A fascinating account of the Second World War – “One Woman’s War”: The story of the WW2 Filter Room –- as told by a woman who helped to defend the skies of Britain will be given by 90-year-old Eileen Younghusband at Firing Line: Cardiff Castle Museum of the Welsh Soldier on 9 November at 12pm.
Winston Churchill immortalised the fighter pilots who won the Battle of Britain as “The Few” but behind them was another group of people – even fewer and mostly women, whose work was too secret to acknowledge. In her talk Eileen Younghusband can now reveal the secrets about The Filter Room, Radar and the life and death decisions she and her fellow Filter Officers had to make to protect the country.
Eileen Younghusband who lives in Sully, Vale of Glamorgan, served as an officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in WW2. Deciding to volunteer at the age of 18, her mathematical abilities led to her training as a Clerk Special Duties, a vital part of the Radar chain. As an airwoman and later as a WAAF Officer, she worked in the Filter Room, the lynchpin between the coastal Radar Chain and the successful defence of Britain. She tracked the V1s over Kent and London and gave the first “Big Ben” warning of a V2, which landed on Chiswick on September 8, 1944. After losing two fiancés, she eventually married; only to be posted oversees six weeks later to Second Tactical Air Force in Belgium. There she became part of a team tracking and destroying V2 launching vehicles, responsible for the devastating raids on Antwerp – the Allies’ vital port for landing troops and supplies.
