Eileen Welch in her Auxiliary Training Service uniform. Although from Lambeth when she joined the ATS in 1942 aged twenty, she was assigned to anti-aircraft sites and received training before her first posting to Whitby. Here Eileen operated the Vickers’ Predictor where she was required to spot the incoming enemy planes and transfer a message to the guns. Women were not permitted to fire the guns as it was believed that they were unable to cope with the idea of taking a human life. The nature of her work with the guns brought on premature deafness.Digital image by kind permission of Eileen Malcolm (n\u00c3\u00a9e Welch). From the Lambeth Archives Home Front project 2005.Ref: SPd 4068\/2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eileen Welch in her Auxiliary Training Service uniform. Although from Lambeth when she joined the ATS in 1942 aged twenty, she was assigned to anti-aircraft sites and received training before her first posting to Whitby. Here Eileen operated the Vickers’ Predictor where she was required to spot the incoming enemy planes and transfer a message […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,285,30,6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1926-1950","category-home_front_project_2005","category-people","category-photograph","category-war-and-armed-forces"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n