Glen Morton and Hilary Benn - Female Photographers WW2 (1943) (Part Two).
This post is a continuation of the previous post 'Glen Morton and Hilary Benn - Female Photographers WW2 (1943). Part One'.
During 1943 a number of articles and photographs were published in local newspapers around Australia about the two young women only 20 and 21 years of age in the W.A.A.A.F who made training films.
The article and photographs copied below were published in the Australian Women's Weekly in October 1943 and provide more insight into the important being done during WW2 by these exceptional young women.
The article and photographs are from Trove the database of the National Library of Australia. No copyright infringement intended.
Australian Women's Weekly, 9 October 1943.
W.A.A.A.F. flying photographers need nerve.
They take slow-motion films which are used in visual training of young airmen.
By TORA BECKINGSALE
Sergeants Hilary Benn and Glen Morton claim they have the best jobs in the W.A.A.A.F. They're the only two aerial cinema photographers in the Service.
First, they fly on duty and not very many Waaafs do that. Second, the job itself is fascinating, for they're making slow-motion color-films which aid the training of young airmen.
I FLEW with Glen Morton on a map-reading trip.
I suppose at 21 you have nerves, ''only nerve". Me with the sight of this youngster lying prone in the bomb aimer's compartment pointing her camera through the yawnlng space of the open hatch just made me shudder.
She was in the nose of the plane, 4000 feet up, with her neat Air Force shoes poking out under the co-pilot's seat.
"Aren't you frightened you might fall down there?" I asked, when she crawled out again.
"Benn's leg went down one day when we were both training, and I had to pull her back to safety," Glen answered with quite obvious relish.
Definitely no nerves at all!
Glen did this minor feat of gymnastics as we tootled along at 120 miles an hour to obtain detailed pictures of the roads and junction which led to a township.
It needs a clear head and steady hands to take pictures in such a position at that quite terrifying distance from the ground.
The lens of her camera followed the course of the long roads, which looked to me like narrow strips of beige ribbon. She took particular aim at the junctions.
"They're specially important," she said somewhat absently. She was already thinking about her next shots.
They were done from the comparative comfort of the co-pilot's seat beside Flying-Officer Dick Ottaway, who was piloting us.
The panorama below stretched out to where a small lake shone silver in the sunshine.
Glen began to adjust her camera, leaning it against her right cheek and holding it just inside the window of the plane.
As she focused the lens she gave an upward movement of her hand to signal to Flying-Officer Ottaway to go higher, and then signalled the direction she wished to take to get a good position for shots at the lake.
I admired her strong, capable hands, as, squinting along the sight, she got to work, her dark brown hair blown back from her forehead, which was wrinkled with concentration.
We passed over the lake, and then sat back to wait for the next target. It was a range of hills, heavily wooded and dark against the green countryside.
The weather clouded over slightly, so Flying-Officer Ottaway took us for a brief flip above the clouds. There the sun was shining brightly, throwing glorious color on to the soft, billowing mass of clouds below us.
I had never been above the clouds before, and I was so enchanted I suddenly felt I wanted to be a flying photographer in the W.A.A.A.F., too.
Then I recalled my earlier shudders, and regretfully put the thought aside.
Glen told me she found it exhilarating, too, and that she'd taken several pictures with cloud effects in a fighter attack film she made recently.
Airsick once
DOWN to 4000 feet later she resumed her work, but this time from a side seat. To get a correct angle for her camera she knelt with her right knee on the seat and her left foot firmly placed on the floor.
A small river, which looked almost like a backyard drain from our height, and several townships were all photographed from the side of the plane or from a window in the rear.
These windows may be opened and fastened firmly above her to the roof of the plane.
After about two hours of concentrated work the light began to fail, so we headed for home.
"Have you ever been airsick?" I asked Glen.
"Oh, yes, in Tasmania I was disgustingly airsick on one trip, but the job simply had to be finished, so I went on with it," she said ruefully.
As we sped homewards she busily loaded up her camera with film again for her next trip, which was scheduled for the following morning.
Photographers Sergeant Hilary Benn and Sergeant Glen Morton, of the W.A.A.A.F., leave their plane after map-reading
DIFFICULT SHOT.
Sergeant Glen Morton lies prone in the bomb-aimer's compartment to take a picture through the hatch of the plane.
When we landed Air Force officials took me to tea in their cheery mess, with its big log fire.
They told me that Sergeant Benn and Sergeant Morton have both had training in photographic sound recording as well as the technical aspects of the work they do. Actually, the sound processes are done by commercial firms.
After tea we visited the unit's film room and saw some 50 young airmen keenly watching a training film.
Map-reading films give a trainee, even before he goes up in the air, some idea of what the countryside looks like from the air.
When he begins his cross-country flying he knows how to watch for landmarks.
Not all the work of Sergeants Morton and Benn is done in the air. Flying they make map-reading
CAREFUL AIM.
At 4000 feet in the air Sergeant Glen Morton concentrates on getting a good shot of a river, while Flying Officer Dick Ottaway awaits her signal for direction films, aeroplane recognition films, and fighter attack and bombing films.
On the ground they make technical pictures, ranging from close-ups of maintenance of aircraft to medical and dental films.
For an average map-reading trip they are about three hours in the air, and in this time take about forty shots altogether. They might cover a distance which includes about 12 towns.
Our speed was about 120 miles an hour, but Glen said when she took pictures from a smaller two-seater tulane with only a pilot and herself the speed was slower.
Cutting and editing.
THE two young sergeants (Sergeant Benn is only 20) have made several map-reading films in New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania. They edit and cut their own films.
When the films are shown to the young airmen the 16 millimetre projectors are operated mostly by W.A.A.A.F. personnel.
About 60 Waaafs have been given an intensive course of training at the R.A.A.F. Engineers' School in projection and electrical science, and are now posted to units as cinema operators.
Some time later I was asked to see the film we had made. Then I was shown a fighter attack film, and a film of diseases of the mouth made for the medical unit of the R.A.A.F.
"I liked making that film and all medical ones. I have always wanted to be a nurse," said diminutive Sergeant Hilary Benn.
She is an attractive, sprightly lass with hazel eyes, fringed with lovely dark lashes.
Sergeant Morton is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morton, and was born in Albury. One of her sisters is a tram conductor.
Hilary Benn was formerly a cleric and had no previous experience as a photographer, but Glen Morton, was employed in a photographic laboratory before the war.
