As a young girl, Rachel Rayner had been a member of the Air Training Corps. Too young to enlist when the war began, she volunteered for the Red Cross. When she turned 18, Rachel enlisted in the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF).
Rachel discharged in March 1947 after having spent some time in Japan. She visited Hiroshima and she remembered the awful sights she'd seen. Rachel believed the dropping of the atomic bomb was a terrible wrong done to the Japanese people.
I was originally in the Air Training Corps when I was a bit younger for not very long. Then I joined the Red Cross and I was sewing sheets or something, and I felt that, I just came home to my dad one day and said, "I turn 18 next week, I'm thinking that I should join the services."
He tried to talk me out of it, but I think it was just trying to protect me and I was pretty strong-willed. I sort of got around him and I told him all I needed was his signature. I think he thought, well, I had a young brother but he wasn't old enough so I said, "Frank can't go, so I think I should." That was my reasons really and he did sign it for me.
I used to meet my husband, because he was the one that used to take the sheets from us. He was in the office with the CO. He used to take the sheet from us, and he asked me out. He asked me to go to a Sergeant's Mess Ball, which he shouldn't have done. I said I shouldn't really go, and he said, "Nobody will know you when you put on a nice dress and things like that." He said, "They only know you in uniform."
Unfortunately, the sergeant's wife was there, so she didn't do anything. She told me off the next day and told me I shouldn't have been there, wasn't the place for me. She told him off too but didn't make any difference. We didn't go back to the Sergeant's Mess, but we still saw each other. That was the start of my meeting with my husband. The minute I told him, the minute I walked in there I thought, "Oh I like you" and that was it. I just did what all us ladies do and made advances and made sure I was out, when I went up to see him with the parade sheet, I'd sort of have a little chat. Eventually, he asked me out.
Well, when we were at Iwakuni we didn't travel around too much at all. It was a highlight to be able to go to Tokyo, but I can remember walking down the Giza at that time and trying on mink coats. They wanted too much money even in those days, but at least I tried one on.
Oh yes, yes. Hiroshima was just as people see it today, only worse because it was fresh. It was fresh like, it was horrible. That's all I can say, it was horrible, and I never want to see it again and I would never have taken my three-month-old daughter and I carried her in my arms into that city.
The devastation and people walking around with one arm and facial, just disfigured people. It wasn't nice, it wasn't nice at all. I thought to myself it was a terrible, terrible wrong to be dropping on people. I hope they can always not ever have another one.
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