In September 1939, there were a number of women in Canada with pilots' licenses who were eager to put their flying skills at the service of their country. But they were to be disappointed. A few joined the British civilian Air Transport Auxiliary, formed to ferry aircraft from "anywhere to anywhere," and others joined the Women's Division of the RCAF, its motto "We Serve That Men May Fly" notwithstanding. The hierarchy of the RCAF thought that "a very proper place for women in the Service was in the kitchen," or working as clerks, stenographers, drivers, telephone operators, and fabric workers. An airwoman with the coveted trades classification of "clerk operational" might be involved in directing or recording flight activity from a control tower. She might sit with headset or in direct communication with a radar station plotting the positions of aircraft on a grid-map, or she might be in a signal room tapping out messages to aircraft in the vicinity.
The job of parachute rigger was deemed suitable for air-women. One officer remarked: "Take parachute packing. To a man it's a dull, routine job. He doesn't want to pack parachutes. He wants to be up there with one strapped to his back. But to a woman it's an exciting job. She can imagine that someday a flier's life will be saved because she packed that parachute well. Maybe it will be her own husband's life or her boy-friend's. That makes parachute packing pretty exciting for her and she does a much more efficient and speedy job than an unhappy airman would."
Parachute riggers also issued parachutes, helped repair them, and periodically inspected them for breakages by taking them out, as shown in this photograph, and letting them balloon in the wind.
Courtesy: Toronto Telegram Photograph Collection, York University Archives (Box 98, File 669)
