Rustington WAAFS wave farewell

About 20 members of the Rustington branch of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) Association met officially for the last time in the lounge of the village’s Abbotswood care home.

Their numbers dwindling from a peak of almost 150 in the late 1990s, they decided to call it a day as far as the branch is concerned, although there are likely to be unofficial get-togethers for coffee and chats about their remarkable experiencess.

The branch, which began in April, 1993, drew members from across the West Sussex coast and from as far as Brighton. Its final meeting came just a few months short of what would have been the 20th anniversary.

Barbara Messett, 87, from Rustington, joined up at the age of 17 in 1942, at RAF Hendon, with 24 Squadron, before moving on to Bushey Park, near Hampton Court, and then to the huge Burtonwood US air base near Warrington, in Cheshire, where she worked for the master provisions office.

“My friend and I had American boyfriends. Mine use to love coming home with me to my parents in Sydenham (Kent), and they always made him feel welcome. It was a home from home for him, so far from his home,” recalled Barbara.

Her job was to keep a record of aircraft spares and where they were stored, all over the country, so that if a part was needed, it could quickly be found and dispatched.

“If there was an aircraft on the ground and we could tell them where to get the part, it would be up in the air again as soon as possible.

“We all did our part. We did the job that the men did before they were called up.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, it was very worthwhile work,” said Barbara, who was the WAAF branch secretary and also served as its chairman for a number of years.

One of her happy memories of Burtonwood was shopping in a store on the US base. “You could buy all the things you wanted, soap, chocolate, cigarettes. The first time we went in there, we cleaned them out! After that, we were put on a ration, but we could still get stuff my mother couldn’t get at home.”

Joan Canfield met her future husband Bill on her first WAAF posting on an RAF base near Edinburgh, where he was a wireless operator direction finder, guiding planes coming in to land.

He was then moved to west Africa with 63 Squadron, while her WAAF service took Joan to another Scottish base, as well as to Harrogate, Devon, Carlisle and her native Newcastle.

“We were pulling our weight in the WAAFs,” said Joan, 89, who lives in Littlehampton. “We were part and parcel of the war effort. There was a terrific camaraderie in the WAAF.”