大象传媒

HOW TO BECOME ENTANGLED IN RED TAPE
Experiences of WWII

I was 19 years old when war was declared by Neville Chamberlain that Sunday morning. I had completed my first year at London University (Bedford College) and was due to return for my second year in early October. Instead, I spent the next six and a half years in various forms of war work.

My first job was in censorship work in Liverpool and then in Bermuda 鈥� where, although the work was tedious, our leisure time was one long holiday of beaches and bathing. I acquired a guilt complex because of this, feeling I should be more involved in the trauma of those at home, and in late 1942 I resigned my job and returned to the UK to join up. It was then that Red Tape began to thwart my every move.

Things began to go wrong once I was safely home after the lengthy adventure of crossing the Atlantic via Canada and a slow merchant convoy. My age-group had been called up while I was away, so when I registered for call-up to the W.A.A.F I was told I could not choose my occupation. Officialdom decreed I must go for an interview for Intelligence; that sounded good 鈥� probably a commission and work similar to the censorship, so I enjoyed the early autumn at home. For some reason the interview was overlooked, which caused some annoyance to the recruiting staff when I reported for call-up. I remember that event so clearly, after all these years. After much discussion it was decided to enrol me as Clerk General Duties 鈥� although it was full up and not taking any recruits, because this was just cover until I had my interview for Intelligence.

Events decided otherwise. After square-bashing at Morecambe I was called to the Air Ministry in London, where I failed the interview for lack of good spoken German. So back I went to Morecambe and asked for a transfer from Clerk GD, only to be told that now, two weeks later, clerks were no longer allowed to remuster because there were not enough of them! To add insult to injury, my first posting was not to a front line station but to an R.A.F. MT (motor transport) company stationed only ten minutes鈥� walk from my old school in Liverpool. There I spent 9 miserable months sticking stamps on letters and listing mail, until I was posted to 40 M.U. - a huge maintenance unit which was more like a factory than a service unit. There I sat day after day altering figures on P.O.R.s (Personnel Occurrence Reports). How I longed to be back in Bermuda, riding my bike to Mid-Ocean beach for a swim!

It took me 6 months to get away from that factory-type job. Finally I spent the summer of 1943 at Compton Bassett learning to be a Wireless Operator. But Red Tape had not finished with me yet and posted me back to Liverpool. I reckon I was the only W.A.A.F. who did NOT want a home posting, so that was where they sent me! I was able to live at home, but the watch rota deep down in the bowels of Coastal Command 15 Group HQ was so complicated that I had several hairy journeys getting home late at night and for weeks did not see any real daylight.

A short spell in the Air Transport Auxiliary made life more exciting. To practise flying 鈥榮traight and level鈥�, one day we had to climb to five thousand feet through the mist to find a horizon. My memory still thrills at the picture as we emerged from the clouds; we were in the centre of a huge saucer edged with a hard black line; no land was visible, we were above the world and that was the world鈥檚 horizon. The little 鈥楳aggie鈥� had the whole world to herself as she fixed her nose on that black line.

But then D-Day happened and we women cadets were no longer needed. The final straw came when reporting back to my unit I found that instead of seconding me to the A.T.A., they had discharged me and taken away all my uniform. Bad enough to have to break in a new set of 鈥渞ookie gear鈥�, but then two years later after the end of the war my discharge papers showed me as having joined only in 1944, my earlier two years having disappeared somehow in the records. Three years鈥� censorship work, 3 more years in the W.A.A.F 鈥� including 4 months learning to fly in the A.T.A., all melted away, leaving me ineligible for any of the war service medals.

So, what did it matter? To get back to civilian life and find a career was everyone鈥檚 aim in 1946. I write it up here only to illustrate how official rules and incompetence can ruin one鈥檚 C.V.

The moral? Beware of officialdom!

Sheila Lightbody
(853 words)

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