"Jackie Moggridge" sweat

During the Second World War, Jackie Moggridge was the youngest female pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary, a unit specially dedicated to delivering aircraft to the front.

Jackie delivered over 1,500 aircraft of 83 different types. She was awarded the King's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air for her invaluable service to the war effort by convoying machines from the manufacturing plants to the units, among many other machines she convoyed on April 29, 1944 a certain Spitfire coded ML407...

The aircraft fresh off the RAF production line at Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, and young Jackie, eyes shining, was waiting to deliver it to 33 MU in Lynehamun as part of her ATA role.  A few weeks later, the aircraft left its new base at 485 New Zealand Squadron in Selsey, West Sussex, and took to the skies over Normandy to take part in the Normandy landings, recording the first Ju88 aerial victory of June 6, 1944.

In a strange twist of fate, long after his wartime exploits had come to an end, a historian researching the Spitfire ML407's past for a TV documentary with Jackie noticed his name in the logbook.  The plane had been purchased and lovingly restored by Mr. Nick Grace, and still exists today, preserved by Nick's son Richard at Sywell airfield in Northampton...

During the war, ATA flew 415,000 hours and delivered over 309,000 aircraft of 147 types, including Spitfires, Hawker Hurricanes, de Havilland Mosquitoes, North American Mustangs, Avro Lancasters, Handley Page Halifaxes, Fairey Swordfish, Fairey Barracudas and Boeing Fortresses,