Iris Moore
Age: 89
Born: July 26, 1921
Hometown: Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Yorkshire, England
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: Women's Royal Air Force
Years served: October 1939-February 1946
Rank: Flight lieutenant
Family: Husband Thomas Geoffrey Moore (deceased)
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Merchant Marines veteran Glenn Thompson of Palm Springs.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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As a member of the Women's Royal Air Force, Iris Moore served throughout Britain's fight during World War II.
“I joined in October of 1939 when the war broke out,” she said. “I went straight into the Women's Auxiliary Air Force,” which later became the Women's Royal Air Force.
Britain, in serious danger of being invaded by Germany, needed everyone — men and women — to participate in the war effort.
“If you didn't say where you wanted to go,” the military would decide for you, she said.
She wanted no part of “land duty,” so she volunteered for the air force.
“I'd had enough of my hometown, the sheep and the pigs,” she said.
Her father, who served in the cavalry during World War I, was a sergeant major in the army during World War II. Her mother and two younger sisters also served during the war.
Moore was originally stationed at Martlesham Heath, an airfield near Suffolk, England.
“I arrived with four other girls,” she said. “There was no one there to meet us, so we phoned the station.”
Moore made the call.
“They sent one of the staff cars for us,” she said. “They thought I was an officer. They said, ‘You sounded like an officer,' over the phone.
“The other girls thought this was highly delightful,” Moore said.
Martlesham Heath, located near the coast just north of the English Channel, was an experimental station where “we experimented with bombs and stuff,” she said.
A bevy of fighter planes — two squadrons of Spitfires and a squadron of Hurricanes — were eventually assigned to Martlesham Heath.
German aircraft made regular visits over the airfield.
“By this time Germany had taken over France,” she said. “We were constantly bombed. There were no air raid shelters. We had to cower in sand holes. They used to fly over and bomb whatever they found on the coast.”
Moore worked in administration, moving up to the rank of sergeant. Once she received her commission, the 18-year-old was sent to a training station at Melksham.
“I was the youngest officer there,” she said. “We trained cooks and butchers. We taught them how to cook for a whole load of airmen.”
Once trained, the food handlers were put in charge of the canteens at military bases.
Moore was later assigned as an equipment officer and as part of her training took planes apart, learned to identify aircraft components and how to order replacement parts.
“In my spare time, I was a code and cipher officer,” Moore said.
Moore, another air force officer and a couple of Americans attended class at Oxford University to the learn about codes and ciphers and how to decipher cryptic messages.
Moore was also involved in preparations for the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
“We were responsible for getting all the forward staging posts for D-Day outfitted.”
She said they loaded up these “moveable caravans” with everything from “soup to nuts,” — any type of equipment and parts needed to repair trucks and other vehicles that would be unloaded onto the beaches during the invasion.
“They were going out to the coast to be put on cargo ships,” she said. “It took us a long time to get all that stuff together. It was on the QT. We were told not to say anything of what was going on. We knew D-Day was coming up, but we didn't know when or where.”
“I also outfitted (British Prime Minister Winston) Churchill's Skymaster the Americans sent over for his use,” she said.
The Douglas C-54 Skymaster was a four-engine transport aircraft used by the U.S. and British forces during the war.
“It came to us as a shell with engines,” Moore said. “We put in the seats and everything. We outfitted it as a passenger plane — right down to the toilet paper,” she said, laughing.
During preparations, Moore and an air force friend came to London for a short visit.
One day, they heard a buzz bomb approaching, but couldn't tell where it was headed. Moore's friend and her friend's mom quickly went down into the air raid shelter.
“I stayed outside doing the crossword puzzle on the lawn,” she said. Her friend's dad was outside feeding the chickens.
He said, “‘Come on, we've got to move,' and just then, the buzz bomb fell near the house. We went heading down that air raid shelter headfirst.”
She turned her thoughts to the unprotected fowl and figured they'd be eating chicken for a long time to come.
There were no casualties.
“The chickens were still clucking and running around,” she said, laughing. “But the house collapsed, just like a pack of cards.”
Moore met a future U.S. president at an airfield in England. “He happened to be in the mess (hall) and someone said, ‘Would you like to meet General (Dwight) Eisenhower?'”
She said hello and shook his hand, not realizing a connection would be made decades later.
“I came here and worked at Eisenhower (Medical Center) for 16
Moore, 89, continues to volunteer at the Rancho Mirage-based hospital.
