大象传媒

Wren S I Johnstone-Wilson had spent the earliest part of the war not with the Royal Navy but as a loader with a land based Anti-Aircraft Battery(ATS). Before the war she had had some flying experience so she volunteered as a Ferry Pilot but before being posted the Air Ministry decided that it was now too dangerous as the aircraft were flown unarmed, so RAF pilots who were no longer fully fit (for example those who had been burned) were given the task. The mixup over postings did enable her however to join the Royal Navy whereupon the task given was aircraft maintenance. Against good practice she and others sometimes set sail with the carriers if a particular maintenance task had not been completed.

In 1944 she volunteered for special duties and was posted to Farnborough. There she was informed that she was to be trained -for 3 months- for an opperation to steal a German Aircraft that was in Norway. On the scheduled date Wren Wilson arrived at the Quayside ready to embark onto a submarine. She had been informed that she would be going on board whilst the crew were still ashore so that her presence was not known. Superstition being that women on a submarine are bad luck. As she went through the final gate she was met by an Officer who informed her that he had some good news,her initial thought was that the departure time had been brought forward and that she would not have to spend some considerable hours squashed into the Captain's cabin. The Officer in the meantime had continued that Norway was now in British hands so the operation was cancelled.
Despite being in the presence of an Officer Wren Wilson let out a string of expletives, expressing anger that she had just spent a terrible 3 months training, she was fully ready and this officer chooses the words "good news". She did tell him where he could put his "good news".
To add insult to injury, when she returned to Farnborough she asked whether she could now take a more conventional form of transport to collect the aircraft? Wren Wilson was informed that a regular RAF pilot would now be going, afterall the controls were unknown and it WAS across the North Sea. After she pointed out to them that it was alright for her to go in War time but not in peacetime the powers that be transfered her back to Aircraft Maintenance!
As for the Officer on the Quayside, on an earlier occasion he had been praised by the Admiral for Home Fleet with the words "history has been made today" as well as being an unscheduled landmark on the Normandy Beaches, but that's someone elses life (see A2073124).

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