ACW2 Marie Elizabeth Guldman

Marie Elizabeth Guldman travelled from Chile to the United Kingdom to volunteer for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force during the Second World War. She was one of thirty-three Danish WAAFs.

Marie Elizabeth Guldman was born on 1 August 1923 in Santiago, Chile, the daughter of the Danish consul Christian Frederik Osterwald Guldman and Gisela Maria Guldman (née Thierry).^[1] Guldman’s father was a civil engineer and had worked in the USA in 1911-13 and in Chili since 1914.^[2]

Guldman volunteered for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in Britain during the Second World War (2149868).^[3] It is not clear when she arrived in the United Kingdom from South America. The service number indicates that she enlisted later than August 1942.^[4] In mid-1944 she served as a telephone operator and Aircraftwoman II in the Signals Section at RAF Uxbridge. It seems that she was posted overseas—to Colombo, Ceylon—at some point later in the war.

Guldman married Charles Henry Harris and became a British citizen by marriage. In 1968 the family settled in Australia.^[5]

Endnotes

[1] Ancestry: Bremen, Germany, Passenger Lists Index, 1907-1939. Based on the fact that the family travelled from Bremen to Buenes Aires in Argentina and is registreret in the passenger list in combination with other sources.

[2] Kraks Blå Bog, 1957.

[3] NA: AIR 78/67.

[4] Guldman’s service number is part of a block of numbers (from 2100000) allotted for WAAF enlistment in August 1942.

[5] NAA: PP316/4, Harris C H.