"PROUDLY SERVED - Stella Slydell, 81, shows clippings she saved from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from 1940 in her Palmdale home." KELLY LACEFIELD/Valley Press
Posted on 01/03/2008 11:42:27 AM PST by BenLurkin
PALMDALE - Getting into uniform to do your bit and help beat the Nazis gathered in fearsome strength just across the English Channel often meant being ready to lie about your age. And that's what Stella Slydell was willing to do to help win a war that had to be fought.
"We all lied about our age during that time," Slydell said. "I was not quite 17 when I entered the Air Force (in) late '42 or early '43," the Palmdale resident remarked of her days serving in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force for the United Kingdom during World War II.
WAAF as it was called, formed in June 1939. Women between he ages of 17 and 44 were permitted to join the war effort. The WAAF functioned as key support staff for the Royal Air Force, the gallant few who were early in the fight against Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.
While still in her teens, she became one of those young women in smart, blue uniforms who went to work daily in RAF operations centers.
"We looked so good in uniform," she said. But the work wasn't about looking good. It was about saving lives.
The WAAF staff worked at massive map boards that filled a theater-sized operations center where pointers and croupier-style sticks were used by the WAAF and RAF staff to plot the locations of incoming Nazi bomber formations.
From its inception at the onset of war in 1939 until 1943, WAAF's ranks swelled from 1,700 to 180,000 women, a website for veterans of the women's service says.
The women provided transport, relayed weather information and worked in intelligence and security operations.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
"PROUDLY SERVED - Stella Slydell, 81, shows clippings she saved from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from 1940 in her Palmdale home." KELLY LACEFIELD/Valley Press
What an amazing read!
Good to know the Brits responded quickly with Churchill as the leader...imagine a Neville Chamberlain during the WOT.
Oh wait, that’s harry reid.
Actually, Ron Paul is working the hardest to become America's answer to Neville Chamberlain.
Great article to be read in its entirety. Thanks.
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