March 2025
Eleanor Rance, July 2004
Basrah Air Station, Southern Iraq
Now a parish priest serving in the benefice of Salisbury Plain, Canon Eleanor Rance is a former Royal Air Force (RAF) chaplain. Although she was the first Anglican female chaplain within the service, Eleanor says she found the RAF community to be warm and welcoming, with few batting an eyelid on discovering their Padre was in fact a Madre.
During those 10 years as chaplain, Eleanor became interested in the ministry of her predecessors, many of whose stories had been lost.
She has been researching the topic ever since, most recently making use of the calm and peace of Sarum College Library. Among the most poignant moments during the past year of research was during the process of logging the theological training and sending dioceses of the Anglican chaplains who served during the Second World War.
Poring over Crockford’s, from time to time the name of Salisbury Theological College or ordination in Sarum would jump from the page.
“This is at the heart of my fascination,” she says. “These were real people, with lives not dissimilar to our own, who rose to a unique challenge, served with distinction, and then returned to quiet country parishes to continue to serve.”
During the six years of the Second World War around a thousand men joined the Royal Air Force to serve as chaplains. Apart from a few memoirs and sermons published during the war or soon afterwards, little is known of their ministry. One chaplain, however, kept his files following his wartime service. Eleanor has now copied and collated these files and through her research she has been able to begin to peel back the layers of this unique ministry.
As the war in Europe drew to a close on 8 May 1945, RAF Bomber Command’s role became one of recovery of personnel from POW camps and delivery of aid to starving Europeans. During the preceding years, however, it was Bomber Command personnel who took the fight to the enemy, a fight which involved enormous cost to both sides, and a weight of grief which has been spoken of very little in the 80 years since.
In a recent episode of the Nevermind the Dambusters podcast, Eleanor spoke about the daily life of Padre George Herbert Martin as he cared for the people of RAF Oakington and their families in the last two years of the war.
Listen to Bomber Command: The Chaplain’s Story
Eleanor also is giving a talk in her parish on 7 May 2025, at 7pm, the eve of the 80th anniversary of VE Day, in St Mary’s Church Shrewton.
Life and Loss on a Bomber Command Station aims to consider what life was really like, and how great a debt of gratitude we owe to this generation who so willingly entered the fray on our behalf.
Tickets £5 per person. Doors open 6pm.
For more information / to reserve tickets, please contact: parishoffice@salisburyplainbenefice.com
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