Creation of the WRAF
The Women’s Royal Air Force created on 1 April 1918. 32,000 WRAFs proved a major asset to the RAF. Providing mechanics and skilled workers to ensure more RAF pilots saw front line service in the Great War. Essentially, the WRAF became the backbone of the Royal Air Force (RAF), also created on 1 April 1918.
With the decision to merge the RFC and RNAS to form the Royal Air Force (RAF), concerns raised about the loss of their specialized female workforce. The need for a separate women’s air service led to the formation of the WRAF on 1 April 1918.
Employment
The majority of women employed as clerks, with shorthand typists the most highly paid of all airwomen. Women allocated to the Household section worked the longest hours, for the lowest pay. The Technical section covered a wide range of highly-skilled trades, including tinsmiths, fitters and welders.
By 1920 over 50 trades open to women including tailoring, photography, catering, pigeon keeping and driving. The work of these women helped release men for combat. In addition, they proved the equal of men in the workplace.
Cologne, Germany
Civilian enrolment swelled WRAF numbers on RAF bases in Britain. On 24 March 1919, the first group of WRAFs arrived in France to begin their overseas service. Later in the year a decision made to send a contingent to Cologne, Germany.
The WRAF assisted in the Allied Occupation of Germany, which had begun on 13 December 1918. Based in Cologne, the WRAF employed as domestics, clerks, telephonists, nurses and drivers. They became known as the ‘Ladies of the Rhine’. Dedicated and diligent, they also helped raise RAF morale by staging sports days and dances.
The order came to finally close down the WRAF contingent on the Rhine in August 1919. RAF sections, unwilling to lose their airwomen, delayed the disbandment until the last possible moment.
The Two Madonnas of Pervyse
The second daughter of the ninth earl of Denbigh, Lady Dorothie Feilding the first woman awarded the Military Medal. One of the most decorated ambulance drivers of the Great War. She, along with ‘The Two Madonnas of Pervyse’ (Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker), awarded the British Military Medal, the French Croix de Guerre and made Knights of the Belgian Order of Leopold II.
The fourth female member of Dr. Hector Munro’s Flying Ambulance Corps, Mrs. Helen Hayes Gleason, of the United States.
More
Please subscribe to CEFRG to be notified by email when there are new posts. Subscription is free, and your email kept confidential.