Lord Dowding with an aide and several fighter pilots outside the Air Ministry, London, England, United Kingdom, 14 Sep 1942.

15th September 1942: Air aces, who won the Battle of Britain on September 15th 1940, meet again on the eve of the second anniversary of the air battle that saved Britain from German invasion. Representing the Dominions and Poland as well as Britain are, from left to right : Sqd Ldr A C Bartley DFC, Wing Com D F Sheen (Australia) DFC, Wing Com I R Glead DSO DFC, Wing Com Maxi Aitken (1910 - 1985) DSO DFC, Wing Com A G Malan DSO DFC, Sqd Ldr A C Deere (New Zealand) DFC, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding (1882 - 1970), Flt Lt R H Hilary (Sydney) DFC, Wing Com J A Kent (Canada) DFC AFC, Wing Com O B Kingcome DFC, Flt Lt W H Watkins DFC and Warrant Officer R H Gretton. Also present is Flight Officer Elspeth Henderson who, then a corporal won the MM for sticking to her post at a special telephone line whilst bombs fell around the building in which she worked at Biggin Hill.

 

Elspeth Green, who died on August 24 2006 aged 93, was one of three WAAFs awarded the Military Medal for their courageous conduct during the intensive bombing of RAF Biggin Hill at the height of the Battle of Britain.

In the last few days of August 1940 the Luftwaffe concentrated on knocking out the fighter airfields in the south-east of England; and Biggin Hill, one of the most important, suffered heavily.  During this period, when there were six raids in three days, the then Corporal Elspeth Henderson was on duty in the operations room, responsible for maintaining the vital contact between the airfield operations staff and the controllers at Fighter Command headquarters, Uxbridge.

On August 30 nine Junkers 88 bombers delivered a devastating attack on the airfield. An air raid shelter was completely destroyed, and a number of WAAFs sheltering in an adjacent slit trench were amongst the 39 people killed. Others were entombed, and Elspeth Henderson was one of the first to help to dig them out.

After spending the night in makeshift quarters with her WAAF colleagues, she was back on duty the next day when the Luftwaffe attacked again. She maintained contact with Uxbridge despite the bombs bursting on the airfield. Later that afternoon the ops room took a direct hit, and she was knocked over by the blast; but she carried on with her work. "There was nothing much else we could do, anyway," she commented later.

Elspeth Henderson maintained contact with Uxbridge throughout the raid but, as fire broke out, the staff was ordered to take shelter. With her commanding officer and the rest of the staff, she hurriedly left the burning ops room through a broken window and threw herself to the ground as more bombs exploded.

Her warrant officer shouted at her to move - she was leaning against an unexploded bomb. Another WAAF, Sergeant Helen Turner, remained at her post in the adjacent emergency telephone exchange until she had to be dragged away to safety. Yet more attacks were aimed at Biggin Hill on the following day, but the squadrons remained operational and continued to take off from the badly-damaged runways.

Using hastily repaired telephone lines and signals equipment in a temporary operations room, Elspeth Henderson maintained contact with Fighter Command headquarters and the Observer Corps posts. Sporadic raids continued until September 7, when the Luftwaffe turned its attention to London. On November 2 it was announced that Elspeth Henderson and two other WAAFs - Sergeants Helen Turner and Elizabeth Mortimer - had been awarded the Military Medal for their "courage and example of a high order". The commanding officer of Biggin Hill said: " These three girls have shown amazing pluck." Throughout the whole of the Second World War, there were only six awards of the Military Medal to members of the WAAF.

Elspeth Candlish Henderson was born on June 16 1913, the daughter of a Professor of Law at Edinburgh University. She was educated at St Denis School, Edinburgh, and Harrogate Ladies' College. On leaving school she travelled in Europe, becoming proficient in German and French.

During eight months' service with the VAD she was a driver and gained first aid qualifications. She joined the WAAF in January 1940. After two weeks training to be a plotter in the ops room of a fighter base, she was posted to Biggin Hill, one of Fighter Command's main sector airfields.

Elspeth Henderson was soon promoted to corporal, giving her the responsibility of supervising other WAAF plotters as they displayed the progress of incoming enemy bomber formations. Sometimes it was clear that the bombers were heading directly for Biggin Hill, but she and her colleagues remained at their posts plotting the progress of the attack.

Just before the announcement of her award she was commissioned as a section officer and trained in cipher duties. For the next five years she worked in this role on a number of bomber bases. She was posted to Egypt in August 1945 as a welfare officer and a year later left the service with the rank of squadron officer.

After leaving the WAAF she worked at the British Council and was later the secretary for the first Edinburgh International Festival. After her marriage she devoted herself to her family and to voluntary work in Edinburgh. She was a strong supporter of the Aged Christian Friends Society of Scotland.

In July 1974 she returned to Biggin Hill, where a road in the RAF married quarters was named after her. In recent years the site has been demolished, but it has just been announced that the new housing development on the site will include roads bearing the names of the three WAAFs and of former fighter pilots who flew from the Battle of Britain airfield.

Elspeth Henderson married Alastair McWatt Green in 1949. He died in 1991, and she is survived by a son and a daughter.

 

 

The man who fell out with his seniors because he looked after his men.

Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding

In 1934, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding was appointed to the RAF Benevolent Fund council, in his capacity as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Fighter Command.

He was dismayed at first to find much of the council in favour of a major public appeal for funds. Dowding felt the RAF could be asked to do a lot more for itself, saying:

“It is right and proper that serving personnel should be the principal contributors, and they can do very much more than they are now doing.”

This laid the groundwork for the introduction of the Half Day’s Pay Scheme, where members of the RAF could contribute half a day’s pay a year towards the RAFBF. This system remains the bedrock of our income today.

: http://www.lessons-from-history.com/node/98