Bluebirds Read online

  About the Book

  1939 – Officer Felicity Newman and a ragtag group of young women arrive at RAF Colston. They are the first of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force: brave female pilots ready to do their bit.

  But Station Commander, David Palmer, doesn’t want them. They’re a nuisance, unable to do the work of men, and they would undoubtedly fall apart if the station was bombed.

  Felicity is determined to prove the worth of her ‘Bluebirds’. There’s Anne, who loves to dance but finds herself peeling vegetables in the station kitchens. Winnie, who longs to work on the aeroplanes themselves but meets rejection at every turn. And Virginia, who is desperate to build a new life for herself.

  As the war goes on, so the girls make their mark – behaving heroically under fire, supporting the pilots with their strength, loyalty, and often their love – a love sometimes tragic, sometimes passionate, but always courageous.

  Contents

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword

  Part 1: Assembly

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Part 2: Progress

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part 3: Achievement

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Part 4: Reckoning

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  About the Author

  Also by Margaret Mayhew

  Copyright

  Bluebirds

  Margaret Mayhew

  For Philip

  Look for the Silver Lining. Music by Jerome Kern, words by Buddy DeSylva. Used by permission of Redwood Music Ltd, Iron Bridge House, 3 Bridge Approach, London NW1 8BD

  There’ll Always Be An England. Words and music by Ross Parker and Hugh Charles. Copyright © 1939 Dash Music Co Ltd, 8/9 Frith Street, London WIV 5TZ. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved.

  The White Cliffs of Dover. Music by Walter Kent, words by Nat Burton. Copyright © 1941 Shapiro Bernstein & Co Inc, USA. Reproduced by permission of B. Feldman and Co Ltd, London WC2H OEA

  RAF songs from Eric Marsden’s collection, ‘Songs We Sang’, compiled for Tangmere Military Aviation Museum, Sussex.

  Acknowledgements

  I should like to thank the many ex-WAAF and ex-RAF who kindly gave me their time to tell me about their experiences during the Second World War. I also thank American Eighth Air Force veterans, Bill Ganz and Bill Nelson.

  I am particularly indebted to the following: Squadron Leader Tadeusz Andersz, DFC, of the Polish Air Force Association, London, Squadron Leader Jack Currie, DFC, Elizabeth Davies, Peter Elliott, Keeper of Aviation Records at RAF Museum, Hendon, Beryl Green, Edith Kup, Trevor Legg, Eric Marsden, Mike and Cheryl Matthews, Wing Commander Geoffrey Page, DSO, DFC, my editor Diane Pearson, Simon Robbins of the Imperial War Museum, London, Carol Smith, Dame Anne Stephens, Jean Thomson, Anne Turley-George, and to my husband Philip Kaplan, for his support, encouragement and endless help, without which this book could never have been written.

  Margaret Mayhew

  Foreword

  The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force was formed on 28 June 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. At the beginning of the war the WAAF was still very much in its infancy – an unknown and untried quantity. Many in the RAF were doubtful about its value, about the ability of women to undertake work previously done by men, and about the behaviour of women under fire and bombardment.

  This is a fictional story about some of those women. It was written in appreciation of the fine service the real women of the WAAF rendered to their country in her time of need.

  PART 1

  ASSEMBLY

  One

  THE GIRL SITTING beside Anne Cunningham was crying. She had been crying all the way down on the train from London, huddled wretchedly in the corner of the third-class compartment, and she had started up again as soon as the RAF lorry, which had collected them, had swung out of the station yard. Her head was hanging low, almost to her knees, and she kept on dabbing at her eyes with a sodden handkerchief. Her tears matched the rain that was falling steadily outside. Over the lorry’s tailgate, Anne watched the wet, black road unwinding. She could see the tall spire of Chichester cathedral poking up into the sky in the distance, beyond the flat brown fields and russet trees. The sea, she reckoned, must be over to the right, a few miles away. Somewhere ahead lay their destination, RAF Colston.

  The three-tonner lurched sharply as it rounded a bend, sending its passengers falling about and clutching at handholds. Anne grabbed the slatted bench beneath her and leaned against the canvas tilt to steady herself. A sharp piece of metal dug uncomfortably into her spine and she shifted sideways. The lorry swung into another bend, in the opposite direction, and there was more squealing. Like pigs to market, she thought.

  She had never seen such a mixed bag of girls. They were all types and wearing all kinds of clothes. Fur coats, country tweed costumes, smart London suits, school uniform, cheap cotton frocks, expensive silk ones . . . The girl clutching a huge cartwheel hat to her head and smoking a cigarette, looked as though she was going to a garden party. Anne didn’t know her name but the peroxide-blonde in the fake leopardskin jacket was called Gloria, and the plump redhead who had been passing round a flask of whisky was Pearl. Sandra, next to Pearl, had a babyish face and was dressed in a grey school coat and felt hat, a plaid travelling rug folded neatly across her knees. The plain, spotty girl with the sour expression was Maureen and the next one along with the eager look and the stutter was Vera. The shy girl sitting by the cartwheel hat was Winnie. Their luggage, piled on the floor of the lorry, was as varied as their clothing – monogrammed suitcases and hatboxes mixed up with cardboard containers, satchels, string bags and brown paper parcels. There was even a birdcage covered with a green baize cloth.

  The girl beside Anne was still crying – harder than ever. Her thin shoulders were heaving in shuddering spasms and her head had sunk onto her knees. Anne felt in her pocket for a clean handkerchief and offered it, nudging her with an elbow. What on earth was her name? Edith, Enid, Ena . . . something like that. Her face, when she lifted it, was blotched red and her eyes swollen to slits with all the crying and dabbing. She managed a nod of thanks as she took the handkerchief and Anne saw that there was an engagement ring on her left hand. Perhaps she was crying all those tears for her fiancé, or perhaps she was just plain homesick. The one good thing she could say for all those years at boarding school was that it had cured her of that particular misery.

  So, here she was sitting on an uncomfortable bench in the back of a lorry with a load of complete strangers and wondering what she’d let herself in for. Nobody seemed to know a blessed thing about the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, and nobody seemed to know what was going to happen next with the war either. Some people said it would all be over by Christmas and that there was nothing to worry about. The newspapers, though, had horrible stories about Warsaw being reduced to rubble and Poles trying to stop German tanks with horses. There had been gruesome ac
counts of thousands of people in eastern Europe being slaughtered or taken prisoner or made homeless. She had seen photographs of gaunt, despairing faces, of weeping women, forlorn children, sad old men . . . and pushed them out of her mind. It was all so remote and far away that she couldn’t make herself care all that much. It could never happen in England, so there was really nothing to worry about.

  The girl was still crying. Enid – that was her name, not Ena or Edith. Enid Potter. Would she ever stop? She was like the Mock Turtle and they would soon be drowning in her tears. Anne put an arm round the heaving shoulders. Better try and jolly her up somehow.

  The lorry rattled on.

  The smoke from her neighbour’s cigarette was making Winnie Briggs feel sick – that and the swing and sway of the lorry. Not to mention the nerves in her stomach. So many frightening things had happened on the long journey since she’d left home. Finding her way across London from Liverpool Street Station to Victoria Station had been the worst part. It was the first time she had ever been out of Suffolk and seen a big city, and the Underground had terrified her. She had got hopelessly lost in a maze of passageways and found herself pushed onto a moving staircase and being carried deep down into the earth. She had stood, bewildered, on a platform – not knowing where to go or what to do – and been petrified by trains roaring suddenly out of a tunnel. At last, a strange woman had taken pity on her and turned her back in the right direction. On the train from Victoria she had been too shy to say anything to the other girls, except her name. Several of them, she saw, were from much grander backgrounds than her own, like the girl next to her in the big hat. She wasn’t used to mixing with people like that. Nor was she used to ones like the girl with the dyed blond hair and makeup, wearing a spotted, furry jacket.

  She smoothed the skirt of her cotton frock and fingered the little blue ring on her left hand, as though it might give her some kind of strength. Instead, it reminded her painfully of Ken. They had bought the ring in Ipswich, taking the bus there one Saturday afternoon and window-shopping at the jewellers until they had found one that she liked and at a price he could afford. The shop assistant had looked down his nose and Ken had stuttered with nervousness.

  The lorry swung round another bend and she was thrown against the girl next to her who nearly dropped her cigarette. She looked cross and said something that Winnie could not hear. She had never felt more miserable in her life, or more uncertain of herself. No-one in her family, except for Gran, had wanted her to join up. Dad had been against it because she was too useful about the farm, and Mum because she was such a help in the house, especially with looking after Ruth and Laura who were still only little. And Ken had been so hurt. He had not understood at all when she had tried to explain to him.

  ‘It’s just that I want to do somethin’ useful in the war, Ken . . .’ was what she’d said.

  ‘You’ll go and forget all about me, Winn, I know it.’

  How could she forget him when she had known him all her life? When he was almost as much a part of it as her own family? There had never been anyone but Ken. They had been courting since they were sixteen and as soon as the war was over they were going to get married. She had promised him that and she would keep her promise.

  The nausea was getting worse and there was a sudden sour taste in her mouth. Winnie put up her hand and swallowed hard. The girl had finished her cigarette and was grinding it out under the toe of her high-heeled shoe, but the lorry was now veering round a succession of bends, swinging one way and then the other. She felt the vomit rise up into her mouth and stumbled towards the rear. There, she was violently and helplessly sick over the tailgate.

  Wing Commander David Palmer, DFC, AFC, sitting at his desk in RAF Colston Station Headquarters, stared up at the young officer standing before him. He did not like what he saw. Not that the girl was unpleasant to look at – far from it, if he discounted the fact that she was dressed in a hideously unfeminine uniform, but he simply wished that she was not there at all.

  He was feeling both angry and irritated. Angry with the fools who had conceived the whole idea of forming a Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and irritated by the unwelcome presence of two of them already on his doorstep, and the threat of more to come. He went on staring at the girl, hard and deliberately. She was pink in the face and her eyes were fixed on a spot on the wall somewhere behind his right shoulder. He could tell that she was very nervous and checked his rising temper. It wasn’t her fault, after all. She was only obeying orders and she looked intelligent and sensible enough. She couldn’t, he guessed, be much more than twenty-one or so – almost young enough to be his daughter, for heaven’s sake . . . And what a God-awful, unflattering outfit for any woman. A sort of bastardized version of his own uniform – blue tunic cut just like a man’s, shirt, black tie and, instead of trousers, a shapeless skirt. He lowered his gaze to the thick grey stockings and heavy black lace-up shoes. Women, in his opinion, were simply not made for wearing service uniform. They were all the wrong shape and looked ridiculous in it. He directed his stare beyond the girl to the WAAF sergeant standing a pace behind her – cropped-haired, bull-necked, unblinking – and reverted hurriedly to the officer who was a good deal easier on the eye.

  He said curtly: ‘How many recruits did you say you’re expecting, Company Assistant Newman?’

  ‘Twenty, sir.’

  ‘And where do you suppose we are going to put you all?’

  She had gone pinker still. ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ he said grimly. ‘Let’s hope Squadron Leader Robinson can sort something out. We had no idea you were arriving yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I thought you would have been informed.’

  She had a nice voice – well-educated but not affected. It was a point in her favour but he was far from mollified.

  ‘So would I. Evidently they thought it better to take us by surprise. How did you get here?’

  ‘By car, sir. I have my own. Sergeant Beaty came with me.’

  He thought sourly: Christ, they’ll be cluttering up the place with their bloody cars if we’re not careful. Women drivers everywhere. He leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the rim of his desk. A thick-set man of forty-one with a natural air of command, Palmer had served in the Royal Flying Corps towards the end of the First World War and then stayed on afterwards in the newly-formed Royal Air Force. He had spent all his adult life in the Services.

  ‘Just exactly what are you women supposed to be doing here, Company Assistant Newman? Perhaps you can explain that to me.’

  Felicity Newman could feel the sweat gathering on her forehead and beneath the roll of hair at the nape of her neck. She had been in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force for precisely two months and this was her first posting as a newly-commissioned officer. It was also her first encounter with an RAF Station Commander.

  She swallowed. ‘As I understand it, sir, our function is to replace RAF officers and airmen wherever possible in order to release them for active service.’

  There was silence in the office for a moment. The Wing Commander was picturing his station manned by a pack of females. It would be almost funny, he decided, if the situation were not so deadly serious with Hitler rampaging through Europe like a power-crazed lunatic. This was no time for jokes. The war against Germany had been on for over a month and anything could happen at any time. Every instinct told him that these women were going to be nothing but a damned nuisance, creating far more problems than they were ever likely to solve. They ought to be kept out of it. War wasn’t their job. Except for nurses to look after the wounded, it was strictly for men. If they must do something then let it be civilian work – pouring tea, dispensing soup and sandwiches in canteens, knitting socks and scarves for servicemen, all that sort of thing . . .

  He took a deep breath. He must be fair. He didn’t want to be unkind to the girl but the position had to be made very clear to her from the outset. There was no room for any misunderstanding or
tomfoolery.

  ‘I appreciate your very laudable wish to help your country in wartime, Company Assistant, but some things should be explained to you. I am not, personally, in favour of women serving on this station; or on any other station, come to that. I did not ask for you. I do not want you. I do not believe that your place is here, nor that you could possibly replace my men. Do I make myself clear?’

  Her reply was almost inaudible. ‘Yes, sir.’

  He cleared his throat, wondering if he had gone too far. Been too harsh with her. There was always the possibility that she might burst into tears and create an embarrassing scene. He made himself say more gently,

  ‘However, since you are here, we shall all have to make the best of it. There may well be some areas where you and your recruits can help us – cooking, cleaning, that sort of thing . . . And clerical work. But I’m afraid I am not convinced that women have a more active part to play in the Royal Air Force, such as you have indicated.’

  He saw that her face was now scarlet and there was a glistening trickle of perspiration running down the side of her face. He felt a bit of a rat. But a rat he must be if he were to keep these women under control. Her eyes were still fixed on the wall over his right shoulder. He found that irritating. Damn it, why wouldn’t she look at him. He wasn’t going to eat her. He encountered her sergeant’s basilisk stare. If they were going to send these females, why in God’s name couldn’t they send better-looking ones than that? He discarded the gentler tone.

  ‘There is one thing you must understand. This is an operational fighter station in wartime, and you and your recruits will be under my command. I will not tolerate any interference with the efficient running of RAF Colston. Understood?’

  ‘Perfectly, sir.’

  He dismissed them with relief and watched dourly as they wheeled about and marched out of the room. Unreasonably, the fact that they both did so smartly annoyed him still further.