New Zealand Women's Auxiliary Air Force

This picture has been provided by the National Library of New Zealand. Permission of the Alexander Turnball Library, National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

The history of the New Zealand Women's Auxiliary Air Force shares much in common with that of it's New Zealand Army sister Corps, the New Zealand Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. Like the NZWAAC, the NZWAAF arose from the shortage of manpower during World War Two. The War Cabinet, on 16 January 1941 approved the formation of a women's auxiliary to the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
Thus the RNZAF was the first of New Zealand's three military services to have an official women's auxiliary.

The initial plan called for women to employed in a limited number of trades, allowing men in these trades to serve overseas. The NZWAAF expanded however far beyond what had been planned and by the end of the Second World War it's members were employed in over forty RNZAF trades and had served on twenty eight RNZAF Stations. Wartime NZWAAF's also served overseas in Fiji and on Norfolk Island.

After the war a small number of NZWAAF's were posted to London, England to work in the RNZAF Liaison Office there. Although the formation of the NZWAAF had been a wartime measure, the RNZAF saw it's merit and decided to maintain a peacetime NZWAAF. So in 1947 a section of the Air Force Amendment Act established the NZWAAF as part of the regular RNZAF.

The majority of wartime NZWAAF's had been demobbed to return to civilian life. Those who elected to continue to serve however, formed the nucleus of the peacetime NZWAAF, and the RNZAF began a recruiting campaign to attract new members. A number of ex-members of Great Britain's Women's Royal Air Force joined the RNZAF and moved to New Zealand. In 1954 the name of the NZWAAF was changed to the Women's Royal New Zealand Air Force.

The final chapter of the WRNZAF was written in July 1977. This was the month that the WRNZAF ceased to exist as a separate entity, as a result of the integration policy of the New Zealand Defence Force. All members of the WRNZAF were transferred into the various branches of the RNZAF.
In the present day RNZAF women may be employed in any trade, including those with a combat role.

NZWAAF parade through the streets of Suva, Fiji. 10 December 1943.
RNZAF Official Photograph-via RNZAF Museum.

NZWAAF publicity. An NZWAAF checking emergency supplies in a rubber dinghy.
RNZAF Wigram 19 September 1954.
RNZAF Official Photograph-via RNZAF Museum.

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