101-year-old veteran fought Nazi Germany after fleeing Hitlerpublished at 16:25 British Summer Time 5 May
Ruth Klauber, aged 101, was born in Germany, but left the
country with her family when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933.
When war broke out six years later, she found herself
enlisting with the Royal Air Force in the fight against Nazi Germany.
“I felt that I’d better be a flight mechanic, although
I had no idea what a spanner was in those days,” she laughs.
“I did airframes, not engines,” she explains.
“It was an amazing life really… There weren’t that many women doing
this, at least not on my station.”
After watching the Lancaster bomber begin the flypast today,
Klauber tells the BBC, “it was all a very long time ago, but memories do
come back.” But, she adds that there is a “sad memory”
associated with the noise as a friend who piloted Lancaster bombers lost his
life in the war.
Klauber was just recently awarded two medals for her
service, which she proudly wears on her lapel despite not applying for them
initially.
