Muriel Rutherford McIntosh ¹

  General Notes:

3 years in army to 1945 on Anti Aircraft
- worked on precursor to RADAR
- and aircraft id (spitfires, hurricanes, boeings, sunderlands, catalinas)

"Strathaird" with sister to Australia arriving 25 Oct 1953

Coversation w RJB Nov 2003
In 42? and newly part of a mobile anti-aircraft unit Mackie caught a troop train from Glasgow to London. The train ran non-stop with all points set and other trains diverted. Travelling with her was her sister's bicycle, a state of the art Raleigh. Mackie's own bike was an early one, "little better than a penny-farthing" and her sister, nursing in the Middlle East, had no urgent need of hers and Mackie was known for looking after things well.

The train deposited the unit at Bexhill-on-Sea, where the women took up residence in what had been a girls' school. The girls were gone and all the valuables had been locked in the extensive cellars.

- barrage ballons - band of defences
- 3./ and 4.5 MM guns - no Bofars - were the 3.? guns for the mobile units
- Hampstead heath
- Golders Green - shows - piano/fiddle by V??? son-in-law of Churchill - like Victor Borge she said
- not many casualties - mainly by backfires etc
- riding to farms and collecting eggs - boiling in old ration tins with tops cut off - insides were broxed
- the unit helped pick apricots in Sussex - paid in kind
- women did the calculations - men did the shooting - gunners had to adjust for the distance between spotters and guns

  Chronology:

She emigrated in 1953.