Lily May Holland – Women’s Auxiliary Air Force

Aircraftwoman 2nd Class Lily May Holland – Women’s Auxiliary Air Force

Lily May Holland
St. Peter's Church, Cockett
credit - findagrave

Lily May Holland, the only military woman buried at St Peter’s, was born in 1922 in Swansea. She was the daughter of Harold Arthur Holland and Eva Maud Moore, who had married in 1916 in Grimsby. Surviving civilian records for Lily are scarce, and no detailed census entries have been located for her early life, leaving only fragments of her story before the war.

Lily served with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), holding the rank of Aircraftwoman 2nd Class. The WAAF played a vital role in wartime air operations, with women undertaking duties ranging from aircraft maintenance and radar plotting to communications, meteorology, and intelligence support. Lily’s service places her among the thousands of women whose work underpinned the functioning of the Royal Air Force during the most demanding years of the conflict.

She died on 3 March 1942 at Ruthin, Denbighshire, while still serving with the WAAF. Her body was brought home to Swansea, where she was laid to rest at St Peter’s, joining the parish’s roll of honour as its sole female military casualty of the Second World War.