Waafs, Biggin Hill

Sergeant Joan E Mortimer, Flight Officer Elspeth C Henderson and Sergeant Helen E Turner, recipients of the Military Medal for gallantry, standing outside damaged buildings at Biggin Hill, Kent. All three were WAAF teleprinter operators who stayed at their posts and continued to work the defence lines during the heavy Luftwaffe attacks on Biggin Hill on 1 September 1940. Copyright IWM

The Dowding system of defence was an intricate machine in which the women of the Womens’ Auxiliary Air Force, the WAAFs, played a vital role. There were several thousand young WAAFs in Fighter Command during that summer of 1940. They played a key role in helping to operate the radar system.

They were often to be found in the plotting rooms, on the telephones or peering into the radar screens. They were scrutinising the screens for the little blogs of light which indicated in coming aircraft. It was usually the WAAFs who transmitted a station’s findings to another set of WAAFs sitting in Fighter Command’s headquarters at Bentley Priory. It was also WAAFs who handled the business in the control rooms on their large scale plots. There, armed with their billiard cues, they would be pushing the tiny blocks of wood which represented the aircraft, with the Germans painted red and the RAF aircraft painted black. Watching the overall picture develop would be the controllers, on a platform, some 10ft above the plot.

Whilst in the Operations Rooms, the WAAFs were able to hear radio transmissions from both RAF and German pilots. This could be especially harrowing for those women who had formed romances with a pilot only to hear his agonising cries as he was shot down. Yet, the WAAFs had to, and did, remain composed and focused on their work.

It was also the WAAFs who managed the telephone exchanges. Moreover, it was three of them who, when Biggin Hill was suffering one of its worst raids from German aircraft, stayed at their posts despite the crashing masonry around them, helping to keep the station operational throughout the attack. Sgt Elisabeth Mortimer, Sgt Helen Turner and Cpl Elspeth Henderson were duly awarded the Military Medal for their bravery.