Jean Allan Glass (1920)

Born 1920 in New Zealand.

Ancestors

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Biography

Birth

Jean was born in 1920 in New Zealand. She is the daughter of Thomas Glass and Mary Campbell. ^[1]

WWII

Jean enlisted on 25 November 1941 in Levin, Manawatu-Wanganui in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF)
Service No. W1849.

The W.A.A.F. chose its members carefully by means of touring selection boards which interviewed applicants. After enlisting there was a three weeks’ course, kitting up, and necessary medical and dental examination, inoculation, and vaccination. The coarse was mainly devoted to instruction in drill and discipline, including lectures on regulations, service etiquette, and ‘such knowledge of Air Force Law as was necessary for an airwoman to know’.

The WAAF was formed to enable the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) to release more men for service overseas during the Second World War. The WAAF contributed to the war effort by easing personnel shortages. Initially, women served as cooks, mess-hands, drivers, clerks, equipment assistants, medical orderlies. typists. Later there was added, meteorological observers, signals duties, and W.A.A.F. wireless operators, telephone and teleprinter operators, and cipher officers. In 1942 the WAAF officially joined the RAF and were granted the ability to hold military rank the same as men. Some were trained in radar and posted to radar stations. By the end of the war, they were working in a variety of trades. Living on base and serving at every major air force station in New Zealand, as well as in Fiji and on Norfolk Island.

A few New Zealand girls went to England and joined the Air Transport Auxiliary which was charged with the duty of ferrying aircraft from factories to service aerodromes. Two airwomen were, in 1941 and 1944 respectively, specially released from the W.A.A.F. to go to England for this work, which was, of course, open only to those women who had already qualified as pilots in pre-war years.

It will be obvious that any airwoman concerned with the servicing and maintenance of aircraft was carrying a high degree of responsibility. Others too had men’s lives literally in their hands, for instance those who packed and checked parachutes.

It was officially stated in November 1947 that the W.A.A.F. is to be retained as a permanent part of the peacetime establishment of the R.N.Z.A.F.

Jean never married.

Research Notes

There is very little information available on WAAF's no record of where she was stationed or what trade or job she performed. No record in NZ Archives.

Sources

1. ↑ Birth: New Zealand Births, Deaths and Marriages - Online. Registration: 1920/24806; Name: Jean Allan Glass; Parents: Mary McMillan & Thomas Blaney accessed 10 May 2023; citing New Zealand Crown, Copyright: The Department of Internal Affairs.

• Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Electronic Text Collection, D. O. W. Hall, Woman at War, Episodes and Studies Volume 1, Published by, Historical publications branch, Wellington; Part of: The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War; accessed 10 May 2023.

• Online Cenotaph Data by Auckland War Memorial Museum, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (accessed 10 May 2023).

• NZ History, Women's Auxiliary Air Force founded. New Zealand History accessed 10 May 2023.

• B/J Tree