Sally: Diary of a WAAF by Patrick O'Neil-Dunne. This includes song texts from the author's collection and a few written by the author during WWII service in the RAF.
Author's Note
As did thousands of others, I dropped civilian life at the outbreak of World War II to volunteer for service in the Royal Air Force. I had a pilot's licence from a flying club with about twenty hours experience in a Tiger Moth. After journeying from Ceylon at my own expense, I turned up at the Air Ministry in the spring of 1940 and said: "Where's my Spitfire?"
"Spitfire hell. You're too old." I was 30. "But there's airborne radar and we're looking for blokes like you."
Thus it came to pass that after diligent training I became a sort of a whiz kid at AI - Night Air Interception and Navigation. The rest the reader may glean from this novel.
On a mild wet October morning in 1945 at Uxbridge, I doffed my RAF uniform and ribbons and returned to civilian life to become International Director of the Rothmans of Pall Mall World Group of tobacco companies. At the age of 63, I retired from active business and found the time to tidy up my personal life and papers, and to reflect upon the past.
In these circumstances I wandered one winter's day into the loft of my country home. Here I found, buried amidst other memorabilia, my RAF uniform, medals, flying log-book, combat reports, photographs, diaries, love letters and an oil-stained HM Stationery Office exercise book of hand-written RAF songs such as were sung at parties. The music and words of a few were composed by myself. These I caused to be typed and photocopied for old comrades and friends. They were much in demand.
One evening, I thumbed through my flying log-book. The entries brought back memories: some fond, some happy, but mostly sad. With time on my hands, and spurred by a compelling urge to be an author, I wrote this story within a fortnight. It was an easy book to write because the dates, catalogued in my log, triggered my memory and imagination. The service characters have been camouflaged with fictitious names, titles and ranks, and should not be taken to resemble specific persons, living or dead.
I am deeply grateful to those friends and old comrades who helped and encouraged me to present to you this biographical novel of a view of World War II which does not appear ever to have been so expressed. It gives glimpses of life in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and, in the main, pays tribute to the 250,000 "forgotten" women who served in it. Without their devotion the RAF could not have functioned the way it did.
P. O'Neil-Dunne
Cambridge, 17 March 1976
Happy, beautiful and innocent - that was Sally when World War II erupted. As she tells us in her Diary, she was looking forward to a good life with all the enthusiasm of youth. Yet because of the Nazi madman, what became of her was far from her dreams.
Here is a different kind of war tale: a novel about Sally and the men (and women) she loved; also an authentic story about RAF Night Fighters and Waafs, about their unconquerable spirit, tragic love affairs, unselfish loyalty and courage - and some unexpurgated RAF wartime songs which reveal the lighter side of their lives! Throughout runs the theme of the futility of war, of the most calamitous conflagration the world has ever known, needlessly swallowing up thirty million lives.
The author was one of the first RAF aircrew to visit Berlin after the collapse of Germany and he stood on the ruins of the Chancellery a few days after Hitler's suicide. He plants the guilt squarely on that madman whose last days in the bunker are recounted with vivid conviction.
ISBN 0 85974 046 3
Born in S. Ireland, educated in
the US, Paddy O'Neil-Dunne's
career as a young director of
Rothmans was interrupted by World
War II. He volunteered for the
RAF. From the battle of Britain
to VE Day he served with distinction, flying Blenheims, Beaufighters and Mosquitos with 29, 264,
410, 488 Night Fighter Squadrons.
He took part in the Dam Busting Raid, Normandy landing and crossing of the Rhine and is one of
the few RAF aircrew to survive
three tours of operations.
After the war he rose to Director-in-Chief of Rothmans International. He played a leading role in changing smoking habits to safer filter cigarettes. On retirement he took up writing.
He married the Mayfair society daughter of a distinguished British Army officer. They have two sons and two daughters, after one of whom this book is named.
Jacket design Terry Grafton & Josh Kirby.