Reply to: This is a true hero...

[Gibbon]

Yes, they did. But we can't remember each and every single achievement - so is the answer to forget them all, at risk of offending somebody?



Nothing to do with service for me, I'm all about the aviation.

When did I say I was offended? Merely pointed out she was one of many brave women which in its self was not remarkable in the times.

We remember them all every year. I just don't believe that longevity should be a criteria for national eulogy when she was one among an multitude of brave women.

What's your connection with aviation then? Do you fly or engineer?

[woohoo]

If 10% of femal pilots dies during the war then I take back my sarcastic delivery girl remark. Braver than me.

[vwdan]

And so did ten of thousands of other women in WWII.

Yes, they did. But we can't remember each and every single achievement - so is the answer to forget them all, at risk of offending somebody?

People like you who've never served get far too sentimental over it. There are very few true heroes, most of us just got on with what we had to do.

Nothing to do with service for me, I'm all about the aviation.

[Gibbon]

Another example

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-new...ay-one-5635845

My paternal grandfather was a dispatch rider on D-Day, where was his press release when he died of an ulcer in 1998. See what I mean, longevity bestows a distorted heroism on folk who did a 'normal' wartime job.

[Gibbon]

Gibbon obviously has a deep-rooted inferiority complex since he was peeling potatoes in the RAF mess and resented all the glamour attached to pilots.

Although I still think your use of "tragic" was wrong though. An amazing lady who had a wonderful long life is not tragic.

I never got that promotion, I was kept at sluice bucket operative.

[Gibbon]

1152 of which were men.



Don't be disingenuous. She's special because she showed up their outdated idea of what women could and couldn't do.

Anyway, well done you for trying to reduce a dead woman to nothing. I hope you're very proud. Maybe you'll do something interesting enough to get your own CUK thread when you die.

And so did ten of thousands of other women in WWII.

And I never reduced her to nothing, in-fact I praised her along with her generation of whom the majority rose to the occasion. To say in context she wasn't remarkable is not reducing her; but the fact remains if she had died in the sixties - eighties it would have passed unnoticed, only her longevity has bestowed 'remarkable' upon her.

And another thing, being praised by Martin Nicholls is like being praised by SAS, in fact I doubt SAS has ever been such a cluster feck as Nicholls.

People like you who've never served get far too sentimental over it. There are very few true heroes, most of us just got on with what we had to do.

[NigelJK]

And as for not being a 'Celeb' you have lost the meaning of celebrating.

[sasguru]

Anyway, well done you for trying to reduce a dead woman to nothing. I hope you're very proud.

Gibbon obviously has a deep-rooted inferiority complex since he was peeling potatoes in the RAF mess and resented all the glamour attached to pilots.

Although I still think your use of "tragic" was wrong though. An amazing lady who had a wonderful long life is not tragic.

[vwdan]

There were plenty of Women pilots.

Hardly. While women have certainly been around since the early days of flight, to pretend there were "plenty" is absolute crap. Most were relegated to small aircraft and barnstorming etc.

I can't be arsed to spend hours researching, but women were barely allowed in the cockpits of commercial aircraft until the late 30's. The First American CAPTAIN wasn't until the 70's (No idea what the British one was).

Yet here these women were flying all sorts of types that simply would have been out of the question elsehwere.

WWII was a pivotal moment for women in all sorts of fields - aviation being one of them, and the girls of the ATA were part of that.

I bet you're one of these who think women have had equality since they got the vote, aren't you.

[vwdan]

She was one of 1,230 pilots

1152 of which were men.

Like I said nothing remarkable, unless you mean she was special because she could do the job of a man, which would be patronising as lots of women were flying aeroplanes before WW2.

Don't be disingenuous. She's special because she showed up their outdated idea of what women could and couldn't do.

Anyway, well done you for trying to reduce a dead woman to nothing. I hope you're very proud. Maybe you'll do something interesting enough to get your own CUK thread when you die.

[kaiser78]

KUATB.

https://forums.contractoruk.com/gene...ml#post2572598

Er, not really a celebrity though ?

[Zigenare]

That in an era where women weren't believed to have the required skills/intelligence/whatever to pilot aircraft she not only did just that, but she excelled and flew an insane range of types often with little to no differences training including fighters and bombers. I believe she also single-crewed aircraft designed for multi-crew.

That's bull. There were plenty of Women pilots. The rule of the day was "You don't send a woman in to battle".

[Gibbon]

How do you define this? What she did was remarkable and impressive and would be borderline impossible nowadays. And the 10% fatality rate is nothing to laugh at, either. You don't have to diminish, say factory workers, to accept that she was pretty special. There was only 168 of them for a start.

Not that I'd expect anything less from a CUK thread.

She was one of 1,230 pilots

The ATA recruited pilots who were considered to be unsuitable for either the Royal Air Force or the Fleet Air Arm by reason of age, fitness or gender. A unique feature of the ATA was that physical handicaps were ignored if the pilot could do the job, thus there were one-armed, one-legged, short-sighted and one-eyed pilots, humorously referred to as "Ancient and Tattered Airmen".

Like I said nothing remarkable, unless you mean she was special because she could do the job of a man, which would be patronising as lots of women were flying aeroplanes before WW2.

Of course factories workers had a breeze ......

WW2 – ‘Canary Girls’


Around 950,000 British women worked in munitions factories during the Second World War, making weapons like shells and bullets. Munitions work was often well-paid but involved long hours, sometimes up to seven days a week. Workers were also at serious risk from accidents with dangerous machinery or when working with highly explosive material.




In February 1944 there was a serious accident at the Royal Ordnance Factory in Kirby, Lancashire. In one building 19 workers, mainly women, were filling trays of anti-tank mine fuses when one of the fuses exploded, setting off the rest of the fuses in the tray.




The Daily Telegraph reported what happened next:




The girl working on that tray was killed outright and her body disintegrated; two girls standing behind her were partly shielded from the blast by her body, but both were seriously injured, one fatally. The factory was badly damaged: the roof was blown off, electric fittings were dangling precariously; and one of the walls was swaying in the breeze.




Some munitions workers handled toxic chemicals every day. Those who handled sulphur were nicknamed ‘Canary Girls’, because their skin and hair turned yellow from contact with the chemical.





A Canary Girl's story:
Former WW2 munitions worker, Gwen Thomas from Liverpool remembered her work vividly:



...there was no training. You were put into what they called small shops where they made different sizes of shells and landmines and different things like that…you were just told what you had to do, filling them with TNT.

And there was a lot involved in doing them, and they had to be filled to a certain level and then you had to put a tube in which was going to contain the detonator. Then it had to be all cleaned and scraped until it was exactly the right height inside the shells or the mines.




It was quite heavy work actually because they used to have like a big cement mixer, type of thing and this was hot TNT. The smell was terrible and you had to go to that with something like a watering can, and take it up. There was a chap on it who used to tilt it and fill your big can, and you'd have to carry that to where you were working and then fill the shells from that.




I slipped on the floor with one of these big cans and I was covered in TNT. My eyes were concealed and everything, up my nose, it was everywhere. Some of the chaps that were working there got hold of me and put me onto a trolley and took me down to the medical place and obviously I had to wait for it to set on my face. I had quite a job getting it off my eyelashes, you know and that sort of thing. And of course my face then was red and scarred with the hot TNT, you know. They put me on the bed for an hour or something, and then it was straight back to work after that.
----------------

Fly boys and girls always get the glamour as its seen as clean cut, and I should know as I served with the RAF for 16 years.

[vwdan]

How come the girls serving with FANY don't seem to all get the same recognition.

Why do we praise the last few survivors of WWII as 'remarkable' when the millions who died before them get forgotten. Her age is remarkable but her deeds were in no way elevated above the vast majority of other women, esp. the SOE and the AA gunners.

The times were remarkable and most people rose to the occasion, as they do now.

I in no way wish to diminish her, but in context of her times she wasn't remarkable.

Because she was the last one - it's what she represents moreso than what she herself specifically did. Nobody is saying all the other women she was with were rubbish, but we're only human. Why can't we just have a moment to remember her and her accomplishes without people being desperate to undermine what she (and her fellow air women) achieved for women in aviation?

And I don't believe for a minute WWI has been forgotten, nor those who served with them. Certain stories will naturally stir people more than others but it's impossible to remember every single person by name.

Her age is remarkable but her deeds were in no way elevated above the vast majority of other women,

How do you define this? What she did was remarkable and impressive and would be borderline impossible nowadays. And the 10% fatality rate is nothing to laugh at, either. You don't have to diminish, say factory workers, to accept that she was pretty special. There was only 168 of them for a start.

Not that I'd expect anything less from a CUK thread.

[Gibbon]

How come the girls serving with FANY don't seem to all get the same recognition.

Why do we praise the last few survivors of WWII as 'remarkable' when the millions who died before them get forgotten. Her age is remarkable but her deeds were in no way elevated above the vast majority of other women, esp. the SOE and the AA gunners.

The times were remarkable and most people rose to the occasion, as they do now.

I in no way wish to diminish her, but in context of her times she wasn't remarkable.