Barbara didn't need to be reminded of that. During the flight over the Atlantic, nearing the coast of Ireland, their plane had been mistaken for an enemy aircraft by Irish artillery gunners who fired tracer bullets up at it. Fortunately, they missed their target.
After landing and being taken by British military trucks to London, and being briefed by officials at the British Ferry Command, Jackie waged a war of her own. A British physician insisted on giving Jackie and all her women volunteers a complete physical examination before they began any flying training. That was okay with her, but she exploded when the doctor insisted they each strip naked for him.
She won that battle on the grounds that nowhere in British flying regulations did it require them to strip. But then she had another skirmish to fight, this one about each of the women taking written examinations. She insisted that some of her girls had master's degrees and didn't need to be tested for general knowledge which had nothing to do with flying a plane anyway. She won again.
Before engaging in any actual training to ferry planes in England, Barbara joined Jackie and her fellow volunteer pilots in a war briefing.
"Hitler's plan has been to invade England," a British Ferry Command lieutenant of information said, starting to give them a short course in current history. "But only after his bombers could first destroy our ships, airfields, and factories. Raids began in July with German planes bombing coastal convoys and fighter plane engagements with the Royal Air Force over the English Channel.
"After a month of heavy bombings, the Germans began an all-out assault. They bombed our stations equipped with a new technology called radar, which is being used for the first time in battle. Our boys were doing a good job of holding on, but last month Hitler's war plan for England changed drastically.
"A German pilot, ordered to drop his bombs on Rochester, less than 25 miles to the east, dropped them on London by mistake. Our Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, ordered a retaliatory bombing of Berlin for the following night. The RAF bombed Berlin, but did only minor damage. They merely killed some cows in a suburb."
It sounded funny, but Barbara dared not laugh.
"At the start of his war with England," the lieutenant went on, "Hitler had ordered that London would not be bombed, because of a liking for our country that went back to his boyhood. But the RAF raid on Berlin enraged him so, he ordered, 'Raze their cities to the ground!'