WOMEN’S AIR FORCE

Grey River Argus, 30 May 1938, Page 4

WOMEN’S AIR FORCE

Scheme for England NIECE OF PEERESS SUBMITS. LONDON, April 23. England may have a women’s air force. A scheme for the formation of an auxiliary unit of 100 women pilots was this week submitted to the Air Ministry by Miss Ursula Waldron, 21-year-old niece of the Marchioness Townshend. She wants the Ministry to train the women to fly heavy service machines. The women would then qualify as instructors, and so the unit would be “self-supporting." Miss Waldron, whose father, one of the first pilots to fly upside down, was killed while serving in the Royal Flying Corps during the Great Wai; said: “I believe that, the Air Ministry may soon do something about this. There are thousands of women in Britain who hold pilots’ certificates and who would willingly fly for their country in a war. They would not actually fight, but they could do the routine jobs like flying new service planes to the fighting lines and flying the crocks back. Think of the fighting manpower the women could relieve from routine jobs in the event of war.”

Miss Waldron has held a pilot’s A license for two years and is a member of several flying clubs. She planned T> months ago to fly the Atlantic, but did. not do so because “mother was worried.”