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Pauline Gower and the Air Transport Auxiliary (Ada Lovelace Day)

In the back of my mind over the last few weeks has been Suw Charman-Anderson’s Ada Lovelace day – where over a thousand bloggers have pledged to write a post about women in technology. Deciding on who to write about is a tough call, and I know others have spent time doing their best to choose someone that have real resonance.

I’ve decided to go back in history a little and write about Pauline Gower.

Gower used her connections and influence to ensure female pilots were allowed to aide the war effort during the Second World War and join the Air Transport Auxiliary; a British civilian service that ferried aircraft between around the country, between factories and airfields, from airfields to repair and maintenance shops, and taking over all ferrying duties from 1941 to its disbandment in November 1945.

The ATA freed up as many active duty pilots as they could, and they did this by quite happily taking on pilots who might be missing limbs, be short sighted, or generally be rejected by the front line services of the RAF and Fleet Air Arm.

One in eight pilots of the ATA were female, and Gower was in charge of them.

I can vaguely recall reading the memoirs of an ATA pilot when I was young (I devoured books then… and still do to this day) and don’t recall being shocked that the writer was female. But what I was in awe with was the ability these pilots had. There were a huge number of types of aircraft used by the British during the war, and ATA pilots were expected to jump into whatever aircraft they had on their schedule, fly it to a destination, and land it successfully, potentially at an unknown airfield.

Think about that for the moment – unknown aircraft types, flying solo, doing all your navigation, managing al the systems of the aircraft, and landing it safely. Damaging the aircraft on landing was frowned upon (naturally) and many flown aircraft were those with minor damage returning to the factories for repair.

Pilots had their training on basic type (light single-engine right up to multi-engine bombers), and a little notebook with the quirky things to note on each aircraft, and that was it. They were expected to jump in and get the job done.

The female pilots in the ATA were there because they could get the job done just as well as any male pilot. There were no arbitrary lines that separated the male and female staff of the ATA and a lot of that has to be put down to Gower’s tenacity. One notable achievement was that the female pilots of the ATA were paid the same as their male colleagues of similar rank – a first for an organisation under the jurisdiction of the British Government.

It took time, but eventually the female pilots were permitted to fly almost every type of aircraft (Flying Boats remained just out of reach) and make a huge contribution to the home front.

It was a difficult time for Britain, but Gower continued to fight and gaining equality for her charges in the organisation, both on the ground and in the air. For continuing to push against perceived wisdom in the establishment, and for doing all of this in the middle of a war, I think Gower deserves the recognition of a Ada Lovelace Day post.

The decommissioning speech of the ATA sums it up:

“Without the ATA the days and nights of the Battle of Britain would have been conducted under conditions quite different from the actual events. They carried out the delivery of aircraft from the factories to the RAF, thus relieving countless numbers of RAF pilots for duty in the battle. Just as the Battle of Britain is the accomplishment and achievement of the RAF, likewise it can be declared that the ATA sustained and supported them in the battle. They were soldiers fighting in the struggle just as completely as if they had been engaged on the battlefront.

Lord Beaverbrook.

www.findingada.com

March 24, 2009; Daily Links, Personal Posts, Web 2.0;