"That brings us to where we are today. Daytime bombings of the city have ended and now raids are mainly at night. If you have never been in a 'blackout,' you will experience your first after sunset this evening. When not on duty and you are in the city during an air raid, you are advised to seek shelter either at your hotel or in a public shelter or the subway which we call the tube."
Barbara did not learn much new from the briefing. Gail had told her as much and in more detail by phone before she left Mohave. But the full reality of being in a city at war did not sink in until that night, when she experienced her first blackout and night bombing. The total darkness of the city was almost frightening. The shrill sound of bombs screaming as they dropped, then exploded, left a ringing in her ears and a shudder throughout her body.
With no time to waste in helping join the ranks of British women pilots ferrying planes, Barbara and her new friends began taking lessons on flying in wartime. This involved learning to fly air corridors in bad weather and close to huge German captive balloons, navigating through the unfamiliar English countryside, and flying either new or disabled aircraft.
Over the next two months of training, each volunteer flew thirty or forty trips in various parts of England. This helped them to become familiar with the airports, cities, and factories where the planes were being built. They then flew the planes to British airfields where male pilots would take them to war over France. Barbara and her fellow pilots always flew during the daytime because of blackouts at night when German planes dropped bombs on the cities and coastal installations.
British factories built single-seat fighter planes, Hurricanes and Spitfires that Royal Air Force pilots flew against the Luftwaffe's Messerschmitts. RAF pilots preferred Spitfires because they rarely broke up in the air and could dive more deeply than the Messerschmitts as the battle raged for control of the skies over southern England.
Dogfights over the English Channel or London and other cities were often decided quickly, since neither side's planes were equipped for lengthy machine-gun action. An RAF pilot had only fourteen seconds' worth of ammunition, but Germans had even less, only nine seconds'. With so few bullets to fire off at an enemy plane, accuracy was of the utmost importance for all pilots, so combat was best done at close range, of 100 yards or less.
Even though they were not flying in combat, Barbara and her fellow volunteer fliers nonetheless had their close calls. On one ferrying mission, the engine of the bomber Barbara was flying conked out and she thought she might crash. Instead she put her air show experience to good use and managed to glide the plane down to a field. As she landed, a farmer ran up to her waving his pitchfork, thinking she was a German flier. He was even more surprised when he discovered she was a woman, and an American at that.