大象传媒

"This is Mrs Pat Snelling's story; it has been added by Geoff Knight, with permission from the author, who understands the terms and conditions of adding her story to the website"
I was posted to Gloucester when I joined the WAAF to be kitted up and to be trained in 'square bashing'.Kitting up gave us a lot of laughs.There was only stock size available and lots did not fit. We were told to take tucks in everything where needed. The underwear was just wearable although 'Twilights' fleecy lined knickers tickled us to death and shrunk. After a while we were issued with replacement 'Blackouts'. These were navy,silky and had elastic in the legs.
The stockings were horrible.One girl's suspender belt was so big that the stockings pulled it down.There were tin hats,great coats, rain capes and flat back shoes.
Of course everyone had a gas mask to wear as well. For me there was a beret to wear for work as well as a cap.And battledress included trousers. I wore extra leather fleece-lined waistcoat, plus sometimes white thick long socks and wellingtons for the airfield.
Gloucester seemed very quiet after coming down from my hometown at the mouth of the Thames where German bombers flew overhead trying to find their way up the river to London,with guns and our fighter aircraft doing their best to try to stop them. More training on aircraft engines. Finally I was posted to Gosport to the 3502nd Maintenance Unit of the WAAF. We did engine changes and 'majors' in hangars.We worked in gangs with male machine gunners. Then Mrs Clarke and I were moved to 'Flights' where we looked after aircraft as they came out of the hangars.We did flight checks and covered up the engines at night in the cold weather. We swept snow off the main planes.Once when refuelling a Halifax we saw a Corsair from the Fleet Air Arm crashing; one of its wheels did not come down and it zig-zagged across the airfield. As our Halifax was filled with fuel, we jumped and ran. The Corsair stopped just a few feet in front of the Halifax
On return from a work trip in a Wellington we were in,the flaps did not come down and the Wellington did not stop quick enough. The pilot put the brakes on hard and the Wellington turned up on its nose and hit some trees. Luckily it didn't hit hard so we all got out OK except for the pilot who was badly cut up by the nose of the plane smashing.
I was next posted to Beccles Air-Sea rescue.I worked on engines of the Warwicks. they had a boat fitted to the fuselage which could be dropped to help aircrew who had ditched in the sea. Once we took the boats to check for sea-worthiness. I finished up at Halton and helped in office post until I was demobbed.

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