Education
Open University.
Open University.
And received the initial coded message “Big Ben”, alerting allied forces to the first V-2 rocket launched against London. Younghusband, adept at French and German, also had a talent for mathematics This was used to great effect during her time in the Filter Rooms of Fighter Command during the war in which together with a team of fellow WAAF officers, she was responsible for assessing the information gleaned from Radar’s Chain Home (Companies of Honour) coastal stations, estimating position, height and number of enemy forces in the air - essential for establishing Britain"s defence network and giving air raid warnings.
These teams had a matter of seconds to calculate accurately the whereabouts of both friendly and enemy aircraft.
This vital information was essential since at the time of the Battle of Britain, the Royal Air Force had a limited number of fighter aircraft and trained pilots, and limited supplies of fuel. Having joined the WAAF (Women"s Auxiliary Air Force) in 1941 at the age of 19, Younghusband completed her initial training at Royal Air Force Innsworth, near Gloucester and later at Royal Air Force Leighton Buzzard.
She was later posted to 10 Group Fighter Command at Royal Air Force Rudloe Manor, Corsham, near Bath, where she proved herself to be fast and accurate enough to be commissioned as a Filterer Officer. After training at Royal Air Force Bawdsey, she went first to 9 Group, Royal Air Force Barton Hall and finally to the Fighter Command headquarters at Royal Air Force Bentley Priory, Stanmore.
She remained there until June 1945.
Following VE Day she was seconded to the formidable Breendonk concentration camp, known as the "Camp of Silence and of Death", where she acted as a guide and interpreter, relaying to Royal Air Force personnel the horrors and harsh realities of war. They had one child, Clive (born 1946). As she had signed the Official Secrets Acting her story remained unheard for thirty years, though she has since written two autobiographies, Not an Ordinary Life (2009) and One Woman"s War (2011), dealing more specifically with her wartime experience.
Eileeen Younghusband graduated from the Open University at the age of 87, and continues to campaign on health and education issues.
Britain’s Got Talent finalist Nathan Wyburn created the portrait from wartime images of Younghusband to commemorate her World World War II work.
