Commanding Officers Disrespect Towards Women

The day we arrived was the, our squadron... it was the first squadron to go onto a flying station and this... he was the Commanding Officer and he didn’t want us women. He didn’t want women period on his station. And he said it right on the, there we are and this was in the cold winter and we were freezing standing at attention out on the parade square and he, and we had just arrived. We hadn’t yet got in our barracks and when we found it, got out of the trucks and everything. We’re on parade. We’re out in front of him, he said, “I didn’t want you here.” and he said, “If any of you do anything, I don’t want you. You’re, you’re gonna be in for it.” He really gave a dressing down you know it was a terrible thing... And here we were, not only were we freezing out there, no heat in the barracks, no running water and when that first meal that we all had in the mess, in the barrack, the kitchens were so filthy dirty that forks were with egg between the prongs you know just like spoons, it was terrible.I must say about that CO though, we naturally we, we... you could imagine how we felt. You’re suppose to be on parade every morning in your own squadron and you, where could you go to clean your teeth. There was no running water in our barracks. You couldn’t go to the biffy, you had to what, the only thing we had was the Red Cross had a canteen on the, on the campus, on that station and what we had to do was line up one by one and go to the Red Cross toilets that they had... until they, he got running water and heat in our barracks and that took quite a while. But anyway, what I must say, he apologized and he said he was wrong and he regretted it and he wanted to ask us to forgive him because he had been mean. He had been all sorts of things and that took a lot of guts for him to do that you know.