Anna and husband Nick Boonin posed in their last photo together, London WW2.
Anna Boonin (née Sloane) was a nurse at a Melbourne hospital and became one of the first female pilots in north-east Victoria. She was a cousin of pioneer aviator Douglas Sloane.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
Following tuition from the Victorian Aero Club at Essendon in 1934, she gained her ‘A’ licence, then flew from Essendon Airport to her family’s property, Mulwala Station, in a borrowed de Havilland DH.60 (Gypsy Moth).
Anna landed her Gypsy Moth close to the Mulwala Station Homestead, which is now part of Thales Munitions Factory
Her aunts were horrified, refusing to accompany her on a ‘joy flight’. However, her young brothers Neil and Cedric were enthralled, and took some short flights, skimming the tops of the gum trees and bouncing over the bumpy paddocks on take-offs and landings.
Anna’s two brothers took joy flights with her over Mulwala and Yarrawonga. Her maiden aunts were nowhere to be seen.
Later Anna met Nick Boonin, a Russian, at the Aero Club. Both were competent pilots. They married and lived in India until the outbreak of World War II.
Anna spent the war years in London as a nurse, then joined the motor transport division of the ‘First Aid Nursing Yeomary Corps’. She drove all over London, even during bombing and in black-out areas.
Her first choice was to fly ‘Spitfires’ around England to different airports, in readiness for the RAAF.
However, life came crashing down when a few weeks before the war ended, Nick (a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers) suffered a fatal bullet wound.
Anna returned to Australia and lived out her life quietly in Cheshunt.
The leather flying outfit worn by Anna Sloane, the first female pilot to fly to this region, 1934.
Her leather flying outfit is accompanied by descriptive notices in the Pioneer Museum’s aviation section along with a movie of her flying experiences during 1934.
8°C