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Biography #2
One Woman's War
Winner of The People's Book Prize 2013 The Second World War is dominated by heroic tales of men defending their country against a formidable enemy, but what about the women who also played their part in fighting for freedom? Eileen Younghusband (93) was just 18 when she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). She quickly demonstrated her keen intellect and mathematical skills, playing a crucial role in Fighter Command's underground Filter Room. Working gruelling shifts under enormous pressure she and her companions worked tirelessly, tracking the swarms of enemy aircraft that sought to break the British resolve. She even had the dubious honour of detecting the first of Hitler's devastating V2 rockets as it fell on an unsuspecting London. This book gives a vivid insight into the life of a young woman facing the grim reality of war.
288 pages, Paperback
First published July 4, 2011
14 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Eileen Younghusband
5 books3 followersSee also Dame Eileen Younghusband for the researcher and teacher on social work.
Eileen Muriel Younghusband, BEM (née Le Croissette; 4 July 1921 – 2 September 2016) was a filter officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in World War II. She worked in the filter room, a top-level British air defence hub which assessed radar reports in order to give air raid warnings. Later, while posted to Belgium, she was part of a team of mathematicians who alerted Allied forces to the location of V-2 rocket launch sites.
Younghusband completed a university degree at the age of 87 and subsequently published three books about her wartime experiences: two memoirs and one children's book.
Eileen Le Croissette was born in London in 1921. She left school shortly after her 16th Birthday. She then worked in the Head Office of the Scottish Provident Institution in London, who provided life assurance. She worked as an Au Pair in France after her German teacher suggested she gain experience in speaking French and German to help set up his new business, the 'School Travel Service'.
Eileen Le Croissette joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in 1941 at the age of 19, and was trained at RAF Innsworth, near Gloucester, and RAF Leighton Buzzard. Commissioned as an assistant section officer in November 1941, and promoted to section officer in October 1942, she was posted to 10 Group Fighter Command at RAF Rudloe Manor, Corsham, near Bath, where she was deployed as a filter officer.
Following VE Day she was seconded to the Breendonk concentration camp, where she acted as a guide and interpreter (she was a fluent French speaker), relaying to RAF personnel the realities of war. She resigned her commission on 14 December 1945 and moved into hotel work.
Younghusband graduated from the Open University at the age of 87, and wrote two volumes of memoirs, Not an Ordinary Life (2009) and One Woman's War (2011), the latter dealing more specifically with her wartime experience. She later adapted her books for children and in 2016, just weeks before her death, her children's book Eileen's War was published.
Younghusband campaigned on health and education issues, such as cuts to adult education, and she was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to lifelong learning. Britain's Got Talent finalist Nathan Wyburn created a portrait of Younghusband from wartime images of her to commemorate her World War II work.
A life-size statue of Younghusband as a young WAAF officer stands in a replica filter room at the Battle of Britain Museum at Bentley Priory.
Eileen Muriel Younghusband, BEM (née Le Croissette; 4 July 1921 – 2 September 2016) was a filter officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in World War II. She worked in the filter room, a top-level British air defence hub which assessed radar reports in order to give air raid warnings. Later, while posted to Belgium, she was part of a team of mathematicians who alerted Allied forces to the location of V-2 rocket launch sites.
Younghusband completed a university degree at the age of 87 and subsequently published three books about her wartime experiences: two memoirs and one children's book.
Eileen Le Croissette was born in London in 1921. She left school shortly after her 16th Birthday. She then worked in the Head Office of the Scottish Provident Institution in London, who provided life assurance. She worked as an Au Pair in France after her German teacher suggested she gain experience in speaking French and German to help set up his new business, the 'School Travel Service'.
Eileen Le Croissette joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in 1941 at the age of 19, and was trained at RAF Innsworth, near Gloucester, and RAF Leighton Buzzard. Commissioned as an assistant section officer in November 1941, and promoted to section officer in October 1942, she was posted to 10 Group Fighter Command at RAF Rudloe Manor, Corsham, near Bath, where she was deployed as a filter officer.
Following VE Day she was seconded to the Breendonk concentration camp, where she acted as a guide and interpreter (she was a fluent French speaker), relaying to RAF personnel the realities of war. She resigned her commission on 14 December 1945 and moved into hotel work.
Younghusband graduated from the Open University at the age of 87, and wrote two volumes of memoirs, Not an Ordinary Life (2009) and One Woman's War (2011), the latter dealing more specifically with her wartime experience. She later adapted her books for children and in 2016, just weeks before her death, her children's book Eileen's War was published.
Younghusband campaigned on health and education issues, such as cuts to adult education, and she was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to lifelong learning. Britain's Got Talent finalist Nathan Wyburn created a portrait of Younghusband from wartime images of her to commemorate her World War II work.
A life-size statue of Younghusband as a young WAAF officer stands in a replica filter room at the Battle of Britain Museum at Bentley Priory.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 25, 2020
Fabulous, fabulous story. Highly recommend this book
February 5, 2017
Eileen was one of those ordinary people who did extraordinary things to aid the defence of Britain during the dark days of the Second World War, joining the WAAF and working in the early days of radar to track enemy aircraft and calculate their targets. Not only did this bring her into contact with a huge range of interesting people, her expertise took her to Belgium after D Day to calculate the launching points of the dreaded V1 rockets. What's even more fascinating is that she wrote her memoir, with incredible recall, at 91 years of age - having achieved a university degree at 87.
February 1, 2021
[Audiobook version]
The story of a remarkable woman who worked as a filter officer during World War 2. As usual, it's the little details that stick with me, like the fact that she nearly slept through VE Day, or was made to give guided tours of a concentration camp to other service personnel shortly after it was liberated.
I am sure that the circumstances that led to so many of us taking on responsibilities at such an early age made us more resilient. I know that it was these experiences that have marked my life until now. The war years forged the iron strength and resolution of so many of that generation.
The story of a remarkable woman who worked as a filter officer during World War 2. As usual, it's the little details that stick with me, like the fact that she nearly slept through VE Day, or was made to give guided tours of a concentration camp to other service personnel shortly after it was liberated.
May 6, 2021
Quite a memoire! Eileen Younghusband can now speak about what she did to help Britain win WWII. After a 30-year restriction on talking about it, she now tells the tale of how she and a few other people who were good at math triangulated where planes were heading into Britain. Radar was rather new then, so it was used as the input to the mathematics that then alerted British Air Force and gun crews where to intercept. Interspersed are stories of relationships she develops as the war progresses, the places she goes, and just a smattering of military intrigue. Younghusband is a really good story teller and brings it all to life. I'm astounded at her memory.
August 6, 2018
What makes this book uplifting is being able to witness firsthand the blossoming of this woman's talents as she gets steadily more involved in WWII. I loved reading about her experience and understanding just what an extensive and powerful role women played -- not just at home, which has been talked about, but in the military and on the forefront of the war. I plan to go back to this book whenever I need a pick-me-up about a woman with immense courage, intelligence and cheerfulness in the midst of challenging circumstances. A hidden gem.
September 20, 2022
An interesting story of a WAAF's life during WWII and I hope I have the same memory capacity at her age though I don't believe she divulged too many secrets that would breech her responsibilities under the Official Secrets Act. Would have been nice to get greater detail of her actual experiences doing her job.
August 9, 2021
Read V2 by Robert Harris and in the bibliography he referred to this book. In many ways this factual work is more exciting than V2, definitely an incredibly interesting story.
I think I'll buy her full autobiography at some point soon.
I think I'll buy her full autobiography at some point soon.
July 16, 2024
Really insightful and inspiring about one woman's experience during WW2 in the WAAF. It felt like a story but it was all true!
November 17, 2025
This was such a wonderful read and a great reminder of the role women played in a time when they had previously had they work roles so restricted.
October 23, 2012
Originally posted: http://forbookssake.net/2012/01/24/on...
A touching narrative that reminds the reader of time spend with grandparents on a long Sunday afternoon with hot tea, One Woman’s War is as diminutive in title as it is in tone.
Eileen Younghusband takes a modest road when revealing her role as a Filterer, a woman sworn to secrecy, transcribing Radar transmissions during World War II.
The chronological narrative revels the simple pattern of life and innocence in pre-war Europe, and the moments in which it is put aside. The nation begins to replace their potted flowers with vegetables, and learn to live with bombs and fear.
Meanwhile the government invested in innovation, desperate to get the edge on Germany and their perceived advancements. While working towards inventing a ‘Death Ray’, they developed Radar, which became of of their strongest tools for protecting their force, and their country.
For a contemporary reader it is strange to imagine Radar as a new concept, with the people being taught to use this technology having it likened to ripples in water.
Younghusband is honest and methodical as she revels the personal tragedy that takes her into the armed forces, working against sexual stereotyping, and travelling into war-torn Europe to hunt for weaponry using Radar training.
Her bravado and duty creates an ethical drive that carries her through the war, strikingly different to the often masculine association of women in the forces today.
It is rare to find a person who has personally experienced so many facets of the war; from a young woman breaking into the workforce with the outbreak of war, to a incentivised woman joining the armed forces to work on a highly demanding classified project.
Younghusband experienced the highs as she celebrated VE day as it unfolded in Holland and reflected on the depths as she spent a short time as an educator and tour operator in a recently closed concentration camp.
All these experiences are interwoven with her personal stories, remembering those she crossed paths with in fleeting moments, and gently affording them their role in the telling of her part of history.
A touching narrative that reminds the reader of time spend with grandparents on a long Sunday afternoon with hot tea, One Woman’s War is as diminutive in title as it is in tone.
Eileen Younghusband takes a modest road when revealing her role as a Filterer, a woman sworn to secrecy, transcribing Radar transmissions during World War II.
The chronological narrative revels the simple pattern of life and innocence in pre-war Europe, and the moments in which it is put aside. The nation begins to replace their potted flowers with vegetables, and learn to live with bombs and fear.
Meanwhile the government invested in innovation, desperate to get the edge on Germany and their perceived advancements. While working towards inventing a ‘Death Ray’, they developed Radar, which became of of their strongest tools for protecting their force, and their country.
For a contemporary reader it is strange to imagine Radar as a new concept, with the people being taught to use this technology having it likened to ripples in water.
Younghusband is honest and methodical as she revels the personal tragedy that takes her into the armed forces, working against sexual stereotyping, and travelling into war-torn Europe to hunt for weaponry using Radar training.
Her bravado and duty creates an ethical drive that carries her through the war, strikingly different to the often masculine association of women in the forces today.
It is rare to find a person who has personally experienced so many facets of the war; from a young woman breaking into the workforce with the outbreak of war, to a incentivised woman joining the armed forces to work on a highly demanding classified project.
Younghusband experienced the highs as she celebrated VE day as it unfolded in Holland and reflected on the depths as she spent a short time as an educator and tour operator in a recently closed concentration camp.
All these experiences are interwoven with her personal stories, remembering those she crossed paths with in fleeting moments, and gently affording them their role in the telling of her part of history.
January 23, 2016
One Woman's war is especially interesting because it's about the largely unknown part played by the filterers in the air war between 1939 and 1945. Although not particularly dangerous, the work was absolutely vital and Eileen Younghusband, one of many women who carried out these vital tasks, brings the story to life.
The author's prose is very good but the book does suffer, from time to time, from careless editing - repeating information and wrong dates for example. Nonetheless I much enjoyed the author's account of her contribution to the victory in the Second World War.
David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen and Two Families at War, all published by Sacristy Press.
The author's prose is very good but the book does suffer, from time to time, from careless editing - repeating information and wrong dates for example. Nonetheless I much enjoyed the author's account of her contribution to the victory in the Second World War.
David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen and Two Families at War, all published by Sacristy Press.
August 15, 2011
A young woman joins the WAAF at the tender of age of 19 and soon finds herself in Fighter Command's top secret Filter Room during Britain's darkest days.
This is a gripping account of life in WW2 Britain - as told from a woman's point of view. I could not put it down. Even though the stories are from a bygone era, you can still relate to the emotions that Eileen's feels and the situations that she finds herself in.
This book is a inspiration, and a reminder - that we still owe so much to those who gave their lives for our freedom..
This is a gripping account of life in WW2 Britain - as told from a woman's point of view. I could not put it down. Even though the stories are from a bygone era, you can still relate to the emotions that Eileen's feels and the situations that she finds herself in.
This book is a inspiration, and a reminder - that we still owe so much to those who gave their lives for our freedom..
June 14, 2015
Nice book about the role that woman have had during the war.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews