Women battling for Britain
Women started doing their bit for the war effort 100 years ago. MARION McMULLEN looks at how typists, clerks and royals all proved their worth
HEAVY casualties during the First World War meant the Government was forced to face the unthinkable... ask women to help the war effort.
The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corp (WAAC) and the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) both began in 1917 and women were quick to prove they were up to the task.
There was no question of combat roles being open to them, but women were encouraged to take up work that would free men to fight on the frontlines.
“Every fit woman can release a fit man,” explained the recruitment posters and thousands rushed to enrol to do their bit.
The Corps was formed following a report by Lieutenant General HM Lawson recommending employing women in the army in France.
Mrs Chalmers Watson became Chief Controller of the new organisation and recruiting began. There were no military ranks and instead of officers and other ranks, it was made up of officials and members had four sections – cookery, mechanical, clerical and miscellaneous.
The service was renamed Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1918 with Queen Mary herself as Commander-in-Chief.
Volunteers were issued with a uniform of a khaki-style jacket and skirt and a cap and there were strict instructions that skirts had to be no more than 12 inches from the ground.
Unskilled workers were paid 24 shillings a week while shorthand typists could earn 45 shillings. Uniforms and accommodations were free, but 12 shillings six pence was deducted every week for food.
Crime writer Agatha Christie even volunteered for the Red Cross before publishing her first novel in 1920 and there were more than 10,000 nurses in the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service by the end of the First World War.
WRNS, who quickly became fondly known as Wrens, originally took on shore-based work and adopted the motto “Never at sea.”
There were 7,000 of them by the time the force was disbanded in 1919 and they worked as cooks and stewards, in intelligence and as dispatch riders. The operation reformed in 1939 with women then taking on new roles such as radio operators, bomb range markers, radar plotters and cypher officers.
They were also able to fly transport planes and women were attached to the Fleet Air Arms. They were the first Wrens to fly and took to the skies in planes like the Westland Lysander.
The Second World War uniform consisted of a double-breasted jacket and skirt with a shirt and tie. HMS Dauntless even had a hair salon to help Wrens look there best and women were issued with demob clothes to prepare them for civvy street at the end of the war.
Around 500 Wrens were working in Europe in Combined Operations supporting the advancing Allies in the countdown to the D-Day landings in Normandy.
They royal family also did their bit for the war effort and a 16-year-old Princess Elizabeth wore her Girl Guide uniform when she registered for war service during the Second World War under the Ministry of Labour’s Youth Registration Scheme.
She later became a driver and mechanic with the Auxiliary Territorial Service and learned how to drive a truck, an ambulance and other military vehicles and put engines back together. However, the princess, whose service number was 230873, still returned home to Windsor Castle to sleep every night.
The Duchess of Kent also helped new recruits to sign up and one of the issues raised by the Second World War was the role of women.
Like the First World War, the government found that production could not keep up with demand and so women were encouraged to take up jobs to assist the war effort.
Royal women were no exception and their taking war work on encouraged other women to enrol. The Duchess of Kent joined the Wrens and, in all, seven million women took part in the war effort.
Whether in uniform, or on a production line in factories, or on the land, manning guns or minting coins, they were essential to Britain’s success.