Recruitment of Women Pilots to the ATA (Phase II)

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 In mid-1942, the pool of qualified pilots in Britain not eligible for service with the RAF had been depleted. The ATA's demand for pilots, however, was still growing. Recruiting had to become more innovative.

 

For roughly one year, the ATA filled their ranks with volunteers from other countries -- from the Commonwealth, of course, but also neutral countries such as the U.S. and Switzerland, and from the countries already defeated by Hitler like Holland, France, and Poland. Some of these recruits were women. Most were men.

By May 1943, the pilot shortage had again become so acute that the decision was made to start training pilots from scratch and the focus shifted to young women. Candidates for ab initio training were first drawn from the non-flying members of the RAF and WAAF and, of course, from the staff of the ATA itself. The rationale was that ATA and RAF ground staff had already demonstrated an interest in flying and in the case of ATA's own staff already possessed an understanding of the task awaiting them. 

Once the floodgates were opened to candidates with absolutely no flying experience, however, the ATA could again afford to be highly selective in other regards. Joy Gough, recruited at this time, recalls that candidates were required to have a school-leaving certificate, to be least 5ft 6in tall and have an aptitude for sport. Meanwhile, it was agreed with the RAF that thirty WAAF would be released for service with the ATA. In addition, to the ATA's requirements, the WAAF were required to be single women. 

No sooner had the Air Ministry Order enabling WAAF to volunteer for flying duties with the ATA been published, than 2000 WAAF applied -- all of whom met the requirements. To reduce the number of applicants to a 'reasonable' number, the Ministry arbitrarily threw out candidates younger than 22 and older than 26 and in addition required some university education. This whittled the list down to roughly 150 candidates who were short-listed for interviews. 

Unfortunately for the WAAF, in the meantime the RAF had agreed to second pilots no longer fit for operational flying (i.e. injured and 'clapped out' pilots) to the ATA. This effectively eliminated the need for untrained pilots altogether. In the end, only 19 WAAF were given the chance to train and fly with the ATA. They were the last women pilots to be recruited for the ATA, entering training in the spring of 1944. 

Altogether 162 women pilots and four women flight engineers had flown with the ATA by the end of WWII.

 

A former ATA woman pilot is one of the leading female protagonists in the Bridge to Tomorrow Trilogy about the Berlin Airlift.  Find out more about the series at: https://helenapschrader.net/bridge-to-tomorrow/

Watch a video teaser here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7rS_Mwy3TU 

                                      

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