Pauline Mary de Peauly Gower Fahie was a British pilot and writer who established the women's branch of the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War.
Pauline Gower at a Women's Engineering Society awards dinner in the 1940s
Gower in the cockpit of a de Havilland Tiger Moth
Five ATA flyers Lettice Curtis, Jenny Broad, Audrey Sale-Barker, Gabrielle Patterson and Gower
Captain Pauline Gower of the Women's Air Transport Auxiliary women's work in the War (other than the Services) by Ethel Gabain
The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a British civilian organisation set up at the start of the Second World War with headquarters at White Waltham Airfield in Berkshire. The ATA ferried new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between factories, assembly plants, transatlantic delivery points, maintenance units (MUs), scrapyards, and active service squadrons and airfields, but not to naval aircraft carriers. It also flew service personnel on urgent duty from one place to another and performed some air ambulance work. Notably, around 10% of its pilots were women, and from 1943 they received equal pay to their male colleagues, a first for the British government.
ATA, Air Transport Auxiliary Ferry pilot's badge
Commendation for ATA pilot Ruth Kerly
First Officer Maureen Dunlop on the cover of Picture Post magazine
Diana Barnato Walker climbing into the cockpit of a Spitfire