Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2007/January 2008 | Page 35

INTERVIEW
thousands of aircraft every month) that
he recommended the women should be
paid the same as their male colleagues.
Mary flew continually for all the war
years and though the ‘Attagirls’, as they
were called, were entitled to two days
off after a stretch of 14 days flying,
she didn’t want the time off – Mary
wanted to fly. She loved the ‘buzz’ when
the plane took off but says it was the
comprehensive Pilots’ notes written by
pilots and engineers that made it possible
for her to fly any type of aircraft.
And there’s the amusing story about a
Wellington bomber Mary delivered. She
had taxied the plane to a parking place but
as she climbed down the ladder carrying
her parachute, the ground crew asked
where was the pilot. “I’m the pilot,” said
Mary. They didn’t believe her and went to
search the aircraft for the ‘missing pilot’.
On another occasion a not so funny
thing happened when Mary and another
girl had Priority 1 Spitfires to be delivered
from Eastleigh to Wroughton. Urgently
required Spitfires were labelled ‘P1 wait’
which meant the Spitfire must be delivered
as soon as possible. The two girls took
off independently in very poor visibility
and Mary was glad to see the runway at
Wroughton. She made a quick dash for
the ground and was still going fast down
the runway when she passed another
Spitfire going in the opposite direction.
Mary’s autograph book records the other
girl said afterwards. “And next time
we land on the same aerodrome, on the
same runway, at the same moment, may
we be going in the same direction!”
And the Spitfire that came looking for
her? Mary had written her name on the
coaming of a Spitfire she’d delivered
towards the end of the war but the plane
was never used in battle and eventually
it was sold and shipped to Australia.
When Robert Lamplough, a plane
enthusiast, found the Spitfire and saw
Mary’s name on the coaming he brought
it back to Britain and started to search
for her. Finally, he flew the plane into
Sandown airport and First Officer Mary
Wilkins (her title while in service) was
reunited with the plane she’d last seen
on a delivery flight during the war.
Two years ago Carolyn Grace, the only
woman flying a Spitfire today, brought
the plane to Sandown airport and
persuaded Mary to fly with her. “I’ve
waited years to get you into a Spitfire

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life

Photo right: Mary
pictured in her
uniform at the
height of the war.
Picture left: Mary
holding her prize
possession, the
statue which was
modelled on her.

in the air,” Carolyn told her and handed
over the controls to Mary. “The noise,
the smell – it was absolutely marvellous,”
Mary remembers. The single-seater
Spitfires were called ‘the perfect ladies
aeroplane’ because women pilots fitted
into the small cockpit perfectly.
After the ATA was disbanded at the
end of the war Mary was seconded to
RAF 41 Group and continued to ferry
aircraft with the RAF. Post-war she was
a personal pilot to her father’s friend,
a wealthy farmer who later bought
Sandown airport. Mary became the
managing director – the only female
commandant of an airport in Europe.
She says the ATA pilots had the best
of both worlds. “We were civilians
in the forces,” she said. Called ‘the
legion of the air’, the ATA was years
ahead of its time in its attitude towards
women and by embracing sexual
equality the ATA became unique in
wartime Britain. All the same, these
extraordinary defiantly modern women,
these unsung heroines, found it difficult
to get jobs as pilots after the war.

The death rate amongst pilots in the
ATA was 1 in 10 and each year the RAF
acknowledges the vital role these pilots
played in World War 11 with an annual
memorial flight at RAF Lyneham. In a
small garden at Manchester International
Airport there’s a memorial to the ‘service,
dedication and duty’ of the ATA pilots
of Number 14 Ferry Pool and in 2006 a
memorial to them was erected at White
Waltham airfield in Berkshire. There is
also a memorial in the Crypt of St. Paul’s
Cathedral recording the history of the
ATA. Last September a Spitfire and
Hurricane flew low over White Waltham
to launch a book Giles Whittell has
written about women Spitfire pilots.
Today Mary says she has come to terms
with advancing years and spends her
time in the garden and corresponding
with former colleagues. “I was lucky,’
she says, “I was born at the right time.”
‘Spitfire women of World War 11’ by
Giles Whittell published by Harper Collins

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