Elite WW2 pilot Joan Hughes. Picture: Chilcotts.
- Credit: Archant
The collection also includes a scrapbook put together by an admirer of her piloting skills, which includes fascinating details not just about Joan but many other female pilots.
A Civil MBE medal belonging to one of an elite group of female pilots who flew in WW2 is to be sold by Chilcotts Auctioneers in Honiton.
The medal was awarded to Flight Lieutenant Joan Lily Amelia Hughes in 1946 in recognition of her extraordinary contribution to the war effort flying new planes to RAF bases around the country.
Joan asked her parents if she could learn to fly after her brother Douglas started; they both learnt with the East Anglian Flying Club at Abridge. She was just 15 when she took her first solo flight in a Gypsy One Moth bi-plane, securing her pilot’s licence at 17 to become the youngest flyer in England. She went on to train as a flying instructor with Rosamund King Everard, but it was during the Second World War t