Blog No. 300 – A WW2 Story: The Terrible Pay of British Servicemen in WW2 – 9 July 2025

 

My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

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This is the top of the first page of Cliff’s official RAF Service Record. 

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This is the bottom half of the first page of Cliff’s official RAF Service Record.

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Cliff once told me once that out of all the servicemen stationed in Britain during WW2, the British were easily the worst paid.  

Cliff said the Americans were the best paid troops in wartime Britain.  Because the Americans were the best paid, they had the first pick of the women because they had lots of money and easy access to chocolate and silk stockings.  

According to Cliff, the Australian troops were the second best paid troops in wartime Britain.  

According to Cliff, the British servicemen were at the very bottom as the worst paid soldiers in Britain.  All those years after the war had finished, Cliff was still annoyed at the ease with which American troops were able to impress any local British women.  The Americans had money whereas the British troops had very little money.

As an Aircraftman Grade 2, Cliff’s pay was the lowest of the low.  Given the absence of so much information from Cliff’s official Service Record, it is no surprise that it makes zero mention of his pay.  The Service Record mentions only Cliff’s RAF rank.  The web site http://www.211squadron.org/glossary.html#Pay says this.

In the war-time RAF, volunteers and conscripts entered the RAFVR in the lowest rank, Aircraftman 2nd Class (AC2), in Group V, the mustering of the least qualified trades.  In March 1938, the daily rate of pay for a Group V AC2 on entry had been just 2 shillings (14/- a week or £36 8s a year). By 1943, the lowly AC2s rate stood at 3 shillings per day (£1 1s a week or £54 12s a year), including 1/- per day war pay but excluding the accruing post-war credit of 6d per day. The base pay rate for a qualified Sergeant pilot or observer in 1943 was 13/6 [13 shillings and 6 pence] per day (£4 14s 6d [4 pounds, 14 shillings and 6 pence] a week or £245 14s [245 pounds 14 shillings] a year).

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The web site http://www.211squadron.org/glossary.html#Pay gives this information about the cost of living in Britain during WW 2.  The cost of living was high.

Some illustrative UK prices from 1939 to 1945 The Daily Express (12 page broadsheet in 1939) 1d [1 penny] The Daily Telegraph (6 page broadsheet in 1944) 1½d [1 ½ pennies] The Sphere Illustrated Weekly (30 page large format news magazine 1941) 1/- [1 shilling] King Six cigars: 8d [8 pence] each (8s [8 shillings] a dozen) Summit business shirts: 12/6d [12 shillings and 6 pence] each Vita-Weat crispbread: 1/6d [1 shilling 6 pence] a carton. Accommodation (clearly expecting officers on leave etc and inclusive of meals) Fuidge Manor, Devon: from 5gns [5 guineas or 5 pounds 5 shillings] per week Redcliffe Hotel, Paignton: from 4½gns [4 ½ guineas or 4 pounds 14 shillings and 6 pence] to 12gns [12 guineas or 12 pounds 12 shillings] per week. The cost of living index in the UK rose by 33.5 per cent over the course of the war, according to Gardiner, War-time Britain 1939—1945.  Examples of rising prices in late 1939 Butter rose from 1/3d [1 shilling 3 pence] per lb to 1/7d [1 shilling 7 pence] Salt rose from 1/- ]1 shilling] to 1/6d [1 shilling 6 pence].

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There were 12 pence in one shilling and the plural of penny was pence.  The symbol denoting the penny was the letter “d” from “denarius”, the lowest money unit used by the Romans.

There were 20 shillings in every pound and the symbol denoting the shilling or shillings was the letter “s”.

The money unit above the shilling was the pound and the symbol denoting the pound was a stylised form of the letter L - “£”.  The French word for pound was “Livre” and the symbol £ was derived from France.

Typically, prices and wages were expressed as £, s, d.  Thus, £1/2/11 was a shorthand way of saying one pound, two shillings and eleven pence.

There were 240 pence in one pound.

There was also a half penny coin and a coin called a farthing.  The farthing was worth one quarter of a penny.

There was also a coin called the guinea.  The guinea had a value of 1 pound 1 shilling.  Wiki says this about the guinea.

The guinea (/ˈɡɪniː/; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, from where much of the gold used to make the coins was sourced. It was the first English machine-struck gold coin, originally representing a value of 20 shillings in sterling specie, equal to one pound, but rises in the price of gold relative to silver caused the value of the guinea to increase, at times to as high as thirty shillings. From 1717 to 1816, its value was officially fixed at twenty-one shillings.

When decimal currency was introduced into Australia on 14 February 1966, ten (10) shillings – or 120 pence – was fixed at the value of one (1) dollar and the pound was abolished.

When the United Kingdom adopted decimal currency on 15 February 1971, the pound was retained as the highest value money unit, but the number of pence in the pound was reduced from 240 to 100.  At about that time, one Australian dollar was worth about fifty new United Kingdom pence.

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What does all this information tell us about Cliff and the millions of other British residents who enlisted in the British armed forces to defeat the monster called Hitler?  It tells us that every one of them accepted a significant pay cut as part of the price that had to be paid to defeat a monster.  Every one who enlisted would have been significantly better off money wise if they had stayed out of the armed forces.

As a tradesman in a reserved occupation, Cliff was completely safe from the possibility of being conscripted to fight Hitler.  Like so very many others, Cliff not only volunteered to fight Hitler.  He also volunteered to accept a massive pay cut.

When our family was accepted as migrants by the government of Australia, Cliff had to work two separate jobs so he could earn the £22/-/- that he had to pay the Australian government so he could bring his family to Australia.  If he had not volunteered to join the RAF, he would have already had the £22/-/- in the bank.

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By helping others to heal We help ourselves heal Remember those who preceded us. Give abundant Love Always

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Find the courage that Cliff found when he enlisted in 1940 and fought in Iraq in 1941.  Courage helped defeat monstrous evil.  We have the power to make this Earth into a much better place.

Banish the hatred from your heart. 

Bravery multiplies with use.  

We can always find courage; it is free but its value cannot be calculated.