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Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) spotters
From 1941 all unmarried women between 20 and 30 years old were called up to join one of the auxiliary services. These were the Auxilliary Territorial Service (ATS), the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and the Women’s Transport Service. Later this conscription was extended to some married women. They were not intended to serve in the front line of battle – but for much of the war the front line was indistinguishable from the home front, especially with regard to Anti Aircraft gunnery. 731 women died serving in these Auxilliary units during the war.
Mary Latham was just one of hundreds of thousands of young women who suddenly found their lives completely transformed:
The year was 1942. I was a hairdresser in Chorley, Lancashire. As hairdressing was considered to be a luxury trade in wartime and I was 18 years old, I was given the choice of munitions work or joining one of the forces.
My friend May and I travelled to Preston to sign up in the forces and received the King’s Shilling. Two weeks later we were notified to go to Lancaster. We were met at Preston station by a sergeant, taken to Lancaster and fitted out with our uniforms.
How different my life changed in the next 4 years. We moved from Lancaster to Arborfield, where we did 6 weeks of intensive training all at the double. Each one was assessed for:
* Fitness
* Hearing
* Eyesight
* Nerves (in Ack-Ack action)
It was necessary to pass all the tests.
Fortunately I passed as a Predictor operator No.3 – which involved looking through a telescope, keeping the target on the horizon line. This demanded steady nerves under gunfire and we needed a lot of practice. At the end of the day, we were mentally and physically exhausted. We lost our voices as all orders were shouted as loudly as possible.
The procedure was as follows:
The predictor (Kerry – called after its inventor) [Major A.V. Kerrison at the Admiralty Research Laboratory, Teddington] passed the information we put in on to the guns (3.7) then the gunners fired the shells. We worked in 2 groups – A and B. I was in B group – 5 on the predictor, 3 on height-finding.
Plotters were on duty for 24 hours underground. The plotting room was always ready for any aircraft flying overhead.
We were well looked after with health inoculations every 3 months, regular dental care, F.F.I. (Free From Infection) each Friday.
We (14 girls in each hut) were confined to our billets on Friday nights. We had to clean all our equipment, even to the studs on the bottom of our boots.
After 6 weeks practice in Arborfield, we were sent to Bude in Cornwall. This was our first Gun-Site this was not operational, but it gave us a taste of what was to come.
The only description of the gunfire (4 guns firing in a semi-circle with the predictor 20 yards away) was like hell let loose. However, we got used to it.
Our battery was moved to 36 different sites along the East and South coasts of England.
…
During our time in Hull we shot down one of our own aircraft (a Wellington). The crew gave us the wrong signal. Fortunately they landed safely – just the tail missing. We were commended for our accurate firing but the crew were not impressed. Hull was badly hit at the time.
At Caister, near Yarmouth, 25 A.T.S.s were killed by machine-gun fire. The enemy aircraft flew over in the early morning at sunrise, when it was impossible to see them and peppered the coast with gun-fire. It was a frightening sight to see Focke Wulfs diving down while we tried to pay our respects, standing to attention during the playing of the Last Post, to those who had been killed.
http://ww2today.com/27th-december-1942-the-life-of-an-ats-ack-ack-girl .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/49/a2159949.shtml .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/98/a7120298.shtml .
'Ack Ack Girls' were members of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) that helped operate Anti-Aircraft Guns in the defense of Britain from German bombing raids during World War 2.
From 1941 onward all unmarried British women aged 20 to 30 were required to join one of the Auxiliary services, which included the ATS. One of the most dangerous and exciting ATS roles was to be selected for 'Ack Ack' duty, manning the Anti-Aircraft guns known for their distinctive ack-ack sound as they fired. The idea to use women in gun crews was first proposed by British engineer Caroline Haslett and was eagerly approved by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Churchill's own daughter, Mary Soames, was one of the first Ack Ack volunteers and served at a gun site in London's Hyde Park.
As a royal proclamation forbade women from operating deadly weapons, Ack Ack Girls worked as part of mixed-gender squads where men would load and fire the weapons with the women's support. The three main roles of the women were Spotters who used binoculars to find enemy planes, Range-Finding teams who calculated the distance a gun shell would have to travel to hit the target, and Predictor teams who worked out the length of the fuse necessary to make sure the shell exploded at the right height.
Women were subject to the same intensive training as men and had to undergo rigorous testing in terms of fitness, hearing, eyesight and nerves in order to be accepted. This was essential for enduring the hard conditions at the gun emplacements and to keep on task while bombs fell all around them. When the Germans deployed V1 flying bombs against Britain, 369 Ack Ack Girls were killed in just 3 months. Their sacrifice and dedication proved invaluable to the war effort, as well as providing a boost to civilian morale, the sound of the Ack Ack guns becoming a well-recognised symbol of British resistance.
Read a personal account of Ack Ack Girl, Vee Robinson, here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/96/a2089596.shtml
http://thefemalesoldier.com/blog/ack-ack-girls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Territorial_Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aircraft_warfare#Second_World_War
A battery of 4.5 inch anti-aircraft guns in action at night. In the foreground is an ATS section operating the height finder.
Some time during December 1942 the War Office photographers were out with their colour film again. Given the difficulty of their subject matter, including gunfire, they made a pretty impressive job of it.
From 1941 all unmarried women between 20 and 30 years old were called up to join one of the auxiliary services. These were the Auxilliary Territorial Service (ATS), the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and the Women’s Transport Service. Later this conscription was extended to some married women. They were not intended to serve in the front line of battle – but for much of the war the front line was indistinguishable from the home front, especially with regard to Anti Aircraft gunnery. 731 women died serving in these Auxilliary units during the war.
Mary Latham was just one of hundreds of thousands of young women who suddenly found their lives completely transformed:
The year was 1942. I was a hairdresser in Chorley, Lancashire. As hairdressing was considered to be a luxury trade in wartime and I was 18 years old, I was given the choice of munitions work or joining one of the forces.
My friend May and I travelled to Preston to sign up in the forces and received the King’s Shilling. Two weeks later we were notified to go to Lancaster. We were met at Preston station by a sergeant, taken to Lancaster and fitted out with our uniforms.
How different my life changed in the next 4 years. We moved from Lancaster to Arborfield, where we did 6 weeks of intensive training all at the double. Each one was assessed for:
* Fitness
* Hearing
* Eyesight
* Nerves (in Ack-Ack action)
It was necessary to pass all the tests.
Fortunately I passed as a Predictor operator No.3 – which involved looking through a telescope, keeping the target on the horizon line. This demanded steady nerves under gunfire and we needed a lot of practice. At the end of the day, we were mentally and physically exhausted. We lost our voices as all orders were shouted as loudly as possible.
The procedure was as follows:
The predictor (Kerry – called after its inventor) [Major A.V. Kerrison at the Admiralty Research Laboratory, Teddington] passed the information we put in on to the guns (3.7) then the gunners fired the shells. We worked in 2 groups – A and B. I was in B group – 5 on the predictor, 3 on height-finding.
Plotters were on duty for 24 hours underground. The plotting room was always ready for any aircraft flying overhead.
We were well looked after with health inoculations every 3 months, regular dental care, F.F.I. (Free From Infection) each Friday.
We (14 girls in each hut) were confined to our billets on Friday nights. We had to clean all our equipment, even to the studs on the bottom of our boots.
After 6 weeks practice in Arborfield, we were sent to Bude in Cornwall. This was our first Gun-Site this was not operational, but it gave us a taste of what was to come.
The only description of the gunfire (4 guns firing in a semi-circle with the predictor 20 yards away) was like hell let loose. However, we got used to it.
Our battery was moved to 36 different sites along the East and South coasts of England.
…
During our time in Hull we shot down one of our own aircraft (a Wellington). The crew gave us the wrong signal. Fortunately they landed safely – just the tail missing. We were commended for our accurate firing but the crew were not impressed. Hull was badly hit at the time.
At Caister, near Yarmouth, 25 A.T.S.s were killed by machine-gun fire. The enemy aircraft flew over in the early morning at sunrise, when it was impossible to see them and peppered the coast with gun-fire. It was a frightening sight to see Focke Wulfs diving down while we tried to pay our respects, standing to attention during the playing of the Last Post, to those who had been killed.
'Ack Ack Girls' were members of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) that helped operate Anti-Aircraft Guns in the defense of Britain from German bombing raids during World War 2.
From 1941 onward all unmarried British women aged 20 to 30 were required to join one of the Auxiliary services, which included the ATS. One of the most dangerous and exciting ATS roles was to be selected for 'Ack Ack' duty, manning the Anti-Aircraft guns known for their distinctive ack-ack sound as they fired. The idea to use women in gun crews was first proposed by British engineer Caroline Haslett and was eagerly approved by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Churchill's own daughter, Mary Soames, was one of the first Ack Ack volunteers and served at a gun site in London's Hyde Park.
As a royal proclamation forbade women from operating deadly weapons, Ack Ack Girls worked as part of mixed-gender squads where men would load and fire the weapons with the women's support. The three main roles of the women were Spotters who used binoculars to find enemy planes, Range-Finding teams who calculated the distance a gun shell would have to travel to hit the target, and Predictor teams who worked out the length of the fuse necessary to make sure the shell exploded at the right height.
Women were subject to the same intensive training as men and had to undergo rigorous testing in terms of fitness, hearing, eyesight and nerves in order to be accepted. This was essential for enduring the hard conditions at the gun emplacements and to keep on task while bombs fell all around them. When the Germans deployed V1 flying bombs against Britain, 369 Ack Ack Girls were killed in just 3 months. Their sacrifice and dedication proved invaluable to the war effort, as well as providing a boost to civilian morale, the sound of the Ack Ack guns becoming a well-recognised symbol of British resistance.
Read a personal account of Ack Ack Girl, Vee Robinson, here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/96/a2089596.shtml
http://thefemalesoldier.com/blog/ack-ack-girls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Territorial_Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aircraft_warfare#Second_World_War
The life of an ATS 'Ack Ack' Girl - WWII Today
From 1941 all unmarried women between 20 and 30 years old were called up to join one of the auxiliary services. These were the Auxilliary Territorial Service (ATS), the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and the Women’s Transport Service. Later this conscription was extended to some married women. They were not intended to serve in the front line of battle – but for much of the war the front line was indistinguishable from the home front, especially with regard to Anti Aircraft gunnery. 731 women died serving in these Auxilliary units during the war.
Mary Latham was just one of hundreds of thousands of young women who suddenly found their lives completely transformed:
The year was 1942. I was a hairdresser in Chorley, Lancashire. As hairdressing was considered to be a luxury trade in wartime and I was 18 years old, I was given the choice of munitions work or joining one of the forces.
My friend May and I travelled to Preston to sign up in the forces and received the King’s Shilling. Two weeks later we were notified to go to Lancaster. We were met at Preston station by a sergeant, taken to Lancaster and fitted out with our uniforms.
How different my life changed in the next 4 years. We moved from Lancaster to Arborfield, where we did 6 weeks of intensive training all at the double. Each one was assessed for:
* Fitness
* Hearing
* Eyesight
* Nerves (in Ack-Ack action)
It was necessary to pass all the tests.
Fortunately I passed as a Predictor operator No.3 – which involved looking through a telescope, keeping the target on the horizon line. This demanded steady nerves under gunfire and we needed a lot of practice. At the end of the day, we were mentally and physically exhausted. We lost our voices as all orders were shouted as loudly as possible.
The procedure was as follows:
The predictor (Kerry – called after its inventor) [Major A.V. Kerrison at the Admiralty Research Laboratory, Teddington] passed the information we put in on to the guns (3.7) then the gunners fired the shells. We worked in 2 groups – A and B. I was in B group – 5 on the predictor, 3 on height-finding.
Plotters were on duty for 24 hours underground. The plotting room was always ready for any aircraft flying overhead.
We were well looked after with health inoculations every 3 months, regular dental care, F.F.I. (Free From Infection) each Friday.
We (14 girls in each hut) were confined to our billets on Friday nights. We had to clean all our equipment, even to the studs on the bottom of our boots.
After 6 weeks practice in Arborfield, we were sent to Bude in Cornwall. This was our first Gun-Site this was not operational, but it gave us a taste of what was to come.
The only description of the gunfire (4 guns firing in a semi-circle with the predictor 20 yards away) was like hell let loose. However, we got used to it.
Our battery was moved to 36 different sites along the East and South coasts of England.
…
During our time in Hull we shot down one of our own aircraft (a Wellington). The crew gave us the wrong signal. Fortunately they landed safely – just the tail missing. We were commended for our accurate firing but the crew were not impressed. Hull was badly hit at the time.
At Caister, near Yarmouth, 25 A.T.S.s were killed by machine-gun fire. The enemy aircraft flew over in the early morning at sunrise, when it was impossible to see them and peppered the coast with gun-fire. It was a frightening sight to see Focke Wulfs diving down while we tried to pay our respects, standing to attention during the playing of the Last Post, to those who had been killed.
http://ww2today.com/27th-december-1942-the-life-of-an-ats-ack-ack-girl .
