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Home | Active service | On enemy territory | Extraordinary courage | Women at war | Secrets and spies | Find out more | Credits
In 1944, five years into World War II, there were 415,000 women on active military service, alongside 4 million men. They were a mixture of conscripts (women aged 19-30) and volunteers.
Though women were attracted by some glamorous advertising, they were not armed and were often confined to backroom or menial roles. Over 200,000 women in the Auxiliary Territorial Service drove, cooked and cleaned for the army. Although 120 women became pilots in the Air Transport Auxiliary they flew planes between bases and not into battle. Others in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force also cooked and cleaned, as well as performing technical tasks such as operating radar stations. As the demand for labour grew, their roles changed and they became welders, electricians and carpenters, replacing men who had been sent to the front.
Volunteering could be extremely dangerous. The unpaid Voluntary Aid Detachment of the Red Cross sent nurses to work in terrifying conditions at the front line as they had done in WWI. The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) was set up in 1907 as a civilian volunteer force whose officers held army rank. They played key roles in World War II, partly because, unlike other women, the FANYs were not forbidden to use arms. Fifty-two of them were killed.
'Four hundred potty girls who saved agents left, right and centre' were attached to the Special Operations Executive (SOE), working in signalling and deciphering enemy messages. When Churchill decided to 'set Europe ablaze', 39 of the SOE women were dropped behind enemy lines in France. Thirteen died at the hands of the Germans.
The George Cross was the highest medal awarded to civilians. Of the four won by women, three went to women from FANY, two posthumously.
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