orderly

Caption: Tom Egli, Manson, Iowa, is a VS orderly at the LaJunta Mennonite Hospital.

Caption: Carl Ramer, a VS orderly at the Mennonite Hospital, La Junta, Colo., taking a patients pulse. 1962.

The Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) was formed in March 1941 after considerable lobbying by women keen to serve and by the Chief of the Air Staff who wanted to release male personnel serving in Australia for service overseas. The WAAAF was the first and largest of the World War II Australian Women's Services. It was disbanded in December 1947. During the early years of World War II the necessity to make use of women in many new avenues of employment became apparent. Despite resistance from some members of the War Cabinet, bureaucrats and the Service, in February 1941 the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) received approval to create the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF). Wireless telegraphists were urgently needed to assist in meeting a temporary deficiency of male wireless telegraphists. Airwomen were accepted into 73 different musterings (trades), including highly skilled technical employment on aircraft. In addition to telegraphists, women became armament workers, electricians, fitters, flight mechanics, fabricworkers, instrument makers and meteorological assistants, besides using skills in many clerical, medical, transport, catering, equipment, signals and radar fields of employment. Over 700 women held commissioned rank and like airwomen, worked in a great variety of administrative, technical and professional tasks. A number commanded units in operations rooms, at General Douglas MacArthur's Headquarters in Brisbane dealing with intelligence matters, at Operational Units, in RAAF Hospitals, Aircraft Depots, Radar Stations, RAAF Bases – wherever they were needed, they served. Airwomen were paid two-thirds of RAAF male pay for equivalent positions. The officers were paid a good deal less than male officers of equal rank. The value of the work and the skills of the WAAAF during a period when thousands of men needed to be released for operational duty overseas and Australia itself was at risk, encouraged the formation of the Women's Royal Australian Air Force (WRAAF) in 1951. This branch of the RAAF was disbanded in 1977 when its members became an integral part of the RAAF. Source: www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0400b.htm