rachelmanija (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rachelmanija) wrote2022-11-08 10:42 am
rachelmanija) wrote2022-11-08 10:42 am
Worrals of the WAAF, by W. E. Johns
"The guns fired just as well for me as if a noble Wing Commander had pressed the button."
If you like Biggles, you have GOT to read Worrals.
During WWII, the Air Ministry asked Johns to write some books to inspire girls to join the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force). He obligingly wrote eleven of them, basing his heroine on two WAAF pilots he knew. The books are now even harder to find that Biggles, which is too bad, because this one, at least, is terrific.
Joan Worralson (aka Worrals) is frustrated with only being allowed to ferry planes back and forth, as women aren't allowed in combat. Her best friend Betty Lovell (aka Frecks because she has freckles) is frustrated because, at seventeen, she's too young to officially be a pilot. I should note that Worrals is a pilot at all of just-turned-eighteen. At one point a male pilot calls Worrals "kid," she asks him if he's twenty yet, and he replies, "Almost!" There are definite shades of the WWI Biggles books here, though thankfully casualty rates aren't as high.
After Worrals gets an unauthorized lesson in piloting a fighter plane, she's dispatched to deliver it to a base. She takes Frecks along as a passenger. When she tests out the radio, they hear a radio message about an unidentified plane that must be shot down at all costs, just as they see that same plane emerge from the clouds...
The action is absolutely nonstop from that point on. Worrals and Frecks uncover an extremely clever enemy plot, and the rest of the book is a wild ride of cat-and-mouse games, daring escapes, even more daring rescues, and thrilling flying. Johns' gifts for inventive plotting, exciting action, clever twists, and atmospheric settings really shine here.
Worrals has a Biggles-like gift for out-of-the-box thinking, and Frecks has a Ginger-like love for slang she learned from American movies. But they're really their own characters, and they have excellent camaraderie.
Worrals drives a car named Snooks and already had a private pilot's license before she joined the WAAF. (I'm not sure if that suggests she came from money.) She's extremely tough and forthright, and at one point is prepared to crash her plane and kill everyone onboard, including herself and Frecks, if that's what it takes to defeat the enemy.
Frecks is a bit naive (when someone suggests she try bleaching out her freckles, she responds that they don't hurt), admires Worrals for her courage, and gets flustered when faced with difficult decisions on her own. But when she needs to, she steps right up to the plate, and she gets an absolutely spectacular heroic bit in this book.
Unlike Biggles and his friends, Worrals and Frecks are viewed with doubt and suspicion because of their gender, aren't supposed to be in combat at all, and have to fight harder to prove themselves. Very refreshingly, Johns clearly has absolutely no difficulty believing that women can everything a man can do.
I really loved this and highly recommend it. You can download it and a couple other Worrals books here.
Content Notes: Literally no -isms whatsoever! That is, some sexism is expressed by some characters, but it's only there to be proved wrong by the author.
The enemy plot to use different types of live animals as signals is genius. So is Worrals' decision to drop the enemy map into the mail - unfortunately foiled by them figuring out that she did it.
I love the tower with the jackdaw nests. So weird and atmospheric. (And I adore Frecks' worry in the tunnels that they might encounter toads.)
The little details are so good. I especially liked Worrals hiding in the back of a moving car and hearing, to her horror, one of the men saying he'll take a blanket from the back... and uncovering the blanket and holding it up so he'll literally take it out of her hands without seeing her.
The flight sequence at the end was incredible, but my absolute favorite part was Worrals' brief glimpse of Frecks fighting off three Nazis, unarmed, to keep them out of the cockpit.
If you like Biggles, you have GOT to read Worrals.
During WWII, the Air Ministry asked Johns to write some books to inspire girls to join the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force). He obligingly wrote eleven of them, basing his heroine on two WAAF pilots he knew. The books are now even harder to find that Biggles, which is too bad, because this one, at least, is terrific.
Joan Worralson (aka Worrals) is frustrated with only being allowed to ferry planes back and forth, as women aren't allowed in combat. Her best friend Betty Lovell (aka Frecks because she has freckles) is frustrated because, at seventeen, she's too young to officially be a pilot. I should note that Worrals is a pilot at all of just-turned-eighteen. At one point a male pilot calls Worrals "kid," she asks him if he's twenty yet, and he replies, "Almost!" There are definite shades of the WWI Biggles books here, though thankfully casualty rates aren't as high.
After Worrals gets an unauthorized lesson in piloting a fighter plane, she's dispatched to deliver it to a base. She takes Frecks along as a passenger. When she tests out the radio, they hear a radio message about an unidentified plane that must be shot down at all costs, just as they see that same plane emerge from the clouds...
The action is absolutely nonstop from that point on. Worrals and Frecks uncover an extremely clever enemy plot, and the rest of the book is a wild ride of cat-and-mouse games, daring escapes, even more daring rescues, and thrilling flying. Johns' gifts for inventive plotting, exciting action, clever twists, and atmospheric settings really shine here.
Worrals has a Biggles-like gift for out-of-the-box thinking, and Frecks has a Ginger-like love for slang she learned from American movies. But they're really their own characters, and they have excellent camaraderie.
Worrals drives a car named Snooks and already had a private pilot's license before she joined the WAAF. (I'm not sure if that suggests she came from money.) She's extremely tough and forthright, and at one point is prepared to crash her plane and kill everyone onboard, including herself and Frecks, if that's what it takes to defeat the enemy.
Frecks is a bit naive (when someone suggests she try bleaching out her freckles, she responds that they don't hurt), admires Worrals for her courage, and gets flustered when faced with difficult decisions on her own. But when she needs to, she steps right up to the plate, and she gets an absolutely spectacular heroic bit in this book.
Unlike Biggles and his friends, Worrals and Frecks are viewed with doubt and suspicion because of their gender, aren't supposed to be in combat at all, and have to fight harder to prove themselves. Very refreshingly, Johns clearly has absolutely no difficulty believing that women can everything a man can do.
I really loved this and highly recommend it. You can download it and a couple other Worrals books here.
Content Notes: Literally no -isms whatsoever! That is, some sexism is expressed by some characters, but it's only there to be proved wrong by the author.
The enemy plot to use different types of live animals as signals is genius. So is Worrals' decision to drop the enemy map into the mail - unfortunately foiled by them figuring out that she did it.
I love the tower with the jackdaw nests. So weird and atmospheric. (And I adore Frecks' worry in the tunnels that they might encounter toads.)
The little details are so good. I especially liked Worrals hiding in the back of a moving car and hearing, to her horror, one of the men saying he'll take a blanket from the back... and uncovering the blanket and holding it up so he'll literally take it out of her hands without seeing her.
The flight sequence at the end was incredible, but my absolute favorite part was Worrals' brief glimpse of Frecks fighting off three Nazis, unarmed, to keep them out of the cockpit.
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#4 Biggles Flies Again
#5 Biggles Learns to Fly
. . . I have questions. XD
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I can't say what it means in England of the time, but in America my grandfather was somewhere middle-ish class economically and also plane-mad, starting with model planes when he was young, and by WWII had managed to become a pilot instructor. When he was drafted, they immediately un-drafted him because they needed instructors more than pilots, and set him up training pilots in Central Texas (coincidentally at the airport in the city I'd eventually grow up in).
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It's got two requests this Yuletide JUST SAYING.
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I think you'd enjoy Worrals.
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My impression is that Worrals is at least upper-middle class, just from her general attitude to life. You could imagine that a year or two earlier she was at Malory Towers...
I haven't read the Worrals that aren't on Faded Page or republished, but I would guess from the outlines on the big Biggles fan website that they are less Worrals vs Nazis in Europe and more Worrals Around The World, with the consequent WEJ racism/colonialism. But I haven't read them, so I could be pleasantly surprised when I track them down.
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I’ve read a few books from around that time that feature girl pilots (Dorothy Carter’s Queen/Mistress of the Air series, for example). I think owning your own plane would equal wealth but having a pilot’s licence wouldn’t (necessarily).
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How are the other girl pilot series?
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Worrals #1 is downloaded to my phone, but it's backup in case I run out of reading material before I get home. Aiming to read only Indigenous authors this month.
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A few books on there is a scene where Worrals and her friend who is a boy Discuss Romantic Feelings and I'm pretty sure that Johns set all the rest of the Worrals books in foreign climes so he would never have to do that again.
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I adore Worrals and Frecks. I hope there's Yuletide fic. I'm definitely requesting them for Chocolate Box.
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