STORIES OF HEROISM

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 143, 13 December 1940, Page 11

STORIES OF HEROISM

WOMEN OF THE AUXILIARY AIR FORCE WINNERS OF MILITARY MEDALS (By Air Mail—From "The Post's" London Representative.) LONDON, November 4. A 28-year-old W.A.A.F. sergeant was on duty in an armoury when enemy bombers heavily attacked an R.A.F. fighter command station. Although a large amount of ammunition was stored near her office, she manned the telephone, passing instructions to the various defence posts. She shouted words of encouragement to the airmen in the building, and,- when the raid was over, calmly went outside and began to peg out with red flags all the places on the aerodrome where unexploded bombs were buried. Her commanding officer said: "Her exceptional courage and coolness had a great moral effect on all those with whom she came in contact." The W.A.A.F. sergeant is Joan Eugene Mortimer. Her identity was revealed in the official announcement of the award of the Military Medal to her. Two other W.A.A.F.s in the same station also receive the Military Medal for their courage during another bombing attack. They are Assistant Section Officer (then Corporal) Elspeth Candlish Henderson, aged 27 (Edinburgh), and Sergeant Helen Emily Turner (London). This is the first time the Military Medal has been awarded to women members of the Royal Air Force. Corporal Henderson and Sergeant Turner were on duty in a building which received a direct hit during a September raid. Sergeant Turner was the switchboard operator and Corporal Henderson had charge of a special telephone line. Bombs were falling around the building, but both airwomen carried on with their jobs, although they knew that there was nothing but a light roof over their heads. When the building was hit both continued working until it caught fire. Then they left only when ordered out. "WE SIMPLY CARRIED ON." "When we did leave," said Sergeant Turner, "we had to crawl out through the broken down walls to safety. I felt a bit sorry for some of the youngsters in the building at the time, because it was their first experience of bombs. I did my best to cheer them up." Corporal Henderson said: "There was nothing much else we could do anyway, was there? We joined the W.A.A.F. because we wanted to do something in this war, and when we found ourselves under fire, as it were, we simply carried on with what work we were doing." Before the war, Sergeant Mortimer was a Conservative Party organiser in the Eastern Counties with headquarters at Cambridge. She is tall, slim, blue-eyed, with brown hair. Assistant Section Officer Henderson, small and! auburn-haired, was secretary to a surgeon. She is a gifted linguist. Sergeant Turner worked with the Air Force in the last war, was telephone operator at the Savoy Hotel and later telephonist with a big advertising agency in London. "MAGNIFICENT THE BEST WORD." The bravery of t&e W.A.A.F. evoked a tribute from the Queen when she | visited a station of the R.A.F, Fighter Command recently. She said to the [senior W.A.A.F. squadron officer of ! about 2000 W.A.A.F.S attached to i fighter stations in the south-east of England: "I hear that your women are magnificent.". "Thank you, your Majesty," was the reply. "Magnificent is the best word for them."

This squadron officer has a file which tells of heroism displayed by the W.A.A.F. at different fighter stations. It is an amazing record of courage and fortitude during bombing attacks, states the Air Ministry News Service.

When, the morning after a bitter attack on one aerodrome, the squadron officer saw the commanding officer of the station, he said: "Madam, your women are wonderful. I would not mind if my whole station were completely manned by them." When a squadron leader was wounded by a bomb, which badly injured his legs, a girl, who was a nurse before the war, ran to him. He was losing blood fast, but she improvised a tourniquet and stopped the flow. Bombs were still falling near, but she helped to take the injured officer to sick quarters. The hospital doctors, stated that her prompt action had saved the necessity of amputation. At another station one of the girls injured by a bomb kept saying, "Look after the others; don't worry about me. lam all right." After about half an hour one of the doctors found that her back was broken. She protested she was "quite all right." For weeks she lay with her back in plaster. When she was able to walk, one of the first things she did was to write saying, "Please may I come back to work?"