Douglas Dakota Mark III
RAF Flying Nightingales

RAF Douglas Dakotas were adapted for the purpose of casualty evacuation. Each aircraft could typically carry 24 casualties and 18 could be stretcher cases. There was space for nine stretchers on each side, in rows of three with the lowest on the floor and the others on racks.

It was 13 June, one week since D Day. Three nursing orderlies, Corporal Lydia Alford and LACWs Myra Roberts and Edna Birkbeck; each travelling in an RAF Douglas Dakota, departed from RAF Blakehill on the first casualty evacuation flights to Normandy. The moment of their return was captured by an official RAF photographer. The welcoming party of newspaper correspondents dubbed them the ‘Flying Nightingales’ and the name stuck. They were the first British women on active service to be flown into a war zone.