Women in Combat: Female Volunteers in British Anti-Aircraft Batteries in the Second World War

Abstract

In the Second World War, some belligerent states tapped, to different degrees, the reserve armies made up of each nation’s womanhood,1thereby enabling women to volunteer for service in the military. This chapter, which focuses upon those British women who volunteered for service in anti-aircraft batteries, begins by outlining the development of female involvement in the British military between 1939 and 1945. Firstly, I will consider women’s reasons for volunteering for the military services in general and Anti-Aircraft Defence in particular. It will be shown that patriotism played no significant role in motivating women to volunteer. The term “patriotism” is applied here, somewhat loosely, to sentiments expressed as “the wish to help one’s country”, “to be involved in the war”, “to do one’s bit”. Secondly, the tensions between contemporary notions of femininity and combat are highlighted. I will argue that these were resolved largely by emphasizing in a number of ways the temporary and exceptional nature of women’s involvement in the military, necessitated by the exigencies of warfare, and by quickly obliterating women’s role in the military from official commemorations of the war.