The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs, was the female auxiliary of the British Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 181,000 at its peak strength in 1943, (15.7% of the RAF)[1] with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.
A Women's Royal Air Force had existed from 1918 to 1920, but had been disbanded in the wake of the end of the First World War, alongside the Women's Army Auxiliary Corp (1917–1921) and the first iteration of the Women's Royal Naval Service (1917–1919).
The Women's Auxiliary Air Force was created on 28 June 1939, absorbing the forty-eight RAF companies of the Auxiliary Territorial Service which had existed since 1938, following the Munich Agreement.[2] Conscription of women did not begin until after December 1941 when the UK Government passed the National Service Act (No. 2), which was issued by Royal Proclamation on 10 January 1942. It only applied to those between 20 and 30 years of age and they had the choice of the military auxiliary services, the civilian Women's Land Army or factory work in support of the war effort.
Women recruited into the WAAF were given basic training at one of five sites, though not all of the sites ran training simultaneously. The five sites were at West Drayton, Harrogate, Bridgnorth, Innsworth and Wilmslow.[3] All WAAF basic recruit training was located at Wilmslow from 1943.[4]
WAAFs did not serve as aircrew. (The use of women pilots was limited to the Air Transport Auxiliary, which was civilian, but 30 WAAFs did transfer to serve as pilots in the ATA). Although WAAFs did not participate in active combat, they were exposed to the same dangers as any on the "home front" working at military installations. They were active in parachute packing and the crewing of barrage balloons in addition to performing catering, meteorology, radar, aircraft maintenance, transport, policing,[5] [6] communications duties including wireless telephonic and telegraphic operation. They worked with codes and ciphers, analysed reconnaissance photographs, and performed intelligence operations. WAAFs were a vital presence in the control of aircraft, both in radar stations and iconically as plotters in operation rooms, most notably during the Battle of Britain. These operation rooms directed fighter aircraft against the Luftwaffe, mapping both home and enemy aircraft positions.[7]
Air Force nurses belonged to Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service instead. Female medical and dental officers were commissioned into the Royal Air Force and held RAF ranks.
WAAFs were paid two-thirds of the pay of male counterparts in RAF ranks.
By the end of the Second World War, WAAF enrolment had declined and the effect of demobilisation was to take the vast majority out of the service. The remainder, now only several hundred strong, was renamed the Women's Royal Air Force on 1 February 1949.
Nursing Orderlies of the WAAF flew on RAF transport planes to evacuate the wounded from the Normandy battlefields. They were dubbed the Flying Nightingales by the press.[8] [9] The RAF Air Ambulance Unit flew under 46 Group Transport Command from RAF Down Ampney, RAF Broadwell, and RAF Blakehill Farm. RAF Dakota aircraft carried military supplies and ammunition so could not display the Red Cross.[10]
Training for air ambulance nursing duties included instruction in the use of oxygen, injections, learning how to deal with certain types of injuries such as broken bones, missing limb cases, head injuries, burns and colostomies; and to learn the effects of air travel and altitude.[11] Although supplied with parachutes, they were instructed not to use them if the plane was shot down on its return from Europe and instead stay with the wounded soldiers onboard and provide medical support should anyone survive the crash.[12]
The first three Flying Nightingales to arrive in France, a week after D-Day, were Corporal Lydia Alford, LACW Myra Roberts and LACW Edna Birkbeck.[13] [10]
In October 2008 the seven known nurses still living were presented with lifetime achievement awards by the Duchess of Cornwall.[14]
On 1 July 1939, Jane Trefusis Forbes was made Director of WAAF, with the rank of Senior Controller, later, Air Commandant. On 1 January 1943 she was appointed to the rank of Air Chief Commandant with its creation. On 4 October 1943, while Forbes toured Canada, assessing the Royal Canadian Air Force Women's Division, she was relieved by Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, who had been head of the WAAF since 1939, again with the rank of Senior Controller, then, Air Commandant, being gazetted to Air Chief Commandant on 22 March 1943. Forbes retired in August 1944, and the post of director was given to Mary Welsh, who was appointed Air Chief Commandant. After the war, the rank of Air Chief Commandant was suspended and in December 1946, the final director of WAAF, Felicity Hanbury, was appointed.
Initially, the WAAF used the ATS ranking system, although the director held the rank of senior controller (equivalent to brigadier in the British Army and air commodore in the RAF) instead of chief controller (equivalent to major-general or air vice-marshal) as in the ATS. However, in December 1939 the title was changed to air commandant, when the ranks were renamed and reorganised. Other ranks now held identical ranks to male RAF personnel, but officers continued to have a separate rank system, although now different from that of the ATS. From February 1940 it was no longer possible to enter directly as an officer; from that time all officers were appointed from the other ranks. From July 1941 WAAF officers held full commissions. On 1 January 1943, the rank of air chief commandant (equivalent to air vice-marshal) was created with the director's appointment to that rank.
| Rank group | Senior NCOs | Junior NCOs | Enlisted | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Royal Air Force(1939–1950) | No insignia | No insignia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Warrant officer | Flight sergeant | Sergeant | Corporal | Leading Aircraftman | Aircraftman 1st Class | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Several members of the WAAF served with the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War.