Australia’s Forgotten Heroes – Female Aviators Commemorated

Ahead of Remembrance Day on 11 November, we’re commemorating some of the brave Australian women who served as pilots in WWII by uncovering untold stories about their life.

Women in aviation have always been a minority, and today they make up less than a quarter of the Australian Air Force[1]. By remembering the stories of our first ‘Flying Daughters’, we can commemorate some of these female pioneers who first took to the skies. 

Amy Gwendoline Stark Caldwell (Gwen)

Gwen was one of many young women inspired by the 1930 Australia visit of British Aviator Amy Johnson. Gwen took flying lessons at Mascot Airport where she gained her ‘A’ pilot licence on 10 July 1939 and was proud to be one of five women appointed as Assistant Section Officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) in NSW.

Before WWII, she was an active member of the Australian Women’s Flying Club. This would become the New South Wales branch of the Women’s Air Training Corps during the war, and she was its commandant in 1940. At about the same time, she joined the newly formed Australian Women’s Flying Club, becoming assistant State commandant (1940).

Gwen was known for her comprehensive knowledge of aeromechanics and navigation.Newspaper records show that The Sydney Morning Herald published a piece titled ‘Australian Women in Uniform’ in 1940 which shows her among other Australian women in their respective career uniforms.

Sydney Morning Herald, 1940

In 1964, she became the Federal President of the Australian Women’s Pilots’ Association. Gwen is also featured in Who’s Who Australia in 1947, a book that shares the biographies of prominent Australians, where her amazing career achievements are highlighted. In 1972 The Sydney Morning Herald interviewed Gwen and featured her recent trip to Papua New Guinea and wartime achievements.

Nancy-Bird Walton [Born Nancy De Low Bird]

Nancy took her pilot license at just 19 years, the youngest age possible. She started taking flying lessons in 1933 and paid for them by working in her father’s shop. 

Like Gwen, her extraordinary life is documented in Who’s Who Australia where it records how the young Nancy organised the first ever Ladies’ Flying Tour in 1935 and flew 22,000 miles. After unearthing archived newspapers, a 1935 interview in The Sydney Morning Herald tells the amusing story of how Nancy and her co-pilot Peggy would stay in pop-up tents wherever they landed during the tour. 

 

Who’s Who Australia also states she won the Ladies’ Trophy in 1936 for an air race from Adelaide to Brisbane and during World War II she started training women in skills needed to assist pilots in the Royal Australian Air Force.

Nancy later founded the Australian Women Pilots’ Association (AWPA) in 1950, an organisation that still actively promote women in aviation today.

Mary Teston Luis Bell [Born Mary Teston Luis Fernandes]

Born in Tasmania, Mary was an Australian Aviator and the founding leader of the Women’s Air Training Corps (WATC), a volunteer organisation that provided support to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. She later helped establish the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF), the first and largest women’s wartime service in the country, which grew to more than 18,000 members by 1944.

A 1927 interview in The Kansas City Times references Mary receiving her pilot’s license along with other female pilots. Her photo was unearthed in the Great Britain, Royal Aero Club Aviators collection on Ancestry, that contains approximately 28,000 index cards and 34 photograph albums of aviators who were issued with their flying licences (certificates) by the Royal Aero Club from 1910-1950. Mary’s certificate can also be found in this collection. 

Leaving military life behind at the end of the war, Mary took up farming with her husband in Victoria and then later in Tasmania.

 

 

Freda Thompson

Not all female aviators were able to serve in the war as pilots. Freda Thompson was referred to as “one of Victoria’s pioneer airwomen” in the 19 July 1948 Barrier Minor newspaper. She took her first flying lesson in 1930 at Essendon and gained a commercial ‘B’ pilot’s licence two years later, becoming only the fifth woman in Australia to do so, and in 1934 was one of the first women in the world to fly solo from England to Australia, as reported in the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate.  

At the start of World War II, Thompson sold her plane, named Christopher Robin, and thinking her flying experience might be useful, put her name down for the WAAAF in March 1941. However, she became tired of waiting for an answer and enrolled for the Australian Women’s Army Service where she served as an ambulance  driver, as reported in The News Adelaide.

She was also commandant of the Woman’s Air Training Corps in Victoria from 1940–1942. This article from The Age, Melbourne in 1940  contains a photo of women attending an Air Training Corps meeting, including Freda. The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate reported Freda’s 1934 journey from England to Australia in 1949 with images, details into her career and her long-lost flying adventures.

A quote unearthed from the Newcastle Morning Herald in and Miners’ Advocate in 1949 captures Freda’s commitment to flying “Everyone asks me why I took up flying,” she says. “I really don’t know. But I do know that now I can’t stop.”

 

 

This Remembrance Day, why don’t you explore the stories of your ancestors who may have served and sacrificed in conflicts through history – from female aviators to front line troops. There could be more to your story. Piece it together with a 14-day Free Trial at Ancestry.com.au.

 [1] Air Force Australia, Women in the Air Force