The untold Melton story of how women pilots helped win the war
A fascinating new book tells the previously untold story of how female pilots played a key role in Britain’s victory in the Second World War by delivering military aircraft to Melton’s airfield.
Women from a variety of backgrounds often flew all types of planes, ranging from Spitfires to Lancaster Bombers, from all over the UK to Melton before they were despatched to theatres of war throughout the world to help the Allies in key battles against German and Japanese forces.
Women Pilots at RAF Melton Mowbray in World War II has been written by local aviation historian, Dr Ray Flude.
Melton was one of only three airfields in the UK which prepared aircraft of all kinds for long distance flights and trained crews to fly the aircraft from Britain to destinations like the Mediterranean, Middle East, India and the Pacific with these reinforcements playing a key part in winning the war.
Civilian pilots from the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) were tasked to deliver the aircraft and 166 of them were women.
Using painstaking research from their log books, Ray’s book tells the stories of 12 of these female pilots who flew into Melton.
He told the Melton Times: “These women had to be quite versatile because they had to be qualified to fly four-engined planes so they could deliver a Lancaster Bomber but also so they could fly a much smaller aircraft like a Spitfire.
"They had to fly these aircraft on their own as well, with just a flight engineer on board, so they were quite extraordinary people.”
One of the pilots in the book, Ruth Ballard, learned to fly at the age of just 17 in 1930.
She was very experienced by the time war broke out and she ended up delivering over 1,000 aircraft, including 250 Spitfires, landing many of them at Melton ahead of being sent into combat.
Another featured in the book is Vi Milstead, who gained her flying qualifications shortly before war was declared in 1939.
She had been a flight training instructor in Canada but decided to join the war effort here, arriving by boat in 1943 and going on to fly 47 different aircraft across the UK, delivering many to Melton.
Joan Nayler had previously been a shorthand typist working as a civil servant when she learned to fly in 1937 – after joining up with the ATA she delivered more than 100 twin-engined de Havilland Mosquitos.
Another was Anne Powys, who worked as an engineer with the ATA during the war and had never previously flown when she responded to an appeal for new pilots to train due to a shortage in 1943.
Ray, who is a former manager of the old Melton College, added: "A number of the women were killed in crashes but it was a very small percentage of the thousands of flights they made for the war effort.”
The book costs £8 and can be bought at Melton Mowbray Library or B&H Midland Services, on Norman Way.
In 2013, Ray also published a book about RAF Melton Mowbray Airfield – called ‘Sending aircraft across the world’ - which revealed the previously untold story of the important role it played in the Second World War.