Schoolgirl’s letter leads to a revolution in the services

Press, 22 October 1986, Page 26

Schoolgirl’s letter leads to a revolution in the services

PA Wellington The Air Force and the Navy will never be the same again - and all because of a letter from a Form 5 schoolgirl. Because she wanted to be a pilot but could not under Air Force regulations, she wrote to the Prime Minister, Mr Lange. He promptly went into battle with the defence chiefs, beat them in a paper war and now the Air Force will train women pilots and • the Navy will take servicewomen to sea. The Defence Minister, Mr O’Flynn, told Parliament on Tuesday that the Air Force was proposing to train women pilots and

the Navy was planning to drop its no-women-at-sea rule. He said the Air Force planned an initial programme to train eight women pilots and four navigators, and the Navy was planning to send 16 female ratings to sea for a year on the Monowai. “They will carry out their particular trade duties and all duties of male ratings,” Mr O’Flynn said. Mr Lange revealed in August that he had fought a three-month “paper war” with defence chiefs over their refusal to take women as trainee pilots. Miss Angela Manssen had written to Mr Lange saying she did not want to

be “second best to someone with different genes.” Mr Lange then made public 28 pages of correspondence on the matter between Ministers and the defence establishment. These showed that Mr Lange had rejected the wishes of defence officials who wanted him to tell Miss Manssen there was almost universal agreement that women should not be sent into combat roles. Mr Lange scrawled on the bottom of this draft reply: “What’s all this tripe about peace and war? If a woman wants to fight and die and kill someone else, why shouldn’t she?” Also included was a letter by the Chief of

Defence Staff, Sir Ewan Jamieson. He said few ’ women could achieve the high standards of fully trained and fully conditioned male combat forces. The chiefs of defence staff had also said introduction of women into combat units would hinder development of “bonding or camaraderie” through which men could trust each other in life-or-death situations. Mr O’Flynn told Parliament that the question of whether women should be admitted to armed forces posts that could involve combat roles was to be discussed by a committee of Ministers next week. Miss Manssen, of

Rotorua Girls’ High School, said she was surprised her letter to Mr Lange had achieved such a rapid response. “I was hoping they would finally come round but I thought New Zealand would be stubborn right to the end,” she told the "Dominion,” newspaper. Miss Manssen, aged 16, is still keen on the idea of being a pilot, though she changed her School Certificate programme for this year in the expectation that the rules would not be changed. “I took typing, just as a precaution. I will have to take all my sciences next year,” she said. “Being a pilot would only come after my schooling.”