The Women Behind the Few

The courageous pilots of the Royal Air Force who faced the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, affectionately known as 'the Few', are rightly hailed as heroes. Recently, efforts have been made to recognise the thousands who supported RAF operations behind the scenes. And yet one group remains missing from the narrative: the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. WAAFs worked within the Dowding System, the world's most sophisticated air defence network. Throughout the Blitz, they used radar to aid Fighter and Bomber Commands in protecting Britain's civilians. WAAFs were also behind the discovery of the terrifying German V-weapons. Their work was critical ahead of the Normandy landings and they were present in their hundreds at Bletchley Park. In this thrilling book, Sarah-Louise Miller celebrates their wartime contribution to British military intelligence. Hidden behind the Few but vital to their success, WAAFs supplied the RAF with life-saving information. Here, for the first time, is their story.

Dr Sarah-Louise Miller is an experienced historian, researcher, author, educator and media consultant, specialising in Second World War history. She gained her PhD at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, in May 2022 and is currently based at the University of Oxford. She is also a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge's Faculty of History. Sarah has appeared in numerous historical television documentaries with the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky History and speaks and lectures regularly on Second World War history. She is particularly interested in recovering the hidden histories of women.