A spitfire girl : one of the world's greatest female ATA ferry pilots tells her story / Mary Ellis, As Told To Melody Foreman To Melody Foreman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ellis, Mary, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Female youth.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (259 pages, 33 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations, photographs

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

South Yorkshire, England : Frontline Books, 2016.

Summary:

We visualize dashing and daring young men as the epitome of the pilots of the Second World War, yet amongst that elite corps was one person who flew no less than 400 Spitfires and seventy-six different types of aircraft and that person was Mary Wilkins.Her story is one of the most remarkable and endearing of the war, as this young woman, serving as a ferry pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary, transported aircraft for the RAF, including fast fighter planes and huge four-engine bombers. On one occasion Mary delivered a Wellington bomber to an airfield, and as she climbed out of the aircraft the RAF ground crew ran over to her and demanded to know where the pilot was! Mary said simply: I am the pilot! Unconvinced the men searched the aircraft before they realized a young woman had indeed flown the bomber all by herself.After the war she accepted a secondment to the RAF, being chosen as one of the first pilots, and one of only three women, to take the controls of the new Meteor fast jet. By 1950 the farmer's daughter from Oxfordshire with a natural instinct to fly became Europe's first female air commandant.In this authorized biography the woman who says she kept in the background during her ATA years and left all the glamour of publicity to her colleagues, finally reveals all about her action-packed career which spans almost a century of aviation, and her love for the skies which, even in her nineties, never falters.She says: I am passionate for anything fast and furious. I always have been since the age of three and I always knew I would fly. The day I stepped into a Spitfire was a complete joy and it was the most natural thing in the world for me.

Contents:

Intro

Title

Copyright

Contents

Foreword by H.R.H. Prince Michael of Kent

Acknowledgements

Personal Tribute by Carolyn Grace

Prologue

Chronology

Chapter 1 My First Spitfires

Chapter 2 Early Inspirations

Chapter 3 To the Skies - Aged Eight!

Chapter 4 Those Were the Days

Chapter 5 Going Solo

Chapter 6 The ATA Women's Section

Chapter 7 'New Eves of the Air'

Chapter 8 Fighter Girls

Chapter 9 Reporting for Duty

Chapter 10 Ferry Girl

Chapter 11 No.15 Ferry Pool, Hamble

Chapter 12 Forced Landing

Chapter 13 'My' Spitfire

Chapter 14 Life and Death

Chapter 15 All in a Day's Work

Chapter 16 Close Calls

Chapter 17 'I AM the Pilot'

Chapter 18 D-Day Spitfires

Chapter 19 Shared Memories

Chapter 20 Last Days of the ATA

Chapter 21 Rally Driver

Chapter 22 'Miss Wilkins Runs an Airport'

Chapter 23 'Spitfire Mary'

Appendix I Spitfire Deliveries 1942-1946

Appendix II Hurricane Deliveries 1942-1945

Appendix III Swordfish Deliveries 1942-1944

Appendix IV Wellington Deliveries 1943-1945

Appendix V Typhoon Deliveries 1945

Appendix VI Tempest Deliveries 1945

Appendix VII Mosquito Deliveries 1945-1946

Appendix VIII Eleven Types In Ten Days March 1944

Appendix IX Twelve Types In Ten Days August 1945

Appendix X Twelve Types In Twenty Days May 1945

Appendix XI Aircraft Types Flown

Appendix XII Airfields Flown To and From During ATA Service

Bibliography

Bookplate.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed December 12, 2016).

ISBN:

9781473895393

1473895391

9781473895386

1473895383