WOMEN IN WARTIME

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 287, 26 March 1941, Page 3

WOMEN IN WARTIME

WORK IN ENGLAND RELEASING MEN FOR COMBATANT SERVICE Women in uniforms arc serving with every branch of His Majesty's Forces as telephonists, radio operators. cooks, caterers, clerks, typists bookkeepers, lorry drivers and mechanics. AV.Ii.E.N.S. (Women's al Naval Service), A.T.S. (Auxiliary Territorial Service), W.AA.F.S. (Women's Auxiliary Air Force), F.A.N.N.Y.S. (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), all are doing a full time iob most competently. The main function of a woman serving with the fighting forces is to release men for combatant duties. The extent to which this has been, achieved is illustrated by the fact that when | the WA.A.F.S. were established as I a separate seivice in .Tune, 1939, the R.A.F. specified four categories in which it wos thought they could substitute for men. Since then the number has grown to twenty-six, and new trades are constantly being added. In emergencies. too, they have risen to the occasion magnificently'. During the operations off Dunkirk the W.R.E.N.S. took over at a moment's notice job after job that had previously been done by men and so. set free scores of sorelv needed officers and ratings to assist in the evacuation.

Women in llic civil defence .services-, also in uniform, play the same part in releasing men. but through determination or force of circumstances the women "warden, fireman, ambulance driver or shelter marshal, lias as yet taken a lar»cr share than any of her sisters in the • danger zone. No woman has as ye I won the George Cross, but sixteen of the George Medals have been awarded to women. Women in industry in the lasi war played a bigger part than women in any other category of professional war work. Out of 1,330,000 j additional women who then found employment no less than 790,000 were industrial workers, and it seems as if history would repeat these proportions. Mr Bevin, the Minister of Labour, has called foT 500,000 woman workers before August, 1941. The number of young single women available could not fill this demand, but rccruits are expected to be drawn from civilian industries and from the numbers of married women who have served in industry. Women on the land have a hard row to hoc in more senses than one. Agricultural work demands skill and knowledge, and is often so heavy that farmers are doubtful about taking on women as workers, However, the 9000 girls of the Land Army now replacing men on the farms have proved their value. They are generally employed in the specialised brandies—poultry; dairy, young stock, fruit and market gardening. The Women's Voluntary Services for Civil Defence is a wartime organisation, but a civilian one with a .membership of 843,000. Some of its members wear uniforms, the majority do not. There are no privates, officers or badges of rank. Its work varies from sewing parties : to driving mobile canteens out to : feed the firemen and rescue squads 1 during air raids. Most of the "mobiles" in London, Coventry and other cities bear battle scars by now, chips and dents made by shell j splinters. In the early summer of ; 1940 the W.V.S. took charge of the i refugees arriving from the Contin- t ent. In London 8794 were met and i taken care of. Since September the ] major part of the work has been ] with the victims of air raids—running rest centres, finding and furnishing new homes, equipping and staffing nursery schools for babies who have been made orphans, org- j anising canteens in shelters.

The W.VS. are the liaison officers between the people of Britain and their kinsmen and well-wishers overseas. Every day bales of clothes and comforts omo in to the central depot to be distributed to centres in taiget areas. By the end of Pebru:uy, 1941, 727,111 garments had been given out in London alone.