West Indian Women in the WAAF in World War 2

By Audrey Dewjee                                                                                     10^th April 2025

For the purpose of this article, the Bahamas, Bermuda and British Guiana (now Guyana) are included in the terms ‘West Indies’ and ‘Caribbean’ – in the same way as they were included by the West India Committee.
.

Very little seems to have been written about the women from the Caribbean area who joined the WAAF (the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) in WW2 and records of their presence are few and far between. However, a few snippets of information exist and the odd photograph has been preserved, and together these give a tiny window into the women’s experiences. Passenger lists from the ships they sailed on are available for some of them. These record details of ages, places of birth, and previous occupations, but no passenger lists survive for many others, and in most cases this information is difficult to come by from other sources.

One of the most valuable sources of information is the West India Committee Circular (WICC), which was published regularly throughout the war. As well as a number of photographs, the Circular contained two important records of Caribbean volunteers in Britain. One was a column headed ‘West Indians on Service’ and the other was a column headed ‘West Indian Service Visitors’. From these two frequently published lists it is possible to learn about some of the volunteers to the WAAF. Obviously, only those who were stationed near London, or who visited the capital when they were on leave, appeared in the ‘Visitors’ list for the previous month, and only those that the Committee had been informed about could appear in the ‘On Service’ list. Nevertheless, the WICC is a pretty comprehensive resource.

Printed in the WICC of February 1946, was a table headed ‘West Indians on Service – Final List’. According to this list of personnel in the various services, a total of 77 West Indian women served in the WAAF (though the column of numbers, listed by colony, actually adds up to 78, and there is no mention of the recruit they had recorded in their pages as coming from Grenada). The breakdown of the totals registered with the West India Committee was given as follows:

Bahamas	11	all names found
Barbados	7	3 names missing
Jamaica	25	1 name missing
Antigua	3	found
Montserrat	2	found
St. Kitts	1	found
Grenada	–	1 found
Trinidad & Tobago	8	10/11 found
British Guiana	13	3 names missing
Bermuda	8	1 name missing
	78	8 names still to find

The main purpose of this article is to record the names of those who are known to have served in Britain, and also to provide photographs and details about some of them, where this information has been located. It is to be hoped that this will encourage other researchers to find the missing names and discover more details about all of these women in the future.

Early recruits – before February 1943

When the Government finally decided to officially authorise enlistment of West Indians of colour into the Women’s Services, the first mixed group to arrive in Britain was a small contingent of volunteers for the WAAF in February 1943. This was eight months before the first mixed group of ATS volunteers arrived, and sixteen months before the first main contingent of ground crew recruits for the RAF.

However, prior to this, a number of women from the Caribbean had already joined up, either by arranging and paying for their own passage to Britain (and taking the risk of being rejected when they got here), or because they were already living in the country before the war began. Most of these women would have been White, but Barbara Amelia Gordon was one exception. For information about her, see:  https://www.historycalroots.com/women-of-colour-in-the-ats-and-waaf-in-the-early-years-of-world-war-2-2/

I have identified 36 women who were known (or believed) to be serving in the WAAF before the end of January 1943. They are listed below with their service numbers, if known, and the colony they were recorded as coming from – in most cases the colony where they were resident before they left to enlist. Like the recruits who arrived in February 1943 and later, they may have been born elsewhere. A number of them had been born in Britain and had emigrated with their families to the West Indies as children, and two or three were European women listed as being ‘from’ the countries of their West Indian husbands.

N.B. Recruits were allocated a service number on enlistment. If they were later commissioned as officers, they received a new service number – which is why some women listed have two.

Service No.	Name	From
425073 / 7900	Nancy Stewart Reid	British Guiana (born Croydon, England)
426206	(Mrs.) Dorothy Ethel Wilson	Trinidad
445492	Monica Cynthia Boon	St. Kitts
451125 / 3239	Rosemary Ambrosine Kelly	the Bahamas
455140 / 7237	Phyllis Evelyn Hookings	Bermuda
890811 / 1491	Penelope Anne Hickling	Trinidad
890026	Margery Mary Daly	Trinidad
890097 / 2131	Mary Frances Curll Shepherd	Antigua
893877 / 5070	Violet Winonah Milliner	Jamaica
894671	Ilma Lizzie Du Mont	Jamaica
2002226	Edwardina Farley Dyett	Montserrat (born in Antigua)
2008154	(Mrs) Gladys Eileen Forbes	Trinidad (born in Czechoslovakia)[1] Gladys Eileen Fischer was born in Prague. She married Trinidadian Arthur Forbes in London, in 1939.
2015630	Barbara Jean Turquand Mathey	British Guiana
2107325	Daphne Mary Jane Hawkins	Barbados
2020133	Thelma Lucy Osborne	British Guiana
7395	Ella Irma Osborne	British Guiana[2]7395 is Ella Osborne’s service number after she was commissioned Assistant Section Officer.  Her service number on enlistment is as yet unknown.
2025513	Cecilia Georgina Innes (Cicely) Pocock	Jamaica (born Bedford, England)
2027519	Eileen Daphne Ayers	Jamaica (born Yarmouth, England)
2033918	Ellen Roskilly	Trinidad
2058637	Muriel May Huckerby	Grenada
2078100	Barbara Amelia Gordon	Bermuda
2107335	Lorie Ann Webber	British Guiana
2107572	Daphne Noel Goodacre	British Guiana
2110300	Olive Patricia Joslin	Bermuda (born Cockermouth, England)
2127280	Emmeline Ellen McGregor	Jamaica
2133434	Kathleen Wendy Ince	the Bahamas
2140020	Betty Forbes Nobbs	British Guiana (born West Ham, London, England)
2141344	Ellen Lillian Whitney	Bermuda
2141346	Lucy Elizabeth Whitney	Bermuda
2141863	Florence Evelina Beatrix Howes	Montserrat[3]This service number may be incorrect as the names of two women are listed against service number 2141863.
2143115	Linda Louise Crosbie	Jamaica (born Colon, Panama)
2146310	Agnes Beryl Cuthbert	Trinidad
2146357	Rosemary Roberts	Jamaica
Early arrivals whose service numbers are as yet unknown:
	Margaret Evans	Trinidad
	Joan Austin	Barbados
	Betty Welsh	Trinidad (possibly no. 2135015)

Rosemary Kelly came over from the Bahamas in 1939. She joined the Motor Transport Corps and drove an ambulance for 16 months in London before enlisting in the WAAF in July 1941. Ella Irma Osborne and her sister (or perhaps sister-in-law) Thelma Lucy Osborne had come to live in Britain in 1937 and were resident in Paddington, London in 1939. Thelma enlisted some time after May 1941, but exactly when Ella joined is as yet unknown as her service number on enlistment has not been found.

The 1943 Intake

In February 1943, the West India Committee Circular announced that a group of ‘young ladies’ had left the Bahamas for Britain to join one of the Services. It displayed a photograph of them, noting that this had been ‘taken on January 6^th by Mr. Stanley Toogood – in Nassau and not Hollywood as might at first be supposed!’  The article continued, ‘We gather that they have a marked preference for the WAAF. Whether this is influenced by military or sartorial considerations we are not yet aware.’  Unsurprisingly, given the strict (though unofficial) racial segregation that operated in the Bahamas at that time, all these women were White.

On arrival, the two Duncombe sisters joined the ATS. Eight (and probably nine) of the women were accepted into the WAAF. They were:

Service No.	Name	Comments
2149600	Marjorie Grace Johnson	secretary, aged 24
2149601	Joan Mary Louise Winder	motor mechanic, aged 33
2149637	Ann Frederic Wanklyn	born Rawalpindi, Punjab – then in India, now in Pakistan
2149638	(Mrs.) Valeria Margaret Blake (‘Winks’) Loughran née Brownrigg	stenographer, aged 28
2149639	(Mrs.) Margaret Myrtle (Peggy)  Millar née Moseley	aged 20
2149659	Joan Straton	born Reading, England, aged 20
2149660	Margaret Eulalie (Peggy) Hilton,	aged 21
2149661	Mary Pauline Brown	aged 23

Rosalie Knowles most probably also served in the WAAF but her service number has not yet been discovered. Margaret Loughran and Peggy Millar had both married their soldier husbands in the Bahamas in August 1942.

A group of women from Jamaica and Trinidad (which included women of colour) arrived in Britain at the same time. Names gleaned from the March issue of WICC include:

Service No.	Name	Comments
2149602	Joyce Esther Freitas Cyrus	secretary, aged 26, from Trinidad
2149608	Alma Veronicque La Badie	clerk, aged 34, from Jamaica
2149656	Noelle Pauline Thompson,	aged 22, from Jamaica
2149657	Kathleen Louise Robinson	aged 22, from Jamaica
2149707	Sarah St. Clair (Sally) Lopez	aged 30, from Jamaica
2149711	Sonia Mae Thompson	aged 20, from Jamaica

Seven women, identified as being part of this first intake, are known to have travelled in convoy HX 223, which left New York on 14^th January and arrived in Liverpool on 2^nd February. They sailed in three different ships because, prior to D-Day, there was a constant difficulty in finding space in ships to transport recruits. Joyce Cyrus and Grace Johnson arrived on the SS Port Huon, while Joan Winder arrived on the SS Djambi, and the five Jamaican women arrived on the SS Curacao.

A good deal of fuss was made of their arrival in the press (no doubt for propaganda purposes both in Britain and back home) and they were photographed visiting the Colonial Centre and sightseeing in London.

The arrival of the volunteers was reported in the West India Committee Circular of March 1943 (page 50), accompanied by two photographs.

The Members’ Room of the West India Committee presented an unusual appearance one day last month when a party of young women from the Bahamas…Jamaica and Trinidad called to report their safe arrival in London. They were met at 40, Norfolk Street by several Press photographers and by a Gaumont-British cameraman, and their arrival on this side to join the WAAF or the ATS has been noted in a number of London and Provincial newspapers.

Two more small groups of women destined for the WAAF arrived in September and October 1943. The following eight women, all from Jamaica, arrived in New York on the SS Akaroa on 10^th August, and left again on 20^th August in convoy HX253 which arrived in Liverpool on 4^th September:

Service No.	Name	Comments
2149823	Amru Virginia Shivdasani (known as Amru Sani)	stenographer, aged 18
2149824	Pearl Linda Harry	dressmaker, aged 29
2149825	Constance Mercedes O’Rane	typist, aged 37
2149826	Beryl Eunice McNaught	typist, aged 30
2149827	Rosette Iris Hanson	stenographer, aged 26
2149828	Marjorie Helen Campbell	teacher, aged 20
2149829	(Mrs.) Lorna Alene Melhado	clerk, aged 27[4]Lorna was the widow of Sgt. Leslie Melhado an air gunner from Jamaica who was killed in action in June 1942.    … Continue reading
2149830	Kathleen Imogen Thomas	clerk, aged 34

There were dangers other than submarine attacks involved in Atlantic crossings and voyages could be very frightening and uncomfortable. The women on the Akaroa must have had a particularly miserable time, as this description by George Reed, a crew member on the voyage, illustrates.

When we [left Halifax, Nova Scotia], instead of heading more or less directly to the UK we headed north-east up into pack ice with pieces up to 5 ft above water. Do remember that only about a fifth of a chunk of floating ice was above water – the remaining 4/5ths being below the water line. We were the second ship in the line and after several days the lead ship was holed – not badly – but enough to cause the powers that be to have her drop back in the line, and we then became the lead ship….Although the temperature was sub-zero we kept the cabin door sufficiently ajar so that in the event of an emergency, hopefully, it would not jam shut. As the corridor, into which the door opened, led to the open deck was quite short it was not possible to keep the cabin all that warm. But the biggest discomfort was from the ice floes – which being as much as 5 feet showing above water, i.e. some 20 feet plus or minus below water – were grinding alongside as the ship forced its way through them. With only the thickness of a steel plate between us (8 to a cabin) and these large chunks of ice grinding along for every minute of the day and night for nearly a week it was a most noisy and uncomfortable trip.^[5]http://www.warsailors.com/convoys/hx209page2.html  George Reed’s description is at the very end of this page.

 2149831  Ruth Burrowes from Antigua arrived at around the same time as the eight women above, but it is not known what ship she sailed in.

A further four women arrived in New York on the SS Rimutaka from Jamaica on 23^rd September. They left on 28^th September in convoy HX 259 and arrived in Liverpool on 13^th October:

Service No.	Name	Comments
2127820	Emmeline Ellen McGregor	typist, age 33
2149850	Valerie Claire Younis	independent, age 21
2149852	Lisa Rebecca Salmon	secretary, age 38
2149853	Carmen Linda Llewellyn	cashier, age 24

Life in the WAAF

Ann Wanklyn served as a wireless operator with Coastal Command. Kathleen Robinson was also a wireless operator. Margaret Loughran, who had learned morse code^[6]For an explanation of morse code see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code on the troopship on her journey to Britain, served in the Signals Section of an RAF station in Scotland while waiting to go on a wireless operator’s course.  Barbara Gordon was a telephonist. In her publicity material, Amru Sani said that she had been an ‘airplane mechanic’ during her service life. While members of the WAAF did serve as aircraft mechanics, it is possible this was an exageration for publicity purposes.

The Imperial War Museum holds a few images of West Indian WAAFs, but there is often little information to go with them. Obviously this is partly because, at the time, information which may have been of use to the enemy was strictly censored. Thus the caption on the following photograph simply says, ‘WAAF Joyce Cyrus, a recruit from Trinidad, West Indies, pictured walking in a British park.’  According to Maureen Dickson, Joyce was attached to 139 Pathfinder Squadron for general duties.^[7]Maureen M. Dickson, Pilots and Soldiers of the Caribbean, Publishing Push, 2020, pp.100-101.

The original wartime caption for the next photograph reads:  ‘Picture (issued 1943) shows – Aircraftwoman/2 Sarah St. Clair Lopez, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. D.S. Lopez, of 5 Waterloo Avenue, Half Way [Tree], St. Andrew, Jamaica.’

The caption for the following image reads:  ‘Head and shoulders portrait of Sonia Thompson from Kingston, Jamaica, who served as an Instrument Repairer in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force’ – but I strongly believe the trade ascribed to Sonia is incorrect.

This photograph of Sonia Mae Thompson was once mistakenly captioned by the IWM as Lilian Mary Bader, nee Bailey, a Black British member of the WAAF.^[8]For more information about Lilian Bader see: https://www.africansinyorkshireproject.com/lilian-bader.html As a result of this, the photo is still often misidentified as Lilian on other websites. As I knew this wasn’t Lilian because we had been friends for over 20 years, I pointed out the mistake. Unfortunately, when the IWM corrected the name in their caption, they failed to remove Lilian’s trade of ‘instrument repairer.’

I cannot definitely prove that Sonia was not an instrument repairer, but I doubt very much that she was. By the time Sonia joined the WAAF, I suspect all positions of instrument repairer would have long been filled, and to have two Black aircraftwomen employed as instrument repairers would have been a very unlikely coincidence, given that there were so few of them. The RAF Museum also describes Sonia as an instrument repairer, taking their information from the IWM. I have pointed out this likely error to both museums, but neither of them seem willing to check.

Other WAAF recruits

WAAF recruits, whose dates of arrival have not yet been found but whose service numbers are known, include:

Service No.	Name	Comments
2170279	Lucille Iris James	from British Guiana
2170705	Yvonne Phyllis Trestrail	from Trinidad
482160	Mary Faustina Ferreira	from British Guiana
490176	Yvonne Branch	from Antigua

895222  Jean Malin Yearwood (née Barnwell, born in Birmingham, England) was listed in WICC as ‘from Barbados’ shortly after she married Barbadian Flying Officer H. Graham Yearwood in Beaconsfield, England, in 1944.

WAAF members listed in various issues of WICC for whom service numbers have not yet been found include:

Name	Comments
Beryl E. Smith	From Trinidad (born in Grenada) who paid her own fare to Britain and sailed on the Maaskerk via New York in convoy HX 250, which arrived in Greenock, Scotland in August 1943.
Jean M. Evans	From Bermuda
Florence E. Gladwin	From British Guiana
Sylvia C. Roberts	From Bermuda
Mary Hanschell	From Barbados

After the war – some individual stories

When peace returned, some of the women settled in Britain, some returned to the homes they had left and others emigrated to other parts of the world. A number married in Britain, several of whom did so while they were still serving in the WAAF.

Tragically, Leading Aircraftwoman Cicely Pocock (born Bedford, England) never returned to her widowed mother in Montego Bay, Jamaica. On 21^st October 1944, a taxiing accident happened where she was based at RAF St. Mawgan in Cornwall when a Warwick bomber collided with a radar van in which she was travelling. The van was struck by a propeller, severely injuring LACW Pocock, who died 20 minutes later. She was buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery.

Lorna Alene Melhado, who enlisted in 1943, a year after her husband, air gunner Sergeant Leslie Stanhope Melhado had been killed in action, returned to Jamaica where she remarried in 1949.

Alma La Badie was still serving in the WAAF at RAF Transport Command Headquarters at Bushey Park, Teddington in April 1946. In October the previous year she had attended the 5^th Pan African Congress in Manchester as a representative of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Jamaica)^[9]Founded in 1914 by Marcus Mosiah Garvey. For more information see Negro With a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garveyby Colin Grant … Continue reading and had addressed the Congress on the issue of the ‘Brown Babies’ fathered by African American servicemen stationed in Britain (and perhaps, though to a far lesser extent, by West Indian servicemen), telling the gathering that they were one of the most vital problems the Congress had to consider.^[10]An interesting article about the Pan African Congress of 1945, which mentions Alma – https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/10/fifth-pan-african-congress-manchester-chorlton-1945  It should be noted that if the African American fathers had wanted to marry their partners and take care of their children, they were forbidden to do so by US army law. White American servicemen could, of course, marry their White British sweethearts and there was no impediment to West Indians servicemen marrying British women. Many of the women were unable to keep their children, however much they wanted to.^[11]See Britain’s ‘Brown Babies’  by Lucy Bland, Manchester University Press, 2019.

Alma became a member of a committee formed to look after the children’s welfare. Fellow members included George Padmore and Learie Constantine, who was the Treasurer.

On 17 April 1946, Alma wrote to Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the founders and leaders of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in the USA, asking for his help in raising money for these children from African Americans, and expressing her concern for their future support and upbringing. She said that the committee was intending to create homes for them and, where practicable, ‘to have coloured helps to look after them’. Alma told Du Bois, ‘I am going to remain on in the UK, so I feel that I will always be here to look after the children, or at least help with the supervision of the homes.’^[12]https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b110-i415

Alma settled in Britain and died on 5 April 1985 in Islington, London.

When Amru Sani left Jamaica to join the WAAF, the Gleaner published a photograph of her (along with one of Ena Collymore who was coming to join the ATS). The caption read:

‘Going to England shortly is Miss Amru Sani…only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. M.P. Sani of 10 Lundford Road, St. Andrew.…A viviacious amateur singer, Miss Sani has been heard at local theatres’.

After the war, Amru Sani had an international career as both a singer and actress.^[13]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amru_Sani Born on 16^th August 1925, Amru used her mixed heritage to her advantage, surrounding her origins in mystery. When working in India, she emphasised her Asian ancestry.^[14]https://tajmahalfoxtrot.stck.me/post/8686/Amru-Sani-s-hot-sauce-Bombay-1948 Amru Sani died on 15 August 2000, aged 75.

Kathleen Louise Robinson became Kathleen Woods when she married an English husband (in Egypt, according to her neice, Philippa Bainbrigge).^[15]https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php/?story_fbid=2987150064679117&id=1491063070954498&locale=hi_IN  In 1957 she published a novel The Mistress, set in Jamaica in 1915, under the pen name of Ada Quayle.^[16]Published by McGibbon and Kee and dedicated ‘to my husband, who is to blame’.  For more about the author, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Quayle  Philippa explained, ‘Ada Quayle was my Aunt Kathie’s nom de plume. She wrote under a pen name, so as not to scandalise her family at the time! Auntie Kathie chose the name “Ada” in honour of a beloved great aunt and “Quayle”, I was always told, was after Anthony Quayle who was a cousin of my aunt’s husband.’

The novel, ‘part plantation novel and part romantic melodrama,’ was considered by one reviewer to be ‘a competent historical piece’. Although its success was limited and it was her only book, Ada Quayle has the distinction of being among the earliest published female novelists from the West Indies. Kathleen Woods died in Suffolk, England, in 2002.

Pearl Linda Harry married Jacob Aston McKay in Chippenham, Wiltshire, in 1945. Like Pearl, Jacob was also born in Jamaica. He came to Britain in 1941 to join the Royal Engineers (REME) along with a party of 40 or more Jamaicans who were sent to Clitheroe in Lancashire for their initial training. Several photographs were taken of the men shortly after their arrival showing them doing various kinds of work including building pontoon bridges and repairing army vehicles. Some of the photos taken were of individual recruits, but unfortunately a photograph of Jacob is not among them.

Jacob went on to become a member of no. 7 Bomb Disposal Unit based in Bristol – a highly dangerous occupation. He was lucky to survive the war. The couple returned to Jamaica in 1946, and came back to Britain in 1949 with their one-year-old son, settling in Somerset. Four more children were born in Britain.  Jacob died in 1976 and Pearl in 2007, aged 93.

Further research is needed

Why did these women leave the Caribbean and volunteer for the WAAF?  What made them risk the dangerous Atlantic crossing and air raids in Britain? What were their experiences when they got here?  Where were they stationed, and what did they do after the war?  Did they experience racism while serving in the WAAF, or after the war ended? Did any of them leave memoirs?  What were the stories of those about whom we know nothing except their names?

So many questions remain about these intrepid women, to which it would be good to have answers. It is to be hoped that others will be inspired to do further research about them.