´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was told to East Ayrshire staff at their tea party on the 11th June 2004 by Catherine Brown MBE, who worked at Prestwick Airport.

Catherine made mosquito nets before being called up at 17 to work on the kites (what we called planes). I was in Belvidere in Ayr and was there for a year. When I started I had never used a screwdriver but after a year I was an expert. I was so frightened when I started and I felt just like a schoolgirl.

The wings of the kites (planes) were up on big frames. You were trained to fix them – which I did for about 9 months. To bow the wing you had to bend thick metal after you had drilled it out. These were called dollies for the riveters and we perfected them by filing them down. If a kite had a tear in the side, we had to fix Alclad onto the wing and drill it so that it couldn’t be seen. We also made our own screwdriver and I still have a scar where mine slipped.

Once a lorry arrived and took us to the air ground and six of us were dropped off at a hangar number 3 without knowing what we were doing there. The boss of our hangar came and sent me to work with Jim. I was supposed to work way up on the kite – I was so small I needed a trestle table to get up onto the nose. However after a week I was able to jump up no problem.

Jim who was from Maybole was the shop steward and explained that he would be leaving me unattended sometimes. The first time he left me with six screws to put in but I couldn’t carry out the job as I didn’t have any tools. We went to the main hangar and he got me a toolbox with star screwdrivers ratchets etc. I started working with Margaret Ackroyd from Hurlford.

A squad consisted of a riveter, sparks and the rest of the team that needed to work on a kite. One day we were told not to take off our coats as we were shifted up to dispersal squad further out from the airport (Hangar 5) until the end of the war.

We got a liberator aeroplane – to convert from bomber command to ferry command - straight from America. We all had our jobs to do – the girls cleared the kite; with high altitude there was lots of oxygen bottles to take out and clean. These looked liked big watermelons and the ones on the floor were hard to get out. Everything had to be counted and accounted for! I had to drill and file with Andy to get the floor chute to fit in. My next job, working alone, I walked from wing tip to wing tip, to put the ding-ee-dees on. These were fitted to prevent the kite from drowning if it came down in water. The third job was to wire lock the petrol tanks – this was done for safety.

Electrical jobs were next and then we took off the leading edge and removed the de-icer. The nose of the kite had a machine gun on it and this had to be removed to turn the kite into ferry command.

Once a Flying Fortress came and Margaret and I had to put an aerial on it. Between us we managed just before finishing time but I was worried I was going to be stuck on it all night as I was confident about moving around it.

A Spitfire, the king of king, came in once and the girls from the WAAF looked down their noses at us. One morning we came up to our hangar when we saw lots of ambulances and fire fighters at our hangar. A pilot had been circling all night to get rid of his fuel as the undercarriage wouldn’t come down. After five attempts to land he managed safely and no one was injured.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.