General Chat

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Been watching a few short videos regarding women's roles during WW11.
With the men away at war fighting on land and sea and even in the sky's the women were given a variety of work. In factories, ship yards, and many other previously men only role. I saw trained women aviators delivering Lancaster, Spitfires, etc from one air field to another.
Since they could fly why were they exempt from active service ?

It was classified as 'The Front Line' would have put them at greater risk (than males) of sexual assult if they had fallen into enemy hands. That's only been changed within the last 20 years or less.

Besides, they were considered "Little Women" who weren't capable of fighting. Some of the TV programmes interviewing survivors illustrated how surprised the receiving airfield were when they realised a female had piloted in. The ground crew etc assumed the woman was a passenger or crew and went looking for the male pilot!

You are approaching this question from a twenty-first century position, David ..... equal rights and all that it entails.

With the exception of female householders over 30 (few), the majority of women over 21 did not get the vote until 1928 even though men over 21 were enfranchised by the Rep of the Pple Act in 1918.

Women were 'behind' in every respect then. Even in the 1960s and '70s I had to stand my ground at work for equal rights on a few occasions. Even now some men still try to dominate ..... Trump, perhaps?

Here's info about pilot Marion Orr of Ontario.
She was the first female Canadian helicopter pilot when she qualified in 1961.
One of my late workmates was friends with her.
He was shocked when I told him she died in a car accident near Peterborough, Ontario.

The world in wartime most certainly owes a very great deal to the 'gals'!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Alice_Orr

The women weren't exempt David, they weren't allowed to.

Up to the war most women lost their jobs as soon as they married. Both WW 1 and 2 showed what woman could do when ALLOWED TO.

It has only been recent years that woman have been pilots in the RAF.

The Land Army did their bit as well, doing a lot of the farming and tree felling.

The ATS were covering jobs in UK and abroad. Did you know some of the last people rescued off the beach at Dunkirk were ATS telephonists who stayed at their units until the very last minute.

My mother, a L/Cpl in the ATS, was put on standby for D Day to follow the men onto the beaches when they'd secured them. Her job was rewiring the electrics of tanks when they were damaged, they were to establish a workshop just off the beach. Several ATS were told to pack their small kit and wait for the signal to send them. The signal never came, the powers that be must have had second thoughts. Some ATS were on the searchlights looking for enemy planes.

Wrens could be in the thick of bombing of naval bases as were the WAAF at airfields and RADAR stations.

All 3 services had their Nursing Officers who took risks.

All 3 services had women killed.

Today's woman are on the front line and flying jets. The Wrens are now allowed on ships. The woman are now in the RAF as it has dropped the W and I believe the army and navy have as well.

Hope that gives you some more information about women in WW2. :-)

Ex WRAF - 5 years :-)

David, surely you are aware that until very recently woman haven't been allowed to partake in combat?!! All those years ago it would have been thought totally inappropriate by society in general and all men in particular to put women in that sort of danger, as well as the fact that they would have been considered a liability. Men protected country, home and hearth, which loosely meant women and children. (women and children first, remember that?!) Yes, women played a big and important part in keeping the home fires burning, ferrying planes, de coding, plotting aircraft, (my own mother was part of that very important work) but fighting? I don't think so!!

Here is my mother, a photo taken in 1942 for her 21st birthday.

To save money if the weather was OK when she got leave she'd cycle from Nottingham where she was stationed to Walsall.

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/keepsafe/asset/details/42415581

Edit - my father didn't go to war, his trade was exempt and he was at Castle Bromwich making parts for spitfires. :-D

My dad worked in the Woolwich Arsenal so he wasn't called up or accepted when he tried to join up because he was on essential war work
He would cycle every day to work and back that was quite a trek from our home in Charlton SE London

Us kids were evacuated from London but mum stayed at home because she was very near delivering my younger sister
. She took a first aid course with the Red Cross and our house became an ARP post as she signed up for that too

She would go bomb watching when the air raid warning went and would report when she saw the doodlebugs dropped . SHe would then go to see if she could help when the services came to dig out the bombed houses and would administer first aid where she could

For many years after the war we still had the plaque on the outside of the house that said ARP post

Very proud of both parents contributions to the war work

My Mum served in the WAAF during WW2 before having me during wartime whereupon she left - that was, I believe, compulsory at the time even though she worked in civvy street after my birth.

She was based not too far from home, luckily, but she spoke of the devastating effects of bombs there and at home in Liverpool.

David, even after the war, women struggled to gain parity with men on a number of fronts - loans, mortgages etc. Nothing was handed to women on a platter and it took years before equality was enacted in legislation.

Pat is right. ALLOWED was not the prerogative of women - they got to the position they are in today only by the actions of a few (I hesitate to use the word) militant women and those who lined up behind them.

All of this is within my living memory and experience as I am sure it is with others my age.

Well said Joy Louise.

My daughter is a civil engineer, she has recently become an associate director of the firm she works for and has pay parity with the men.

She's just started on her first site where she is in total charge and the site agent is also a woman. We are getting there ladies. :-D :-D :-D :-D

Too right, Pat. :-D

I'd stand up to be counted again today if I had to, as would my daughter who also works in a male-orientated and male-dominated field.

So that's four of us ... :-D :-D :-D

Lovely photo of your Mum, by the way. :-D

Thank you. Very proud of what my parents achieved as well as my daughter and bless her she's only 5 ft 3 ins.

I got daughter to watch Made in Dagenham to see the working conditions of the 60s when I started work. She was shocked and surprised. I too was in a male occupation - chemical analysis.

Dad worried I wouldn't get a job but I went for 2 interviews and got offered both jobs. :-D

Dad would have been delighted to have another engineer in the family. :-)

Both my parents were in the air force. My mother had to leave when she was expecting me in 1942. My father was killed in December 42 after a bombing raid over Duisburg. He and his comrades were shot down by a nightfighter over Noor Brabant.

My Mum left school at 14 and worked at an office job for a large company. She survived the Blitz in Southampton (but her workplace didn't). She joined the WAAF at age 18 in early 1942 and worked at RAF Records in Gloucester. She was billeted with my Gran and met Dad when he was on leave from the Army. She did fancy the Land Army, but Grandad wanted something a bit less 'tough' for her :-)

My Mum was only 9 when the war started, but her elder sister trained to be a nurse in 1942. Mum's younger brother was born in 1940, so gran couldn't work.
Sorting through Gran's 'collection' I found the following letter, which describes what led to the family being evacuated from Southampton:

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Northumberland Road
Southampton


Dear Grace,
Vic and I were very pleased to hear from you and the children are gone somewhere safer. I was up with Brian when you had the Blitz and thank goodness I missed it. It must have been hell let loose.
I was away five weeks, but home again now. The town is absolutely dead, everyone seems to go out of the town at night. What a mess he made of us. Pleased to be able to tell you, Dad and Laura got out of the Green Man without a scratch. They were under the stairs when the bomb fell and blasted the place in, and when they saw the book shop alight, they ran through it all and got to a park shelter. Dad is at Totton with Harry, he couldn’t stick it any more. Sorry to hear about your mum’s house, but pleased she is O.K.
Our house did not get a scratch, although bombs fell all around. Well dear, I must close now as a raid is on and Jerry might pay us a visit tonight, although since the siren sounded, things have been rather quiet. Write again, won’t you.
Cheerio and God Bless you all
Yours sincerely
Nell

PS Is Charlie still in Southampton, or is he with you?
--------------------------

Letter sent 30th December 1940 to Grace, at the time staying at 4 Council Houses, Hordle nr Lymington, Hants, from ‘Nell’ – a close friend of hers.

The Green Man was a pub run by Nell’s father, Henry Maskell, at 6 St Mary Street, Southampton. Laura is a younger sister of Ellen.

There were 57 Air Raids on Southampton, by far the worst were on 23rd and 30th November and 1st December 1940.

Grace and Charlies house, in Albert Road, was hit. Charlie stayed in Southampton, working at the docks and as a fire warden. He lodged with his mother in law, at Northcote Road, Portswood, Southampton - this house had been damaged, but Grace's mum stayed on there.

David .....

wurely you are aware that it was only in July THIS year that women in the British services were allowed to be front line troops?

That's way way behind Canada where all combat roles to opened to women in 1989. Australia opened its combat trades to women in 2011, and the U.S. lifted its ban on women in combat in January 2013.


I might ask, why did it take the UK so long??


The honest truth seems to be two-fold ............

1) Men couldn't trust women to be effective troops

2) Men were (are?) afraid that there were would be "sexual misconduct" if women were truly incorporated in to the services


Think carefully on that!

And another one I heard from the mouth of a well-retired uniformed officer (although not armed forces), Sylvia.

A man's natural inclination to shield women in peril.

Having seen a party celebrating where I was eating recently (they were well behaved) and the ladies of the army camp doing runs carrying backpacks, I wouldn't stand a chance at anytime during my life against them. They are, in the main, tall, well built and fit.

In the WRAF I was and still would be in a noncombatant roll as I came under the medical category so would be helping in case of attack with triage and dressing minor wounds.

I just don't know how I feel about women at the sharp end. RAF pilots are OK but in the infantry for example I feel the men would protect them first and it could cause problems. I also feel women have a right to do the job they want to. :-S

At least I don't have to decide.

Women have died in recent years e.g. Afganistan so David there's equality at the sharp end now as they are now ALLOWED.

Note - David hasn't come back to the thread. Hope he's OK. :-)

David quite often doesn't come back to the thread when he is ever so slightly challenged. Not quite sure he why he posts in the first place if he's not prepared to follow it through! :-S

Magpie, David has health issues and does not always get back on threads instantly