Leading Aircraftwoman 2025068 Doris Annetts

Name: Doris Lillian Annetts
Rank: Leading Aircraft Woman
Number: 2025068
Role: Stores Worker
Service: RAF
Served: 31/03/1942 to 24/05/46 (date keft die=spersal centre
Demobbed: 19/07/1946
Served at: Lossiemouth, Burghfield Common (and possibly, Weston-super-Mare, Brindley Heath (April 1946) , Broadwell (1945), Morecombe (1942), Gloucester (1942) based on locations on back of photos).

Stories

1. Enlisting
She and a friend (name unknown) decided to join up together. Being underage, they needed their fathers' permissions to join. Mum's father had been severely injured in an accident on the railways and was mentally impeded. As a result, he was easily persuaded to sign. Mum said they had to wait until her friend's father had had a lot to drink in the pub before he could be persuaded to sign!

Having obtained the requisite signatures, they posted their applications. I'm not clear at what point they realised mum was too young to join up, but it must have been quite soon after posting, because they waited by the post box until it was emptied with the intention of retrieving their applications and resubmitting after mum's birthday. When the postman came to empty the box, he refused to return them. As a consequence, her friend was enlisted and mum was told to reapply when old enough.

Mum subsequently joined but never saw her friend for the rest of the war!

2. Boyfriend
Mum told me that she had had a boyfriend (name unknown) who was a glider pilot. She said he was an orphan.
I once saw a WD telegram telling my mum he had been killed in action. I presume, being an orphan, he had nominated mum as his next of kin.
(Amongst her photos was a single passport-sized photo of someone called Ernie Groves which was different from the rest which were either of individual aircraft women or group shots).

3. Smoking
Before the start of a major campaign, she and most of her colleagues were ordered to church parade. Whilst there they heard the sound of many aircraft taking off. (She wasn't clear which campaign it was but candidates must be D-Day and Arnhem). Sometime afterwards, not clear whether it was hours or days, but plane loads of serious casualties began landing. (This suggests D-Day rather than Arnhem because, since it was isolated, casualties couldn't be evacuated by air I assume). All those WAAFs who had no other direct role to play in handling the wounded were given: a flannel; toothpaste & a toothbrush and cigarettes & matches. They were instructed to give some initial comfort to the wounded by washing heir faces, cleaning heir teeth and lighting a cigarette for them.
At the end of they day mum and her friends were in the NAAFI discussing the events of the day when mum broke down in tears saying she couldn't do it. Her friends rounded on her pointing out these poor men had serious, potentially disabling or even life ending, injuries. They asked her what the problem was. She explained it wasn't the seriousness of the injuries - she couldn't light the cigarettes! As a result, her friends sat her down with a packet of Woodbines and taught her to smoke.

She remained a smoker for the rest of her life!