Mary Bell (aviator)

Mary Teston Luis Bell was an Australian aviator and founding leader of the Womens Air Training Corps , a volunteer organisation that provided support to the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II. She also helped establish the Womens Auxiliary Australian Air Force , the first and largest womens wartime service in the country, which grew to number more than 18,000 members by 1944. Born Mary Fernandes in Tasmania, she married RAAF officer John Bell in 1923 and obtained a pilots licence in 1927. Given temporary command of the WAAAF on its formation in 1941, she was passed over as its inaugural Director in favour of corporate executive Clare Stevenson. Bell refused the post of Deputy Director and resigned, but subsequently rejoined and served until the final months of the war. She and her husband later became farmers. Nicknamed Paddy, Mary Bell died in 1979 at the age of seventyfive.

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Source: Wikipedia