WOMEN’S AIR FORCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1938, Page 8

WOMEN’S AIR FORCE

POSSIBILITY IN BRITAIN. England may have a women's air force. A scheme for the formation of an auxiliary unit of 100 women pilots was submitted to the Air Ministry by Miss Ursula Waldron, 21-year-old niece of the Marchioness Townshend. She wants the Ministry to train the women to fly heavy service machines. The women would then qualify as instructors, and so the unit would be “selfsupporting.” Miss Waldron, whose father, one of the first pilots to fly upside down, was killed while serving in the Royal Flying Corps during the Great War, said: “I believe the Air Ministry may soon do something about this. There are thousands of women in Britain who hold pilots’ certificates and who would willingly fly for their country in a war. They would not actually fight, but they could do the routine jobs like flying new service ’planes to the fighting lines and flying the crocks back. Think of the fighting man-power the women could relieve from routine jobs in the event of war.” Miss Waldron has held a pilot’s A license for two years and is a member of several flying clubs. She planned 18 months ago to fly the Atlantic, but did not do so because “mother was worried.”