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Signing up

During World War One, women volunteered for essential work in order to release men to go into the armed forces. Some 25 years later, as World War Two loomed, campaigns emphasised the need for women to volunteer in similar fashion. It was always clear, however, that this time volunteering was not going to meet the demands of wartime production, and in 1940, a secret report by Sir William Beveridge demonstrated that the conscription of women, as well as of men, was unavoidable.

From spring 1941, every woman in Britain aged 18-60 had to be registered, and their family occupations were recorded. Each was interviewed, and required to choose from a range of jobs, although it was emphasised that women would not be required to bear arms. Many women, however, were eventually to work - and die - under fire.

In December 1941, the National Service Act (no 2) made the conscription of women legal. At first, only single women aged 20-30 were called up, but by mid-1943, almost 90 per cent of single women and 80 per cent of married women were employed in essential work for the war effort.

In 1944, Olive Owens, aged 17, was working as an air raid warden in Croydon, Surrey.

Changing roles

ATS anti-aircraft crew, 1941  © Most women who volunteered before the war went into civil defence or the Women's Land Army. The main civil defence services were Air Raid Precautions (ARP), the fire service and Women's Voluntary Services (WVS). Initially, the women mainly carried out clerical work, but their roles expanded to meet demand, and female pump crews became commonplace.

The WVS was the largest single women's organisation at this time. It was formed to support civil defence and to provide services not provided locally by other organisations, and had over one million members. Typical WVS contributions included organising evacuations, shelters, clothing exchanges and mobile canteens.

The Women's Land Army/Scottish Land Army was reformed in 1938 so that women could be trained in agricultural work, leaving male workers free to go to war. Most WLA members were young women from the towns and cities. Annice Gibbs, who worked for the WLA Timber Corps, remembers an encounter with Italian prisoners of war (POWs).

A woman's place

Ambulance crew, Fulham, 1941  © In the 1930s, social roles were clearly defined. A woman's place was in the home, a man's place was out at work. It was acceptable for women to work outside the home if they had no family to look after, but they were paid less than men were - even when doing the same jobs. Before the war, nearly five million women in the United Kingdom had paid employment, but most would have expected to leave as soon as they married, or when they had their first child.

With the onset of war, everything changed. Fathers perhaps joined the armed forces, or were sent away to do vital civilian work, so mothers often ran the home alone - and had to get used to going out to work, as well. Young single women, often away from home for the first time, might be billeted miles from their families.

Flexible working hours, nurseries and other arrangements soon became commonplace to accommodate the needs of working women with children. Before long, women made up one third of the total workforce in the metal and chemical industries, as well as in ship-building and vehicle manufacture.

They worked on the railways, canals and on buses. Women built Waterloo Bridge in London. Nellie Brook left the munitions factory where she worked due to poor health, and was assigned to aircraft manufacture.

Fashion and freedom

Trousers made quite an impact on women's fashion  © Military styling and lines influenced fashions at the start of the war. Women often wore trousers, or a one-piece siren suit (so-called because it could be pulled on quickly when an air raid warning siren sounded). Headgear became practical, seen as a means of keeping hair out of the way rather than as a fashion statement. Large handbags - to carry all the family's ration books - were also practical rather than fashionable accessories.

Knitting became a national female obsession. Various schemes gave advice on recycling or making clothes last longer, two of these were the Make Do and Mend, and Sew and Save, schemes. Leading designers worked on the Utility scheme, aiming to make the best use of materials to produce functional clothing.

Hair was worn long, but off the face. As war drew to a close, women adopted the 'Victory Roll', where the hair was rolled up tightly, fixed in place, and topped with a swept-up curl. Longer hair, like red lipstick, was thought to add to a woman's glamour. The popular wisdom was that such feminine touches boosted morale, both for women and for the men around them.

The practical demands of wartime changed social customs beyond all recognition. People enjoyed far greater social freedom than before, with more opportunities for encounters with members of the opposite sex, and a sense that normal rules did not apply in the face of so much imminent danger.

The drawback to such new opportunities was the increase in numbers of people with venereal disease, Being, or having an illegitimate child were socially unacceptable then, but even so, there was a huge increase in the number of children born to single mothers during the war. However, increasingly explicit sex education did mean that people ended the war far better informed about this topic than they might have otherwise have been.

A global response

The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) was formed in 1938. Its initial plan was to recruit 25,000 female volunteers for driving, clerical and general duties. In 1939, however, it was in action in France with the British Expeditionary Force.

The vast majority of women in the ATS served in anti-aircraft command, on searchlights - the 93rd Searchlight Regiment were all female. They also worked in mixed batteries on anti-aircraft guns, but were not officially allowed to fire them.

The Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) was reformed in the spring of 1939. Women aged 18-50 and living near naval ports could apply. The WRNS maintained ships of the Royal Navy and were involved in some of the most secret planning for D-Day.

Gwyneth Verdon-Roe was in the WRNS in 1943-7. In her letters home, she often mentions her brother and her father, both serving in the Royal Navy. On 15 June 1944 she wrote:

The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) was created in July 1939. Among other duties, they boosted the numbers in the Royal Observer Corps, and in maintaining and flying barrage balloons.

Some, mainly from the voluntary First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, worked with the Special Operations Executive, dropping into enemy territory and working as saboteurs, couriers and radio operators.

Elsewhere overseas, female nurses in military field hospitals worked near the front line of battle, and many served with allied forces such as SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces). Women also came to Britain as members of other Allied forces - such as the Women's Australian Air Force, and its Canadian and American equivalents. Others came from across the then British Empire to serve in the ATS. At its peak the British auxiliary forces consisted of nearly half a million members.

Women in 1945

VE Day, London, May 1945  © Recruitment posters showed women as glamorous and independent, and images of women, especially in uniform, were used to sell everything from cigarettes to shoes. In the cinema, women were usually depicted as practical and capable - and those who moaned were usually dead by the end of the film.

Women's contributions to the war effort were highlighted in newspapers and magazines, and auxiliary forces paraded regularly through towns. As the war ended, however, printed publications took for granted the return of women to the home.

It was understood throughout the war that what Britain's women were doing was really 'a man's job'. So many of them were dismissed from their work once peace was declared. Government policy encouraged men to return to their pre-war occupations, and wartime nurseries were wound up. In industries that were not heavily unionised, however, some women were kept on - not least because they were cheaper to employ than men.

Trudy Murray served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She remembers mixed feelings at the end of the war.

Recognition of the contribution of the auxiliary forces came quickly, after the war was over, with the creation of permanent women's forces in 1949. And post-war food shortages meant that the Women's Land Army continued until 1950. The WVS proved itself too useful ever to disband and continues today, becoming 'Royal' in 1966.

The wartime achievements of civilian women were less easy to define, however, once normal life was resumed, and there was no obvious immediate change in their circumstances. Nevertheless, by the 1960s the experiences of those who had done 'a man's job' in the war years began to resonate with a new generation. Their stories added weight to the campaign throughout that decade for equal workplace opportunities, and equal pay, for women.

Find out more

Books

Green Sleeves: The Story of the WVS/WRVS by Katharine Bentley Beauman (Seeley, Service and Co, 1977)

The Story of the W.R.N.S. by Eileen Bigland (Nicholson and Watson, 1946)

WWII British Women's Uniforms by Martin Brayley and Richard Ingram (Windrow and Green,1995)

Put That Light Out by Mike Brown (Sutton,1999)

Women in Uniform Through the Centuries by Elizabeth Ewing (Batsford,1975)

Wartime Women - a Mass Observation Anthology by Dorothy Sheridan (Phoenix Press, 1990)

Land Girl by Anne Hall (Ex Libris, 1993)

The Long Weekend by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge (Hutchinson, 1985)

About the author

Carol Harris is a freelance journalist and lecturer, with a special interest in World War Two. She is the author of Women at War 1939-45: the Home Front, and Women at War in Uniform: 1939-45. She co-authored The Wartime House (Sutton, 2000), with Mike Brown, her husband.