Memories of an ‘ATA-Girl’
An oral history interview with Mrs Mary Ellis. Interview Date 02-08-13
Mrs Mary Ellis, born in 1917 in Oxford, was a trained pilot before the war. After hearing a BBC radio advert Mary Wilkins (as she was then) joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in 1941. The ATA was a civilian organisation responsible for flying newly built, repaired and damaged military aircraft between factories, assembly plants, Maintenance Units (MUs), scrap yards, and active service squadrons and airfields.
By the end of the War Mrs Ellis had delivered “about 1000 aeroplanes” including bombers, fighter planes and jets flying alone without the aid of radio or other navigational aids except a map. While based at No. 15 Pool, Hamble (which was, unusually, an all-female pool) she delivered planes to the New Forest airfields at Beaulieu, Stoney Cross and Ibsley.
Making deliveries was not without its dangers; some ATA pilots died. The Spitfire factory at Eastleigh was surrounded by barrage balloons and, although a special flight path was arranged, flying between the barrage balloons with their attached wires was very dangerous. Mrs Ellis recollects lighter moments; on one occasion she crash-landed near the Balmer Lawn Hotel. Neither she nor the plane was damaged but she was surrounded by a herd of interested cows, from which she was rescued by the Royal Marines billeted in the hotel. Mrs Ellis remembers constant troop movements in and out of the New Forest and the build-up to D-Day when the Hamble was so full of ships one could have walked from the mainland to the Isle of Wight.
February 2017 – Mary Ellis celebrated her 100th birthday.
July 2018 – Mary Ellis passed away, aged 101.
Interview Quick Clips
All material is © 2017 New Forest National Park Authority.
Full transcription of interview recordings.
Download transcription (PDF)
Interviewed by: Sue Jackson
Transcription by: John Martin
Checked by: Sue Jackson
Audio Editor: Cosmic Carrot
Mrs Ellis has been interview by the Imperial War Museum:
Ellis, Mary (Oral history)
Catalogue number: 28595
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80026763
24 July 2018 – Mary Ellis died at her home on the Isle of Wight aged 101
Mary Wilkins Ellis
Mary Wilkins grew up in a farming family in Brize Norton, Oxfordshire. She learned to fly at Witney and Oxford Aero Club, where the directors were Mrs. Beatrice Macdonald and Mr. K. E. Walters. Read More.