27 Facts About Roberta Cowell

Roberta Elizabeth Marshall Cowell was a British racing driver and Second World War fighter pilot.

Roberta Cowell was the first known British trans woman to undergo gender-affirming surgery in 1951.

Roberta Cowell attended Whitgift School, a boys' public school in Croydon and was an enthusiastic member of the school's Motor Club, along with John Cunningham, who would later be famous as an RAF night fighter ace and test pilot.

Roberta Cowell secured her release by agreeing to destroy the film, but was able to substitute unused film stock, and keep the original footage.

Cowell left school at the age of 16 to join General Aircraft Limited as an apprentice aircraft engineer, but soon left to join the Royal Air Force, becoming an acting pilot officer on probation on 4 August 1936; Cowell began training, but was discharged because of airsickness.

In 1936, Roberta Cowell began studying engineering at University College London.

Roberta Cowell gained initial experience of the sport by sneaking into the area where cars were serviced at the Brooklands racing circuit, wearing mechanic's overalls, and offering help to any driver or mechanic who wanted it.

On 28 December 1940, Roberta Cowell was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps as second lieutenant.

Roberta Cowell had obtained a private pilot's licence before the war and completed RAF flying training at RAF Ansty.

Roberta Cowell served a tour with a front-line Spitfire squadron and then briefly as an instructor.

Roberta Cowell passed out but the aircraft continued flying on its own for around an hour over German-occupied France while being subjected to German anti-aircraft fire, she regained semi-consciousness at low altitude and was able to fly back to the squadron's base at RAF Gatwick.

On 18 November 1944, Roberta Cowell was piloting one of a pair of Typhoons on a low-level sortie near Bocholt, Germany.

South east of Kessel, Roberta Cowell attacked targets on the ground, but her aircraft's engine was knocked out and its wing holed by German anti-aircraft fire.

Roberta Cowell was flying too low to bail-out and instead jettisoned the cockpit canopy and glided her Typhoon to a successful deadstick crash-landing.

Roberta Cowell was able to contact her companion by radio and confirm she was unhurt before being captured by German troops.

Roberta Cowell remained a prisoner for around five months, occupying the time by teaching classes in automotive engineering to fellow inmates.

Roberta Cowell was offered the part of a woman in a camp theatrical production but turned it down, as she thought this would make her appear homosexual in the eyes of other prisoners.

Towards the end of the war, food became short at the camp; Roberta Cowell lost 50 pounds in weight, and later described killing the camp's cats and eating them raw because of hunger.

In June 1941, Roberta Cowell married Diana Margaret Zelma Carpenter, who had been an engineering student at UCL with an interest in motor racing.

Roberta Cowell experienced traumatic flashbacks when watching the film Mine Own Executioner, in which the hero is shot-down by anti-aircraft fire while flying a Spitfire.

Roberta Cowell sought out a leading Freudian psychiatrist of the time, but was unsatisfied by the help he offered.

Roberta Cowell had become acquainted with Michael Dillon, a British physician who was the first trans man to get a phalloplasty, after reading his 1946 volume Self: A Study in Endocrinology and Ethics.

Roberta Cowell then presented herself to a private Harley Street gynaecologist and was able to obtain from him a document stating she was intersex.

Roberta Cowell continued to be active in motor racing and attracted some publicity for winning the 1957 Shelsley Walsh Speed Hill Climb.

Roberta Cowell's intention was to use the aircraft for a record-breaking flight over the South Atlantic.

Roberta Cowell continued flying and by this time had logged over 1,600 hours as a pilot.

Roberta Cowell's funeral was attended by only six people and was unpublicised; her death was not publicly reported until two years later, when a profile of her was printed in The Independent newspaper in October 2013.