Women's Royal Naval Service Research Articles

Women’s Military Uniform During the Second World War: How Women Maintained Their Femininity

The study explores how women in military uniforms maintained their femininity during the Second World War. It considers the uniforms that women belonging to the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), and the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAC) wore. Previous research on women's military uniforms during the war has been done from above: why the authority did not allow women to wear trousers and how the government tried to control their uniform. It is necessary to explore women's military uniform from below as well as from above: how women themselves think of their uniforms, what feelings and mentalities to their uniforms they had and how women in military uniform tried to retain their femininity even in the war. This study mainly uses advertisements in the magazine <i>The Woman</i>, read by women in military service even during the war. The study finds that although servicewomen were provided with skirts rather than trousers and several other ‘feminine’ clothing such as rayon knickers, boned corsets, and lisle stocking, the basic uniform of the women's services was similar in style to that of their male 'parent' forces. As the war continued, the work clothing of servicewomen became more 'masculine'. WRNS members, for instance, wore 'bell-bottoms’. However, as some servicewomen shortened their skirts to conform to a fashionable length, they tried to retain their femininity by adapting their uniform to their tastes. Many advertisements for the promotion of selling parts of uniform such as boned corset, and the encouragement of using hair salon, appeared in magazines. In them, for example, camp hairdressers introduced the hairstyle suitable for service caps. These advertisements probably helped women keep their femininity. As women in the same uniform were very proud of belonging to the war service, their ideal was a woman who balanced military duty with feminine beauty and maintained both ladylike quality and a sense of discipline.

Mary Watson Hendry

Mary Watson Hendry (nee Gibson) was born and educated in Bo’ness. She attended Bo’ness Academy, where she became both head and dux girl, although her proudest moment was being crowned...

Helen Mary Godwin

Straight out of school, Helen Mary Godwin served in the Women's Royal Naval Service during the second world war. In 1947 she was part of the first intake of female...

The revival of the British women's auxiliary services in the late nineteen-thirties

Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War the women's auxiliary services were revived in Britain. Disbanded in the aftermath of the First World War, they were re-formed in the late nineteen-thirties as the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and the Women's Royal Naval Service. These organizations were to undertake ancillary tasks for the army, R.A.F. and Royal Navy in time of war. This article investigates the re-establishment of the women's services and emphasizes the role women themselves played in gaining re-admittance into the servicemen's sphere.

Gender Integration in Armed Forces: Recent Policy Developments in the United Kingdom

This article reports on recent developments in policy on gender integration in the United Kingdom's armed forces, whereby women's employment opportunities have widened significantly since the early 1980s. These changes include increases in women's representation and the number of positions they are allowed to occupy; abolition of the Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC) and Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS); assigning women to combat ships, and training women as jet fighter pilots. Drawing on official reports and statistics and formal interviews with military and civilian defense officials, we analyze the main factors that have led the United Kingdom to make these policy changes. These factors are: demographic pressures, sociocultural changes in gender definitions, legal constraints (particularly from the European Union), and changing views of policy makers on whether women can and should serve in combat roles. The article highlights a number of implications of the policy changes.

Resources for second world war women photographers

Abstract This compilation seeks to begin the task of identifying women photographers who worked during the Second World War, either in combat zones, or in supporting roles such as members of the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) or the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), or as employees in the Office of War Information (OWI). The primary study period is 1938-46, and the emphasis is on those women who are unknown or little known today. This work in progress is far from complete, and has been gleaned almost exclusively from English-language sources.

Infective hepatitis and arsenotherapy hepatitis as it occurred amongst naval personnel in Portsmouth during the 1939-45 War.

(With 1 Figure in the Text) A steady increase in the numbers of patients admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar with acute hepatitis during the first three years of the 1939-45 War led to an investigation during 1943 to determine the factors which were responsible, and to identify the similarities or differences between acute hepatitis acquired during the course of arsenotherapy and hepatitis which occurred independently of this form of treatment. Officers and ratings of the Women's Royal Naval Service were not included in the study. The examination of the data obtained was only completed recently. This reveals features of practical importance which deserve more consideration than they have received hitherto.

CROSBY HALL, LONDON

IN the summer of 1946, after several years of war service as a training centre for the Women's Royal Naval Service, Crosby Hall was re-opened by the British Federation of University Women as an international hall of residence and club-house for university women. Fortunately, the beautiful fifteenth-century Hall was comparatively little damaged by bombs ; and although the residential quarters were considerably injured by blast it was possible to restore them without actual re-building.

The Women's Royal Naval Service in the War

The Women's Royal Naval Service in the War

The Work of the Women's Royal Naval Service in the War

The Work of the Women's Royal Naval Service in the War