My Mother, Molly Rose, is now in her 88th year and was one of the ATA pilots. She qualified as a pilot at the tender age of 17, then became a ground engineer at the age of 18, working on Gypsy Majors and joined the war effort shortly afterwards. Her father, David Gregory Marshall, founded the aircraft manufacture and design company Marshall of Cambridge which was developed by her brother, Sir Arthur Marshall, who died recently at the age of 103! My mother regularly gives talks about the ATA and occasionally meets up with other remaining ATA pilots.

Gregory Rose, Stepney, London, UK

My Mother, (who will be 92 years old tomorrow) flew in the ATA and we are all hugely proud of her. I would love to know how to find out more details of the plan to honour these pilots. The local newspaper published a front page story to mark her 90th birthday and on that weekend her home was buzzed by several light aircraft, including a Tiger Moth, all of which waggled their wings in salute. How great is that!

Virginia Dreyer, Nelspruit, South Africa

re SPITFIRE WOMEN. I was one of them and am the only member of ATA left in Australia. Please contact the MP on my behalf or tell me how i can.
Please do give us our validation for this is very important to me. but do it quickly before any more of us die.
If there is to be a ceremony my family will try to get Qantas to fly me over perhaps as a PR exercise . Perhaps you know others that could help.
Ruth Adams nee Russell

Ruth Adams, Adelaide, South Australia

My mother, Pauline Gower, founded and commanded the Women's section of the ATA. I had the honour of meeting several of the women pilots when researching my book ‘A Harvest of Memories’. Their achievements were both numerous and spectacular, marked with humour and modesty. I believe it to be very important that their crucially significant role is recognised and commemorated.

Michael Fahie, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

My late mother was in the WRNNs during the war, and served on various Fleet Air Arm airf stations as an air mechanic!!
She told me that her happy band of WRNNs and herself frequently used to taxi the aircraft around, and then be taken up to detect engine differences etc to see how well the aircraft was running! If there was an an air raid, they frequently taxied the aircraft they were repairing out of harms way!!

How valiant a job was that!!

Maggie Snook, Wareham, Dorset UK

It is a sorry state of affairs when these wonderful ladies have to wait until their 80's - 90's to receive credit, where credit is due. My Grandmother worked 12 hour shifts building Mosquito bombers all during the war, while raising a family, as Grandad was overseas and never had any recognition from the goverment, just like hundreds of other dedicated women. Three cheers for the Spitfire girls.

G.John Farmer, Bowmanville, Canada

Yes, the efforts made by these wonderful women flyers of the ATA are worth all the acclaim they get for helping the RAF to curb the might of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe during our finest hour. Peter Brennan, Halmstad, Sweden, former RAF National Serviceman. (Per Adua Ad Astra)

Peter Brennan, Halmstad, Sweden

Can I assume that the award will also be made to the male pilots of the ATA, who served in larger number than their female colleagues?

Incidentally, Amy Johnson wouldn't have "clambered out on to the fuselage" of her Oxford - the door is on the side.

PE, St Albans,

Ineresting that retrospective honours can be considered for women but not for Bomber Command members .

The petition calling for a Bomber Command medal was dismissed last year by Blair.

So nothing to do with bravery but everything to do with PC.

Jon, Dijon, France

I believe there were approximately 1100 female pilots in the US who did similar ferrying duty during the war. 38 of them lost their lives. It is a great shame they have not been properly honored.

Dan, New York, NY USA

It may be interesting for "The Times" readers to know about Soviet (Russian) female fighter-pilots of the WW II:
Lidia Litvak, Ekaterina Budanova, Raisa Belyaeva, Maria Kuznetsova.
Lidia Litvak - before WW-II -a pilot-instructor.
Lidia had a nickname "A White Rose of Stalingrad" - 11 kills + 1 baloon (reconnaissance aerostat). Killed in action 4 August 1943.
Budanova 6 individual kills + 5 group kills. Killed 19 July 1943.

Andrei Vorontsov, Trowbridge, Wiltshire

As a person 5ft 6 tall who had difficulty in leaning to fly twin engined trainers, and therefore failed the course, I find it amazing that at least two of these ladies were under 5ft tall, and still delivered 4 engined bombers with no conversion training. One of them used to visit Shoreham Airport where I worked in the late 1950s. I think it was Joan Hughes

K Wells, Bognor Regis, England

It's taken all this time to honour these women?! Women that flew aircraft and could have easily ended up in the sights of an enemy fighter.

In the Battle of Britain too..

I didn't even know they had done this during the war. It's about time to give the credit due.

Lost in Praha, Prague, Czech Republic

It's about bloody time that those to whom Lord Beaverbrook was referring as "...soldiers fighting in the struggle just as completely as if...engaged in the battlefront" were honoured for their contributions to perpetuation of liberty and the defeat of barbarism and hatred quite a few decades past.

Edward B Woody Ryder, Greenlawn, NY/USA

I was once talking to a man I knew, a Norwegian. I asked hiim if it was true that he was one of the Telemark heroes . He falsely (I later found out) told me he was only a back room boy. He actually took part in the whole operation. His wife was a very middle class English lady with a slight tint to her grey hair ,cashmere twinset and a rope of pearls. I casually said to her " Did you do anything in the war?" With no histrionics at all she said that she had delivered Spitfires and many other marks of aeroplanes to the squadrons throughout the war. I don't know which of the two surprised me most but I was incredibly proud to feel that I knew them

alan burden, mijas pueblo, s

I am the author of 'Spitfire Girls' and am thrilled to learn of this form of recognition. In fact there were 180 women in ATA if one includes the brave group of American girls who flew over from the USA, headed by Jacqui Cochrane.

Carol Gould, London, United Kingdom

I remember the stories of one teacher in school talking about ferrying B-24's to alaska during the war. Dripping wet I don't think she was over 98 lb's and barely tipped the minimum height at 5'. Yea, I'd say it is long over due to honor them. In the Us many belonged to the WACS but it was not considered part of the armed forces and they were denied any sort of service related benifits. To say the least they and thier families deserved a well earned entitlement program just as the men have even if it is a generation too late...

Arlos, aptos, California

Does anyone know if Mrs. Dianna Barnato Walker is still alive? I know she flew with ATA during the war?

Ralph/Satellite Beach, Fla. USA

Ralph E. Kennerknecht, SATELLITE BEACH, , FLORIDA, USA

Two points: isn't it sad that it has taken 60 years for this acknowledgement, and doesn't it seem to happen far too often. Down here, survivors of a multi-fatality naval disaster in the 1960s are still battling safe and comfortable bureaucrats and snivelling politicians for justice: is the system really geared to hold out and wait for most, if not all, to die out ? And let's not forget that Soviet women flew combat missions in WW II, and very successfully too (a reminder which endorses neither the policies nor the actions of the USSR or its then leader).

Leonard Colquhoun, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

as a female private pilot, this is a belated well-deserved brave recognition.
please announce when and where the ceremony.
thank you.

lyn, santa barbara, ca, usa