Ida Veldhuyzen van Zanten, born 11 june 1911, was the youngest, she had 6 brothers. Her father was a bulb grower. Her family travelled a lot and always had a lot of foreign guests over. When she was young Ida caught a severe infection in her left ankle and she had to undergo multiple operations, causing a difference of 10 cm difference in her legs length. Although she was able to walk and ride bikes, she couldn’t join in at games like skipping ropes. She was also in pain continuously. Cause she couldn’t play as much with other children as she would have liked, she became a bit of a loner and felt trapped being at home. Going to boarding schools made her feel even more imprisoned. She adored her father and had a close relationship with him, but unfortunately both her parents died young.

When she was grown, she took a job as nanny in Paris, where she learned to speak French fluently. She also travelled a lot. Together with a friend she went to Morocco, which was quite exceptional for 2 girls back in those days. But Ida was excited meeting new people and learning about other cultures. She loved to go on an adventure and instead of travelling home on a boat like the rest of the group, she and her friend hitchhiked back from Barcelona. In 1934 she got an internship in Hamburg, Germany. Here she experienced first-hand the upcoming of Hitler and the growing support amongst the Germans for his ideas. She also saw the great poverty in the Germany when she visited poor areas and saw how people suffered. She got more understanding in why the German people would follow Hitler.

Ida wasn’t really sure what to do with her life, but she knew she loved flying. She had taken a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Paris and ever since then she was sold. She felt at home in the air. She continuously followed the stories of KLM and their staff through newspapers and radio. Deep down she wanted to be a pilot, but that wasn’t possible for women back then, so she would go for the second best, become an air hostess. Since 1935 this was a new job in the Netherlands and gave women an opportunity to get a job in aviation.

When KLM had a job opening in 1937 for 18 air hostesses she was the first one to apply. Hundreds and hundreds of girls applied. Unfortunately, Ida wasn’t hired. KLM’s CEO Albert Plesman said she didn’t have the proper education. She was utterly disappointed and decided to travel around the world, as she had no interest in getting married, stay at home and raise a family.

TRAVELLING THE ORIENT
Ida thought the Orient was a mystical place and liked to see it for herself. She was advised not to go there on her own, especially to China and Japan, due to the Chinese-Japanese war, but Ida’s mind was made up. She was determined and travelled to Asia and she didn’t want to stay in the hotels where other tourist stayed, but decided to visit local places. She travelled through Japan, China, Korea and Dutch Indies. In China she went from mission post to mission post on foot and using a sedan chair, which was not common for a woman to do that on her own. She didn’t speak their language so it was difficult to communicate with the carriers and guides, but she managed. In China she got arrested by the Japanese, who accused her of espionage. They thought it was suspicious a woman travelling on her own, who didn’t stay in the hotels, that were recommended for foreigners. Due to her cunningness, she managed convince the Japanese to release her. When she arrived in Dutch Indies, she heard that KLM was hiring air hostesses again. She wanted to go home as quickly as possible. She couldn’t afford a plane ticket for a 55 hour KLM flight from Batavia (now Jakarta) to Amsterdam, so was forced to travel back home by boats. Despite the fact she travelled non-stop, she arrived too late to apply for the job, the positions were already taken. Yet again she was incredibly disappointed, but very determined to work in aviation. She came up with a plan to get her pilot license, so she could impress Albert Plesman and he would have no other option than to hire her.

Ida immediately left for Britain to attend the London Airpark Flying School, where she took flying lessons for £1 per hour, flying a Gypsy Moth. Her trainer, John Kirwin told her ‘It’s better to be an old pilot than a bold pilot’ and she has always taken his advice at heart. Within 3 months she earned a pilot’s ‘A’ licence and A, B and C gliding licences. She loved gliders the most.

When she got home she contacted the KLM. Her plan had worked, Albert Plesman was quite impressed by her pilot license and she got hired as an air hostess. She couldn’t be happier. The following months she flew everywhere in Europe, as women weren’t allowed to work on international flights. She enjoyed an adventurous life and she felt so much at home in the air. Ida bought her first car, a black Morris Oxford. Then war broke out in Europe and KLM had to reduce the number of flights and had to fire part of their staff. Ida got laid off.

JOURNEY TO BRITAIN
In May 1940 the Netherlands was invaded by the Nazis and Ida immediately joined the women’s volunteer corps (Korps Vrouwelijke Vrijwilligers – KVV). This organisation helped out families in need and helped to fight the fires in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, caused by the German bombardments. Her car came in handy, cause she could transport the fire extinguishers and air scouts. Later the Nazis disbanded the KVV, Ida wanted to take more action against the enemy and decided to go to England.

She secretly listened to the BBC radio, where she learnt about the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in Britain and that there was even a team of female pilots who transported fighters and bombers for the RAF. Amy Johnson was their most famous pilot. Ida got inspired by her and knew, that’s where she needed to be. And she became focused on getting to Britain.

Her initial plan was to go by boat, but those attempts failed due to the unreliability of people involved and she was ripped off. It was difficult to know whom to trust. She was not deterred and decided to go by land. In the cold winter of 1941, together with a few others, she left for France, partly by train and partly on foot. She crossed the Swiss border by walking through knee high snow and finally arrived at the Hotel du Lac at the lake of Geneva.

There she wrote a letter to the KLM, to ask for their help to get her on a flight from Portugal to England. In the months after Koene Parmentier, a KLM pilot, helped her to get the right travel papers and visas. He also informed her that her friend, air hostess Trix Terwindt was also trying to get to Britain. In July Ida went to Portugal carrying a ticket for a boat ride to Buenos Aires as a diversion for the authorities. When she arrived in Lisbon she got on a KLM flight to Bristol.

ORANJEHAVEN (ORANGE HAVEN)
In London at Hyde Park 23 the Oranjehaven (Orange Haven) was located. This building was bought by the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina and served as a meeting place, a club, for the Dutch England Voyagers. A safe haven, where they could meet, share their stories and kill time before they were able to carry out a jobs for the allied or Dutch government. Queen Wilhelmina met with every England voyagers and also with Ida. On 1 October 1942, Queen Wilhelmina awarded her the Kruis van Verdienste (Cross of Merit) for her brave escape from the Netherlands. This didn’t impress Ida very much, as she was there to fight against the Nazis.

Ida got a job at the Dutch government, which she found disappointing as she wanted to fly. Despite she had only flew 10 hours solo, she wanted to get into ATA. To be hired at ATA she had to take a test in a Tiger-Moth plane. She failed, her Flying officer remarked “And there she was, that stupid woman, she landed me with tail wind”.

She was very disappointed and continued her work at the office. Here she developed top secret microfilms and typed out the messages. She thought the work was interesting, but also hard as the messages described the horror that took place in the concentration camps. She felt she couldn’t do anything meaningful, other than read and type out the messages. She felt she needed to take action. She got very depressed and started to lose weight. She decided to reach out to Royal Heighness Prince Bernard to ask him for her help. Prince Bernard was impressed by her story and decided to help her. He used is contacts to get to ATA and Ida’s biggest wish came true: she got a second chance and could take another test. This time she didn’t fail. Finally, Ida joined the all-female ATA Pool No. 15 at Hamble, near Southampton, commanded by Margot Gore.

AIR TRANSPORT AUXILIARY
ATA was founded by Gerard d’Erlanger and started as a small group of civilian pilots, who helped out the RAF with the transport of medical supplies and documents during wartime. But in September 1939 it became clear the RAF also needed help transporting new aircraft from the factories to the airfields and ATA, which started with 23 pilots, grew rapidly.

Headed by Pauline Gower, a female department with 8 pilots started in 1940. The women were limited in their actions, they were only allowed to fly the smaller Tiger Moth and got paid £ 80 less than their male colleagues. People were very negative about women working as pilots, they thought it was a disgrace and if they wanted to serve their country they should get another, more appropriate job.

Due to the war duty there was a shortage of male pilots. The ATA even got nicknamed Ancient Tattered Airmen. In 1940 the ATA started to recruit women and hired 50. In 1942 20 American women joined the ATA, commanded by Jackie Cochran. When Ida applied, ATA consisted of 600 pilots, of whom 100 were women.

The ATA pilots were trained on different aircraft, both fighter planes as bombers, which they brought from the factories to the airfields. They did not have any radio or technical instruments, therefore their knowledge of geography and weather conditions had to be good. They had to be prepared to fly many different types of aircraft with often no more than a handbook as a guide and often in difficult conditions. Sometimes Ida had to fly a so called NEA, a Not Essentially Airworthy plane. It was especially challenging when she had to fly and navigate in bad weather, without any form of communication or instruments.

Each morning the ATA girls picked up their chits, a piece of paper, which contained information about which type of aircraft, where it had to be picked up and where to the aircraft had to be delivered and the name of the pilot. Then the pilots went to the weather station to receive the latest forecast and went to the map room, where they studied their route. After that they had to make sure their gear (20 kg) had to be in order and packed their parachute and overnight bag. They had to make calculations, based on visual sights of the rivers, train tracks and cities. The weather conditions could be very dangerous.

One day Ida ended up in a snow storm. The aircraft’s windshield was covered in snow and her flying goggles were frozen, she had no other option then to stick her head out of the aircraft to see if she could recognise anything. When she landed safely at Pool nr.10 in Lossiemouth, Scotland, here eye lids were frozen and she needed to be dragged out of the aircraft.

Another serious danger were the barriers of barrage balloons. The barrage balloons were used to defend the ground targets against the German aircraft attack, by raising aloft steel cables which pose severe risk of collision with hostile aircraft. They were anchored with cables on the ground and were deployed in the air when the German aircraft came. Sometimes, the air balloons got loose and their loose cables were of danger to the aircraft. Therefore, the ATA girls needed to remember the location of the barrage balloons and estimate where the wind would carry them. Most of the factories, where the ATA pilots had to pick up the aircraft, were surrounded by Zeppelins, that first had to been taken down, before the ATA pilots could lift off.

In case the ATA pilots couldn’t get back to Hamble the same day, they had to take care of their overnight stay themselves. They stayed in hotels or at reserve beds at the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Sometimes Ida stayed at the RAF, which always overwhelmed her, cause when the RAF-pilots returned to the base, the first thing they did was reading the names on the chalkboard of the boys that didn’t make it back. In comparison to the RAF flying for the ATA was safer, but over the war the ATA lost 10% of their people, one of them being Amy Johnson, Ida’s inspiration.

An ATA pilot worked 13 days and then had 2 days off. In her free time Ida usually visited Oranjehaven, where she also met with some of her former KLM colleagues. The ATA pilots got a Cadbury chocolate bar per day. Ida saved the chocolate and through the Red Cross she sent them to her family in the Netherlands. She thought of them often, especially during the severe hunger winter in 1944-1945 , which caused unbearable suffering to the Dutch.

Finally, in May 1945 the war came to an end. There were celebrations everywhere. Ida was very grateful the combined allied efforts had paid off. The Netherlands was freed and people could continue their life in freedom. Ida totalled 583 solo flying hours during her time in the ATA. After the war Ida received a Defence Medal, Flyer’s cross and a Resistance Commemoration Cross.

Shortly after the war ATA was dissolved and the brave contributions of the ATA girls would soon be forgotten.