Mary Marsden, WRAF cook, RAF Finningley & RAF Wymeswold

[DavidIsby]

from FACEBOOK
History Legends
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They came in silence to say goodbye to Mary Marsden, one of the last surviving women of the WAAF — a 103-year-old veteran whose quiet service helped keep the RAF flying through the darkest nights of World War II.
Mary never carried a weapon or flew a bomber. She cooked. She fed the aircrews who climbed into Lancasters and never returned. She kept spirits up when hope was thin. She did the unglamorous work that kept a nation alive — and she did it with pride.
“She’d never call herself a hero,” her family said. “She’d just say, We all did our bit.”
At her funeral, veterans stood shoulder to shoulder. Standards dipped. A lone piper played. “The Last Post” echoed through the air — a final salute to a woman who served without ever asking for recognition.
She remembered everything: the smell of fuel, the sound of bombers at dusk, the quiet prayers whispered before each sortie. After the war she returned to a simple life — marriage, family, kindness — carrying her memories with gentle dignity for more than a century.
Mary was the kind of hero history often overlooks: steady, humble, essential.
A woman who held the RAF together from the background.
Rest easy, Mary Marsden.
Your service lives on in every life you touched.