Jeremy A. Crang. Sisters in Arms: Women in the British Armed Forces during the Second World War.

Abstract

Over half a million women joined the three British women’s auxiliary forces during the Second World War, including its most well-known member, an eighteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth. Jeremy A. Crang’s Sisters in Arms: Women in the British Armed Forces during the Second World War offers a well-researched and highly readable new history of these organizations that both contextualizes and challenges the tales of plucky young women selflessly “doing their bit” that filled the pages of the popular press. It follows a chronological and thematic structure, covering the development of the women’s services from the 1930s, and exploring key aspects of the servicewomen’s experiences, including their training, work, discipline, health, social lives and habits, and social status. Unlike some studies that end in 1945, a welcome and original aspect of this study is its focus on the postwar careers of servicewomen, and on the extent to which war service offered them new opportunities within or without the military. The final chapters offer a useful overview of political debates around and attitudes toward demobilization, including some fascinating case studies of the impact of war work on women’s postwar lives.