Canadian Women in Air Transport Auxiliary
While women were denied the chance to fly with the RCAF during the Second World War, another organization allowed them to fly in support of the Allied war effort.
Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA)
The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a civilian organization that ferried aircraft between factories, maintenance units, and front-line squadrons. Many women, including Canadians, were in its ranks. The ATA began operations in February 1940.
Women in the Air Transport Auxiliary
During the war ATA employed 168 women to ferry aircraft.
Often these pilots flew aircraft they had never flown or even seen before. They relied on notes to get the aircraft safely to their destination.
Ferry Air Pilots (1941)
Despite the initial limitations on female pilots in the ATA, as mentioned in the video, they were flying all types of aircraft by the end of the war.
Marion Alice Orr
Orr joined the ATA with her friend Violet 'Vi' Milstead and they left for England in the summer of 1942. Orr flew her first ATA flight on June 2, 1943. She logged 700 flying hours while with the ATA.
After the war, she founded the Maple, Ontario airport.
Marion Orr Heritage Minute
Violet 'Vi' Milstead
Milstead worked as a flight instructor before the war.
She flew with the ATA from April 1943 to July 1945. She piloted 47 different makes of aircraft and logged 623 flying hours during the war. Milstead was the longest serving Canadian female pilot with the ATA.
Margaret Elspeth Russell
Russell served with the ATA from September 1943 to October 1945.
Upon returning to Canada after the war, she formed her own airline, Matane Air Services, with her husband.
Helen Harrison
Harrison joined the ATA in 1942. In 1943 she co-piloted a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber across the North Atlantic Ocean from Montreal to Scotland.
She continued to fly after the war and retired in 1969. Over her career, she logged over 14,000 flying hours.
Lois ButlerRCAF Foundation
Lois Butler
Butler was a skier and she represented Canada at the 1936 Winter Olympics.
She was one of the first woman to join the ATA in 1940. Butler completed more than 1,000 flying hours in 36 types of aircraft during the Second World War.
Elsie Joy Davison
Davison started flying in 1929 and worked as a pilot for many years. She joined the ATA on July 1, 1940.
A week later, she was killed in a crash. Davison was the first female ATA pilot to die in service. In total, 173 ATA aircrew lost their lives while in service.
Airshow at ATA Headquarters in Maidenhead (1945)
The ATA's War
Roughly 1300 pilots, women and men, served in the Air Transport Auxiliary over the course of the Second World War. They provided a vital service in ferrying aircraft to where the needed to be.
Sources
Air Transport Auxiliary Museum & Archive at Maidenhead Heritage Centre
The Ferry Pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary, 1939-1945
Marion Alice Orr (The Canadian Encyclopedia)
Vi Milstead Warren (Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame)
Margaret 'Elspeth' Russell
Helen Harrison
Lois Butler
Celebrating The Women Of The Air Transport Auxiliary
About the ATA
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