is that when we left France,
we left all the tanks,
all the guns,
all the ammunition,
everything.
Dunkirk was an enormous defeat.
We think of it as a
because we got the soldiers out.
But there were no, we had no tanks.
My father was down in East
I can't remember what he said.
It was either he had rifles and no bullets
or bullets and no rifles
and just a load of barbed wire.
He had bullets but no rifles.
Refusing her mother’s wishes to study Domestic Science at a local college, Katherine Du Plat-Taylor instead joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). She served as an Operations Clerk, stationed deep underground in the tunnels below Dover. One of her main responsibilities was to work with Air Sea Rescue, plotting the location of aircrafts on a table map in an operations room, saving the lives of hundreds of pilots.
Hauts-de-France , France
| Role Clerk SD | Age 22 |
Mother lost her husband, her brothers and all her male cousins.
Katherine Du Plat-TaylorI'm a rebel woman.
Katherine Du Plat-TaylorJust get out of Dover
Katherine Du Plat-TaylorWe had more pilots than planes.
Katherine Du Plat-TaylorThe RAF? What's that?
Katherine Du Plat-Taylor
The Ops Room
Katherine Du Plat-TaylorMother was a bit miffed.
Katherine Du Plat-TaylorThey were heroic women.
Katherine Du Plat-TaylorWe were very unpopular with the rest of the WAAF.
Katherine Du Plat-Taylor
You'd wait to hear about the boy you'd been dancing with.
Katherine Du Plat-TaylorGet up and put your trousers on.
Katherine Du Plat-Taylor
