38:57 > 0:39:02of the scant respect shown to these women who had taken
0:39:02 > 0:39:06their lives in their hands to come and fly for the ATA.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11Jackie Cochrane's abrasiveness upset her more stuffy British hosts.
0:39:11 > 0:39:13She never really settled in Britain.
0:39:13 > 0:39:20After a few months, she returned to the US to set up an American equivalent of the women's ATA.
0:39:20 > 0:39:24I know Cochrane wanted to prove the fact that we could do it.
0:39:24 > 0:39:31The British women did the job, we just kind of went over and helped a little bit.
0:39:32 > 0:39:37In 1942, with war planes still pouring out of the factories, ATA
0:39:37 > 0:39:43had enough women pilots to establish two women-only ferry pools.
0:39:43 > 0:39:47The first was at Hamble near Southampton, close to one of the Spitfire factories.
0:39:47 > 0:39:53There were about 30 pilots down there and a tremendous variety
0:39:53 > 0:39:54of nationalities,
0:39:54 > 0:40:00and so it was really almost a sort of league of nations down there.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04Hamble restroom, I think, would make a very good television programme
0:40:04 > 0:40:07in itself, because there were several nationalities.
0:40:07 > 0:40:12There was Spanish being spoken in one corner, Polish in another.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14High-pitched chattering...
0:40:16 > 0:40:20..and yes, a very nice atmosphere. We were all friends.
0:40:20 > 0:40:23People doing yoga in one corner.
0:40:23 > 0:40:29People with perhaps, material spread out on the floor, cutting something out that they were making.
0:40:29 > 0:40:32Knitting, darning stockings!
0:40:32 > 0:40:34HE CHUCKLES
0:40:34 > 0:40:37Make do and mend, I do like that!
0:40:38 > 0:40:42Others playing bridge, I used to play a lot of bridge and that was good.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45When the weather was bad, you could settle down
0:40:45 > 0:40:49and hope that the weather would stay bad
0:40:49 > 0:40:55so you could spend the day, and then suddenly the weather would change and you'd all have to go and fly -
0:40:55 > 0:40:59the last thing you wanted to do having been playing bridge all day,
0:40:59 > 0:41:01but anyway, you had to, so that's that.
0:41:05 > 0:41:11With its entirely female crew, Hamble was nicknamed The Lesbian Pool -
0:41:11 > 0:41:13despite the lack of any evidence.
0:41:13 > 0:41:18But one girl, Joy Ferguson, certainly wasn't interested in men.
0:41:18 > 0:41:20She actually wanted to become one.
0:41:20 > 0:41:26Joy had a sort of masculine brain, I always thought.
0:41:26 > 0:41:30She thought like a man, though she appeared to be a perfectly ordinary woman.
0:41:30 > 0:41:38But after the war, she had to decide whether she would go through all the palaver of becoming a man
0:41:38 > 0:41:41and she did that, I think, hoping that
0:41:41 > 0:41:44she would become a proper man and get married and that sort of thing.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47She was a very brave person.
0:41:47 > 0:41:52She did talk to me about it, and I was rather shocked I think to start with.
0:41:54 > 0:41:56And then eventually, she died
0:41:56 > 0:42:00not having achieved what she wanted to achieve, though she'd...
0:42:01 > 0:42:04done a lot, been a lot.
0:42:04 > 0:42:10And a lot of people respected her very much for what she had achieved, both as a man and as a woman.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18The Hamble girls often vied to fly the best and newest planes.
0:42:18 > 0:42:24Occasionally that friendly competition spilled over into open rivalry.
0:42:24 > 0:42:30I think that Chile said that she became fairly anti Anna Leska,
0:42:30 > 0:42:32who was one of the Polish girls.
0:42:32 > 0:42:39On one occasion, I was in a Fairchild with Anna and Chile,
0:42:39 > 0:42:43and one of them turned to the other and said, "How many petrols
0:42:43 > 0:42:49"did we got?" And the other said, "You don't say that, you say 'how many petrols HAVE we got'."
0:42:49 > 0:42:51And so, which was really very sweet, and I sat
0:42:51 > 0:42:56in the back thinking, "As long as we've got petrol, we'll be all right!"
0:42:56 > 0:43:01For some reason they didn't hit it off, and on one occasion, actually
0:43:01 > 0:43:06became involved in what seems to be the only all-female dogfight
0:43:06 > 0:43:09of the war above Hamble.
0:43:09 > 0:43:13It's tempting, isn't it, to call it a catfight.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20It was basically a jostling for position
0:43:20 > 0:43:21before coming in to land.
0:43:21 > 0:43:26Basically queue-barging by the Chilean of the Polaka, as she called her, the Pole.
0:43:26 > 0:43:31The incident between the Chilean, Duhalde, and the Pole, Anna Leska,
0:43:31 > 0:43:34was reported to their commanding officer, Margot Gore.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42Margot Gore has Leska and Duhalde in and says, "One of you
0:43:42 > 0:43:46"has got to apologise and Duhalde, it's you, otherwise you're out."
0:43:46 > 0:43:49And so she does, she says, "Anna, I'm very sorry."
0:43:49 > 0:43:52And then on the way out of the room, by her own accounts,
0:43:52 > 0:43:55she says, "After the war, I'll knock your teeth out."
0:43:56 > 0:44:00Chile and Anna Leska got on with the important work of
0:44:00 > 0:44:05delivering planes from the factories around Hamble to the front line.
0:44:05 > 0:44:09The daily routine started with the handing out of the delivery chits.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14Suddenly, they would come out, and if were painting our nails
0:44:14 > 0:44:16we had to rush off into
0:44:16 > 0:44:21the locker room to do something about our nails.
0:44:21 > 0:44:25It was like a schoolgirl's place, really!
0:44:25 > 0:44:27SHE LAUGHS
0:44:27 > 0:44:33Unlike RAF pilots, they weren't just flying one plane, often they flew several in a day
0:44:33 > 0:44:39and those planes could vary from state-of-the-art fighters to heavy four-engine bombers.
0:44:39 > 0:44:41That was the most exciting part about it.
0:44:41 > 0:44:44You didn't know what you were going to do that day.
0:44:44 > 0:44:49We'd say to each other, "Oh, look what I've got! Look what I've got!"
0:44:52 > 0:44:55And that was terribly exciting.
0:44:55 > 0:45:03It was sometimes frightening as well, because the aeroplanes were all different.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06You'd get out of a Tiger Moth
0:45:06 > 0:45:12into a Wellington Bomber and then into a Spitfire.
0:45:12 > 0:45:16And so, one had to know what one was doing.
0:45:19 > 0:45:24This was August, on the 1st, I flew a Spitfire and a Hellcat.
0:45:24 > 0:45:29On the 2nd, I flew a Firebrand and a Warwick.
0:45:29 > 0:45:36On the 4th, I flew a Fairchild, a Walrus and a Reliant.
0:45:36 > 0:45:39You weren't very busy, then?
0:45:39 > 0:45:43No, that was not a very busy time.
0:45:43 > 0:45:45When one looks back at it,
0:45:45 > 0:45:47you think it couldn't have been possible,
0:45:47 > 0:45:53but it was, and we did it, and I enjoyed it.
0:45:53 > 0:45:57Often, they hadn't trained on the plane they were about to fly.
0:45:57 > 0:46:02Their only instruction would be the Ferry Pilots Notes they consulted in the air.
0:46:02 > 0:46:07You got a list of them on the front page, and when you were flying a new type,
0:46:07 > 0:46:09you opened the page
0:46:09 > 0:46:13and it gave you the salient features, and you stuck that in the top of your
0:46:13 > 0:46:17flying booth, and so when you were coming in to land
0:46:17 > 0:46:19or anything else,
0:46:19 > 0:46:22- you could look it up. - It was like a Bible.
0:46:22 > 0:46:25It was all there.
0:46:29 > 0:46:33The women's section of the ATA was by now thriving.
0:46:33 > 0:46:37But the girls were still on 20% less pay than the male pilots.
0:46:37 > 0:46:42It was time for Pauline Gower to step in once again and sort things out.
0:46:42 > 0:46:48Her natural sense of justice made her think women should receive equal pay for equal work.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51How she arranged it was typical Pauline Gower.
0:46:51 > 0:46:56She had a friend who was a woman Tory MP.
0:46:56 > 0:47:03She put her up to asking a question in the Commons of Sir Stafford Cripps, the then Aviation Minister,
0:47:03 > 0:47:09"Is it the case, sir, that henceforth women ATA pilots will be paid the same as men?"
0:47:09 > 0:47:16And she let it be known that there would be a fuss if the answer was no, and the answer was yes,
0:47:16 > 0:47:22and to my knowledge, it's the first instance of equal pay for equal work for women in British history.
0:47:27 > 0:47:32Not only had the ATA girls arrived, the press still couldn't get enough of them.
0:47:32 > 0:47:40In 1944, Maureen Dunlop became a pin-up girl when she appeared on the front cover of Picture Post.
0:47:40 > 0:47:44I didn't know they were actually taking it when they took it,
0:47:44 > 0:47:46because they had come to take photographs and I said,
0:47:46 > 0:47:48"I'm busy, I want to put this away,"
0:47:48 > 0:47:51and I was doing this or something or other and they...
0:47:53 > 0:47:55Maureen was an unlikely glamour girl.
0:47:55 > 0:47:58She preferred solitude to celebrity.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01Flying meant more to me than most things.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05What I didn't like later on was, when you had a turn - you had to
0:48:05 > 0:48:09fly the taxi aircraft collecting all the people and dropping off.
0:48:09 > 0:48:11That was terribly social
0:48:11 > 0:48:14and terribly chatty, but I didn't do that very often, possibly.
0:48:18 > 0:48:20Maureen was the most beautiful girl.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23You don't think about it in those days, you accept people as they are,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26but looking back on it, she had this wonderful sort of...
0:48:26 > 0:48:30it wasn't auburn - almost auburn - hair, very heavy and long.
0:48:30 > 0:48:32She was really beautiful.
0:48:34 > 0:48:38Even though the girls were now officially equals, some still
0:48:38 > 0:48:42found it hard to accept that women were flying combat planes.
0:48:42 > 0:48:47Mary Wilkins-Ellis once delivered a heavy Wellington Bomber to an RAF base.
0:48:47 > 0:48:53There on the ground was the RAF waiting...
0:48:53 > 0:48:55with a car...
0:48:55 > 0:49:01..looking around, and I said, "Are you taking me to the Control?"
0:49:01 > 0:49:05And they said, "No, we're waiting for the pilot."
0:49:05 > 0:49:08And I said, "I AM the pilot",
0:49:08 > 0:49:12and, do you know, they didn't believe me.
0:49:12 > 0:49:18They actually went inside the aeroplane and searched it
0:49:18 > 0:49:20to try and find the pilot!
0:49:20 > 0:49:25But, of course, there was none so they eventually took me to
0:49:25 > 0:49:31the control tower, and everybody was flabbergasted
0:49:31 > 0:49:38that a little girl like me could fly these big aeroplanes all by oneself.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46The Hamble girls flew daily over the Solent.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50In 1944, this meant they were uniquely amongst the few who knew
0:49:50 > 0:49:54the invasion of Europe was about to take place.
0:49:54 > 0:50:00You took off from Hamble and you could see Southampton Water, so you had a very good view,
0:50:00 > 0:50:03and it just got more and more ships of all types.
0:50:03 > 0:50:07I was flying over and I thought, "Well, how extraordinary.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11"All those ships!"
0:50:11 > 0:50:13It was just a mass.
0:50:13 > 0:50:16You could have walked from one side to another on the ships.
0:50:16 > 0:50:24The next morning, I flew over and there was not a single ship to be seen anywhere.
0:50:24 > 0:50:28They'd all gone off in the night.
0:50:28 > 0:50:33The Hamble river was absolutely covered in little boats.
0:50:33 > 0:50:36Then you woke up one morning...
0:50:37 > 0:50:39..and they'd all gone...
0:50:40 > 0:50:43..and you realised D-day was happening.
0:50:53 > 0:51:00I was given a Spitfire to fly from somewhere down there up to Oxford,
0:51:00 > 0:51:02and I think I wept all the way.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06I felt very sad because of all my friends
0:51:06 > 0:51:09who weren't able to join in it.
0:51:09 > 0:51:15Freydis Sharland lost seven cousins in the war, and her brother, Derek.
0:51:15 > 0:51:20Derek had forewarned her of the loss she would endure, and of his own death.
0:51:20 > 0:51:26It was very typical of him, trying to soften the blow for me, really.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29He could see how...
0:51:29 > 0:51:32upset I was by losing...
0:51:32 > 0:51:36such dear friends and...
0:51:36 > 0:51:39he wanted to prepare me...
0:51:39 > 0:51:42for the awful things that were going to happen...
0:51:42 > 0:51:45and he did really, like that.
0:51:46 > 0:51:50I thought it was very kind of him, you know...
0:51:50 > 0:51:51to...
0:51:51 > 0:51:57..make the effort to tell me what he'd thought about.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12Molly Rose's husband, Bernard, was a tank commander on D-day.
0:52:12 > 0:52:17He was in the first wave of tanks to go in at Arromanches.
0:52:17 > 0:52:19Seven days later, our Churchill tanks
0:52:19 > 0:52:24were no match for the German Tigers, and his tank was blown up.
0:52:24 > 0:52:31And the first thing I got down at Hamble was a letter saying that
0:52:31 > 0:52:35no way could anyone have got out of it, and...
0:52:35 > 0:52:38that was really a very nasty letter to arrive.
0:52:40 > 0:52:43But Molly couldn't accept that Bernard was dead.
0:52:43 > 0:52:47I felt I would know if anything had happened to Bernard, and I felt
0:52:47 > 0:52:52he was all right, but it was very... It helped me enormously to feel that.
0:52:55 > 0:53:03Following the wartime slogan, "Keep Calm And Carry On", Molly decided to continue flying.
0:53:03 > 0:53:09It was a tremendous help during that period to have my own concerns to worry about.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12You know, it was very character-forming, I think.
0:53:12 > 0:53:14And then about...
0:53:14 > 0:53:19two months later, I got a card from him from Brunswick...
0:53:19 > 0:53:22from the POW camp there...
0:53:22 > 0:53:27saying, you know, he hadn't been damaged, he was all right, and that there he was.
0:53:30 > 0:53:34Bernard survived his experience as a POW.
0:53:34 > 0:53:39He and Molly remained together until Bernard's death in 1996.
0:53:43 > 0:53:47After D-day, ATA girls were initially banned from
0:53:47 > 0:53:51ferrying planes to the continent, but one girl was to break that rule.
0:53:53 > 0:53:58The trailblazer who ensured that women would fly to Northern Europe
0:53:58 > 0:53:59was Diana Barnato Walker, who else?
0:53:59 > 0:54:02She was, by this time, married to
0:54:02 > 0:54:08Derek Walker, Wing Commander Derek Walker, who was stationed
0:54:08 > 0:54:13with the Allied Headquarters in Brussels, and arranged for
0:54:13 > 0:54:19his Commanding Officer to provide a letter allowing him to bring
0:54:19 > 0:54:22his newlywed wife to Brussels.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26It was vague as to whether she was flying her own Spitfire,
0:54:26 > 0:54:31but she was, and they flew wingtip to wingtip out over the cliffs of Dover in October 1944.
0:54:42 > 0:54:45And then the Mail got wind of this, the Daily Mail,
0:54:45 > 0:54:50and said that Derek Walker had taken his wife to Brussels for a honeymoon
0:54:50 > 0:54:53and he was docked three months' pay,
0:54:53 > 0:54:56so that might have at least paid for the fuel.
0:54:58 > 0:55:01Diana's honeymoon was short-lived.
0:55:03 > 0:55:10This is a piece of Derek Walker's Mustang 5, in which he crashed
0:55:10 > 0:55:15on November 14th, 1945 and was killed.
0:55:24 > 0:55:29Diana, the epitome of the fun-loving ATA girl, remained single
0:55:29 > 0:55:32and devoted to flying for the rest of her life.
0:55:35 > 0:55:40By 1945, the Allies had achieved total dominance in the air.
0:55:40 > 0:55:43Fewer planes needed to be delivered.
0:55:43 > 0:55:47As war ended, the ATA was wound down.
0:55:47 > 0:55:50I was very wicked, I never wanted the war to end, so I could
0:55:50 > 0:55:56go on and on and on, but whenever possible I'd get near enough to pat a Spitfire and a Hurricane,
0:55:56 > 0:55:59and look into it, too...
0:55:59 > 0:56:02..still amazed at how tiny the cockpit is.
0:56:02 > 0:56:05I wondered how I did it,
0:56:05 > 0:56:07but then I was young at the time.
0:56:11 > 0:56:15For many, it was the end of the best years of their lives.
0:56:17 > 0:56:23The ATA was the main thing in my life, I'm sure it was...
0:56:23 > 0:56:26It was difficult to get into...
0:56:26 > 0:56:29and...
0:56:29 > 0:56:33a lot of hard work to get going in it and...
0:56:34 > 0:56:37..Yes, I was sad to leave it.
0:56:37 > 0:56:39Very...
0:56:39 > 0:56:41..The best part of my life, I'm sure.
0:56:41 > 0:56:43Mmm...
0:56:44 > 0:56:50For Pauline Gower, heading the Women's Section was to be the achievement of her life.
0:56:50 > 0:56:53She died in childbirth in 1947.
0:56:56 > 0:57:02Lettice Curtis, the most accomplished of the women fliers, dreamt of becoming an airline pilot,
0:57:02 > 0:57:07but all the de-mobbed RAF boys put an end to that.
0:57:07 > 0:57:10I think she dreaded whatever was to come.
0:57:10 > 0:57:14She remained unmarried, except to aviation, she worked for
0:57:14 > 0:57:19the Fairey Aircraft Company, but she was never a civilian pilot.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22There was never any question that...
0:57:22 > 0:57:25that opportunity would come along.
0:57:25 > 0:57:30One of the pilots, Jackie Sorour, did become Britain's first commercial airline pilot.
0:57:30 > 0:57:32Was it BOAC to Paris or New York?
0:57:32 > 0:57:36No, it was from Bristol to the Channel Islands,
0:57:36 > 0:57:40I think, and she was constantly mistaken for a flight attendant.
0:57:41 > 0:57:48The unique moment when women fliers almost gained equality with their male counterparts soon disappeared.
0:57:48 > 0:57:53For women to be flying the whole range of aeroplanes, from ancient
0:57:53 > 0:58:00bi-planes to super-fast Spitfires and lumbering great Lancasters, is just unbelievable stuff.
0:58:00 > 0:58:05It could never, never happen again, where girls could fly all these
0:58:05 > 0:58:10military aeroplanes without any aids whatsoever,
0:58:10 > 0:58:15and go from one aeroplane to another without any instruction...
0:58:15 > 0:58:20because I flew 76 types...
0:58:22 > 0:58:26My days of glamour have gone now...
0:58:26 > 0:58:30I'm just trying to get safely through old age!
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