DVA Women in War Part3
DVA Women in War Part3
DVA Women in War Part3
in World War II
(1939-1945)
3
During World War II the role of
women in the services and on the
home front expanded immensely.
Women were no longer confined
to nursing, medical and voluntary
roles, and they were able to join
a women’s arm of each of the
services.
On the home front the number of
women employed grew quickly
as men left jobs to go to war, and
many new occupations suddenly
opened to women.
The nature of the war and the
threat to Australia meant that
there was greater unity on the
home front.
There were, however, tensions
associated with women’s roles,
and for many people old attitudes
and values were hard to change.
Investigations:
1 What new service roles were
open to Australian women?
2 What impacts did the war
have on Australian women’s
home front roles and
experiences?
3 Did the war change the role
and status of Australian
women?
Join us in a victory job, Maurice Bramley, 1943, lithograph on paper, 49x60cm AWM ARTV08836
39
Teaching suggestions
Essential At the end of this topic students will have developed:
learning knowledge of women’s main roles in World War II;
achievements understanding of some of the attitudes and values commonly held at the time;
empathy with the experiences of servicewomen and women on the home front;
and
an informed judgement about the degree to which Australian women’s roles and
status changed during World War II.
Suggested 1 Have students look at the Forming Ideas page. This will help them identify
classroom important changes in attitudes towards women.
approaches 2 Investigation 1 explores the changing roles of women in the services in World
War II. There were now many more options for women apart from nursing.
Students could be divided into groups and each group given a particular aspect
of women’s services to report on to the class. Students might also act out the
conversation on page 44.
Students are challenged by deciding whether the image of one service, the WAAAF,
portrays reality. Divide the class into groups. Have each group report on one or two
pages to the class, which will thus build up an overall picture.
3 Investigation 2 presents a variety of evidence of women’s roles and experiences.
By having students comment briefly on each one they will be better able to develop
a more personal and empathetic understanding of life at the time.
4 In Investigation 3 students bring all the evidence in this unit, together with some
new aspects, to develop an informed judgement. Students will find that some
of the statements can be either agreed or disagreed with, depending on their
interpretation and on the emphasis they give to different pieces of evidence, so
there should be a lot of analytical discussion about the various statements.
5 If this is the only unit being studied, students may like to undertake the
museum exercise in Unit 7. The DVD section on the Australian War Memorial’s
representation of women’s experiences of war (see below) will help them with this.
6 It would be desirable for students to interview people from the time. Contact your
local RSL for advice on how to contact appropriate people in the community.
DVD Chapter 3 of the DVD provides a museum study approach to the way the Australian
War Memorial represents Australian women’s involvement in World War II.
It is suggested that this segment of the DVD be used as part of Investigation 1.
Finding out Patsy Adam-Smith, Australian Women At War, Penguin, Melbourne, 1996
more Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches, Oxford, Melbourne, 1992
Joan Beaumont (ed), Australia’s War 1939-45, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996
Peter Cochrane, Australians At War, ABC Books, Melbourne, 2001
Daniel Connell, The War At Home, ABC, Sydney, 1988
Libby Connors et al, Australia’s Frontline, UQP, Brisbane, 1992
Kate Darian-Smith, On The Home Front, Oxford, New York, 1990
40
Carol Fallows, Love and War, Bantam Books, Sydney, 2002
Margaret Geddes, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Viking, Melbourne, 2004
Betty Goldsmith and Beryl Sandford, The Girls They Left Behind, Penguin, Melbourne,
1990
Jenny Gregory (ed), On The Homefront, UWA Press, Perth, 1996
Len Johnson, Love Letters from a War. The letters of Corporal John Leslie Johnson and
his family June 1940-May 1941, ABC Books, Sydney, 2003
Michael McKernan, All In!, Nelson, Melbourne, 1983
Melanie Oppenheimer, Australian Women and War, Department of Veterans’ Affairs,
Canberra, 2008
Richard Pelvin, Second World War, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2005
Joanna Penglase and David Horner, When the War Came to Australia, Allen & Unwin,
Sydney, 1995
E Daniel Potts and Annette Potts, Yanks Down Under 1941-45, Oxford University Press,
London, 1985
Richard Reid, Just Wanted To Be There, Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Canberra, 1999
Key Data
Conflict World War II
Background to In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland. Britain had declared that it would
the conflict defend Poland. When Britain declared war against Germany the Australian
Government proclaimed that Australia was also at war.
In December 1941, Japanese forces bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, and invaded Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia), Papua and
New Guinea. Australia for the first time declared war on Japan, rather than being part
of a British declaration of war.
Nature of the Australia was involved in several distinct phases and types of war.
conflict The European war involved all three Australian services. The RAAF flew against
German and Italian targets in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Europe as part of
the European war against Germany and its allies. The Navy operated in the Atlantic
and Indian Oceans as part of this war. Australian troops fought in North Africa, Greece,
Crete, and the Middle East.
When the Japanese entered the war, elements of Australia’s naval and air forces
remained involved in the European war, but for the most part they and the Army were
urgently returned to Australia to oppose the Japanese in the Pacific and South-East
Asia, and to prevent what many believed would be an invasion of Australia.
How Australian Many women served in the nursing corps of the three Australian services. Far more
women were women joined the auxiliary services that were established during the war to release
involved men for combat roles. There was an auxiliary element to the three services.
There were also many volunteer organisations and a Women’s Land Army to support
agricultural production.
Far more women now worked than ever before, and many now held previously
male-only occupations.
41
Key statistics 691,000 men served in the Army (either the AIF or the AMF). 45,800 men served in
the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). 189,700 men served in the Royal Australian Air Force
(RAAF).
Over 66,000 women enlisted in a branch of the women’s services during the war, just
under 7% of the nearly one million Australians who served.
Army Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) Australian Women’s Army Service
3500 (AWAS)
24,000
Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) which
became the Australian Army Medical
Women’s Service (AAMWS)
8000
Navy Royal Australian Naval Nursing Service Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service
(RANNS) (WRANS)
60 3000
Air Force Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Women’s Australian Auxiliary Air Force
Service (RAAFNS) (WAAAF)
600 27,000
Map showing the main regions of the world where Australian servicemen and women served
in this conflict
Based on JCR Cam and John McQuilton (eds), Australians. A Historical Atlas, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Sydney, 1987.
For detailed maps of Australian involvement see John Coates, An Atlas of Australia’s Wars, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2006.
42
Forming ideas
Join us in a victor
y
job, Maurice Bra
mley, 1943, lith
ograph on pape
r, 49x60cm AWM
836 ARTV08
1 What does the image on the poster portray? 5 Do you think this attitude was likely to be
permanent, or to last only as long as the war
2 What is its main message to women? lasted? Explain your ideas.
3 What is its main message to men?
You are about to investigate the roles and
4 What is the attitude shown towards the experiences of Australian women in World War II.
women portrayed in the poster? This will enable you to test the ideas that you
have suggested.
In your investigations you should draw on these components of the Australian Women in War resource:
CD-ROM activities:
• What were Australian women’s
uniforms like over time?
• Create a National Australian
Women’s Memorial
DVD: • Create an Australian Women in War
poster and timeline
Chapter 3 • Create a recruiting or information poster
World War II • Investigating the story of Vivian Bullwinkel
Chapter 5 • What decisions will you make about women’s lives
Unit 3 (pages 39–64) A Local Community and roles during World War II?
43
investigation 1
What new service roles were open to Australian women?
World War II saw changes to the roles that women 2 Look at this imaginary conversation between
played on the home and fighting fronts. four World War II women nursing veterans.
Use this conversation to summarise what
1 Look at Chapter 3 of the DVD. It will provide
happened in these aspects of nursing in
you with some information and ideas about World War II:
how the displays in the Australian War
Memorial show Australian women in World
War II. They are a starting point for your
investigations in this unit.
Amy Good to see you, girls. Well, we’ve come a long way since World War I with our nursing services,
haven’t we?
Nola Well you’re still in the largest nursing service, the Army, though not all nurses are with you now.
Amy No, you’re with the smallest, aren’t you? The Navy doesn’t really need huge numbers.
Nola Yes, about 60 of us. Not like you with three and a half thousand!
Ruby Or me with 600.
Mon But I was part of the most numerous group, and we weren’t nurses, but medical aides. We used to be
called VADs and were volunteers, but became professional in 1940. We had a new name, too – a bit of
a mouthful, Australian Army Medical Women’s Services.
Ruby Yes AAMWS. We’ve all got those – AANS, RAAFNS, RANNS.
Amy You served overseas, didn’t you?
Mon Yes, like all three of you. Between us I think we served everywhere. England, Palestine, Egypt, Singapore …
Ruby Libya, Greece, Syria, Ceylon, Malaya …
Nola Papua and New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Australia …
Mon and Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force at the end of the war.
Amy I think we were basically the only women to serve outside Australian territory.
Ruby Yes. And suffered the dangers because of it. Nurses experienced combat conditions, evacuation under
fire, air and torpedo attacks on their ships, sinking, and massacres.
Mon And those terrible experiences of the prisoners of war. Awful.
Nola Seventy-one nurses died during their service. Seventy-five received decorations for bravery or meritorious
service, and 133 were mentioned in despatches for the way they conducted their duties.
Ruby It makes you proud to be part of it.
Amy Yes, I joined out of patriotism, and I really feel I’ve served my country.
Nola Well we all did, but I was also influenced by a sense of duty, that it was the right thing to do.
Ruby And by a spirit of adventure, I’d say.
Mon And, if we’re honest, as a result of social pressure. Lots of my friends were going off, and I thought
I should, too.
Amy Well, between us we are upholding a great service nursing tradition.
Ruby We’ll meet again next Anzac Day. The boys want us here, and we belong.
Nola Too right. Until next year. See you!
Numbers involved
44
UNIT 3 investigation 1
Now read this information about the non-nursing and medical women’s services, and create a similar summary.
Where served
Numbers involved
‘Looking back over their years of service, WAAAF were almost unanimous in their
comments. Many regarded them as the happiest of their lives; all felt they gave
them independence – by no means the norm for young women in those days
AR
AAF, James North
M
– and lifelong friendships they would never have made otherwise. For the young
AW
recruits, many from outback areas or sheltered suburban homes, joining the
cm .
service was a totally new experience, opening doors they had never contemplated.
99.8 x 63.2
After the strangeness of their new lives was overcome, they thrived on it; learning
job!’ Join the WA
new skills and developing tolerance and understanding as they worked and lived
with people of backgrounds different from their own.
photolithograph,
Most felt they had helped to win the war, which gave them a warm and
patriotic glow of satisfaction. Some felt they had gained educationally. A few
found the discipline overwhelming at first, but none seem to have resented it, and
gra nd
many spoke of the respect their officers earned from them. They enjoyed working
a
with men as members of a team, and many women met their future husbands in
‘Do ing
this way. Living side by side with other women developed a spirit of ‘give and take’
which carried over into civilian life.
Only one wrote that the day she was discharged to take up a job as cook in a
civilian hospital was the happiest day of her service life! The rest are still proud to
have been in the WAAAF.’
Clare Stevenson, in Clare Stevenson and Honor Darling (eds), The WAAAF Book, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1984 p28
45
UNIT 3 investigation 1
AWM 009233
6 What do you think were the main benefits to
women from their service experience?
7 Do you accept the comments made by Clare
Stevenson on page 45 as a good piece of
evidence? Discuss the quotation’s strengths
and weaknesses.
46
UNIT 3 investigation 1
Now look at these sources about aspects of service life, and answer the questions that follow.
Source 1
Source 2
47
UNIT 3 investigation 1
48
UNIT 3 investigation 1
Advertising images
Look at this evidence and consider:
What is being promised?
How is it being ‘sold’ – in words, images and ideas?
What expectations is it creating?
Source 1
49
UNIT 3 investigation 1
Advertising images
Look at this evidence and consider:
What is being promised?
How is it being ‘sold’ – in words, images and ideas?
What expectations is it creating?
Source 2
50
UNIT 3 investigation 1
Popular cartoons
Look at this evidence and consider:
Who are the subjects of the cartoons?
What is the joke being portrayed in each cartoon?
What is the attitude of the cartoonists towards the servicewomen in each case?
Source 3
51
UNIT 3 investigation 1
Musterings and rates of payment
Look at this evidence and consider: How does their pay compare to that of the
men’s for equivalent work?
Which are the best paid jobs?
How does this reality compare to the promises
How many people hold these positions?
or impressions of the wartime recruiting posters
What jobs do most women have?
and advertisements?
Source 4
Musterings and rates of payment (1944) in the Women’s Australian Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF)
and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF)
Women’s Activities in Australia prepared for Dr Edith Summerskill, MD, MP, Empire Parliamentary Delegation, Australia 1944
WAAAF Daily pay RAAF Daily pay
Assistant Section Officer 12/4 Pilot Officer 18/6
Section Officer 13/6 Flying Officer 20/-
Flight Officer 17/- Flight Lieutenant 25/-
Squadron Officer 19/6 Squadron Leader 32/6
Wing Officer 22/- Wing Commander 38/-
Group Officer 24/6 Group Captain 47/6
52
UNIT 3 investigation 1
Photographic evidence
C
Look at this evidence and consider:
What jobs are being portrayed?
Were these jobs traditionally done by women before World War II,
or were they ones traditionally done by men?
Source 5
A B
AWM P05552.001
AWM VIC0328
AWM VIC0958
D E
AWM VIC0440
AWM VIC0350
H
AWM 013528
G
AWM VIC0333
AWM VIC1343
53
UNIT 3 investigation 1
Photographic evidence
C
Look at this evidence and consider:
What jobs are being portrayed?
Were these jobs traditionally done by women before
World War II, or were they ones traditionally done by men?
Source 6
A B
AWM NEA0046
AWM VIC0805
AWM VIC0335
D E
AWM 013533
AWM VIC1426
H
AWM 013538
G
AWM P02641.002
AWM VIC1153D
54
UNIT 3 investigation 1
• Seeing my four brothers in uniform made me The basis of the appeal which urges women to release Air
very determined to want to do my bit too. Force men for the front by taking their base jobs as clerks,
cooks and so on is not effective. Possibly many women
• I joined up because I loved marching, music, do not want to be merely substitutes for men; if they can
excitement, pageantry and the colour blue! do certain duties as efficiently as men, they want to be
I also joined because I loved and still love regarded as fellow members of the Air Force — not as
England. substitutes.
• I joined the WAAAF because I was born Patricia
instead of Peter. Social and personal objections
• I knew that somehow I must be part of the A number are deterred by a fear, or impression of
challenge to the German fallacy that ‘might snobbishness. Many girls are genuinely attached to their
is right’. homes, and the desire that they should not leave them for
comparative hardships, possible unpleasantness and risks
• Many, like myself, found ‘joining up’ an escape
of membership of a ‘fighting’ service, is mutual between
from an intolerable dead-end employment
them and their parents.
situation, as well as a patriotic response.
• Apart from patriotic reasons, I was better off It’s not ‘our’ war
financially. Indifference and selfishness must be included in the
• Walking along St George’s Terrace, Perth, with personal reasons which in some cases prevent enrolment.
a crowd of girls one evening in 1942, I pointed
Moral aspersions
to an Air Force House and said, ‘I think I’ll join’.
One of the girls said, ‘Well, go and do it’, and There is no doubt that stories about the moral conduct of
pushed me in the door. [WAAAFs] have put many girls off joining up, and have
caused parents to dissuade their daughters, and Air Force
• I joined up from a war-embattled home to help
men, to dissuade their girl friends and sisters from seeking
protect 40 Marine Parade, Maroubra.
to enrol.
Clare Stevenson and Honor Darling (eds), The WAAAF Book,
Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1984 pp80-87 Professor AP Elkin, University of Sydney Archives Document, AWM PR84/291
55
investigation 2
What impacts did the war have on Australian women’s
home front roles and experiences?
Look at this collection of evidence about women’s Source 3
roles and experiences on the home front during
the war. Life at school
1 For each one: Every day we would get the Argus newspaper,
which printed lists of those missing or killed.
write a short summary of what it tells Every morning at school assembly the headmaster
you was happening to women’s roles and would tell us the war news; sometimes he would
experiences during the war; and say that ‘so and so’ would not be at school that
day because their Dad was missing or killed. I
decide whether you think this was likely to
feel that we were not shielded from anything
be a permanent (P) or temporary (T) thing.
about the war, except the Americans when they
Write your responses in the space provided after came — and that was a lock-up-your-daughters
each source. situation — but I think that most of the girls at
school my age accepted the war situation; life just
seemed to go on. We knitted gloves, balaclavas,
Source 1 and socks, often writing short notes to put in the
bottom of them. Once we started at high school
Food we got coupons for uniforms, trying hard to stretch
If I went to my friend’s place for lunch or dinner at night, ourselves to five feet when they measured us,
I would take my butter and sugar. And I remember one because then you got extra ration tickets.
time when I was only about six or seven, my girlfriend and Bev Larsen in Joanna Penglase and David Horner, When The War Came
I decided we would surprise my mother by making a cake To Australia, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1992, pp11-12
and we used all the butter and sugar ration. And she came
home and she was anything but pleased of course.
Helen McAnulty in Joanna Penglase and David Horner,
When The War Came To Australia, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1992, p197
Source 4
Source 2
Enemy aliens
Shortages
[The police would go] there; they’d rip the
Until 1942 [Townsville] was a quiet seaside town, where mattresses off the beds and empty all the
everyone knew everyone else. Then the war, and many wardrobes, what they were looking for no one
thousands of Americans arrived in our small town. Almost knows, yet they never took the person – yet they
overnight just about every essential item for everyday emptied the houses out. And never tidied up – just
living became scarce, especially food. To keep the forces left things as they were, just scattered everywhere
in meat and vegetables left very little for the housewife to – oh, you know, we went to friends that happened
choose from. to – they just sat there crying – “Just why? What
My mother queued to buy meat, and if she was lucky [she had we done?” But we’d say, “Don’t worry, at least
would ] get a leg of lamb or hogget. Then to the queue at you’re home – you’re not taken away.”
the ice works for a block of ice. My mother was one of the
Rita Costa in Libby Conners et. al., Australia’s Frontline,
unsung heroines of the time — how she could put a meal UQP, Brisbane, 1992, p96
together with the few ingredients available I don’t know.
Marjorie King in Betty Goldsmith and Beryl Sandford,
The Girls They Left Behind, Penguin, Melbourne, 1990, pp77-8
56
UNIT 3 investigation 2
Source 5 Source 8
Source 7
Black Americans
The American troops, the Catalina pilots and others, were stationed out
the back of the university and we used to have dances every Friday night,
and I remember these black guys used to come and look in the window
and sort of tap their feet to the ‘Dark Town Strutters Ball’ or whatever
we happened to be jitterbugging to, and look so much as if they wanted
to be part of it all that I remember one night a couple of us went out
and said, ‘Why don’t you come in?’. And they said, ‘Oh no, ma’am, we
couldn’t do that, we couldn’t come in to join in with you people’. And
I’m sure lots of black service men must have been incredibly lonely in
that society … Some girls went out with black servicemen but they were
shunned and talked about … .
Dorothy Hewett in Joanna Penglase and David Horner, When The War Came To Australia,
Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1992, p236
57
UNIT 3 investigation 2
Source 9 Source 11
58
UNIT 3 investigation 2
Source 13 (a)
B Grow your own vegetables for victory, artist C Enrol now in the National Salvage Corps,
unknown, 1943, photolithograph in blue and black artist unknown, poster, 1943, photolithograph,
A AWM 044519
ink on paper, 76 x 50.8 cm. AWM ARTV02452 49.2 x 37.1 cm. AWM ARTV02743
E AWM 044522
59
UNIT 3 investigation 2
Source 13 (b)
C Join, artist unknown, poster, 1939-1945, D Our job to clothe the men who work and fight, E Coal is vital!, artist unknown, poster, 1944,
photolithograph, 36.8 x 24.6 cm. AWM ARTV00790 poster, 1943, colour photolithograph with block lithograph, 36.1 x 24.6 cm. AWM ARTV06690
printing on paper, 73.8 x 47.9 cm. AWM ARTV01064
60
UNIT 3 investigation 2
Source 13 (c)
A AWM 000118
C AWM P00784.209
D AWM 044516
F
AWM
REL/18564
E AWM 012268
61
UNIT 3 investigation 2
3 Here are some comments and statements Decide if you agree with them or not, and
about the impact of war on people on quote one key document that you have seen in
the home front, and especially women. this unit to support your answer in each case.
Supporting
Statement Agree Disagree
source
Farm women worked harder to replace the work previously done by men
Being a housewife was a patriotic duty that helped the war effort
62
investigation 3
Did the war change the role and status of Australian women?
Many school history textbooks claim that women’s It can be voluntary (changing your hair style) or
roles and status in Australian society changed forced (being conscripted). It can be beneficial
dramatically because of World War II. Using the (reducing the road toll) or harmful (an epidemic).
evidence from the previous sections of this unit, And so on.
together with the sources that follow, decide
After you have read all the sources create a table
whether you agree with this statement and what
with two columns. In one column list areas of
evidence you can use to support your conclusion.
changes in women’s roles and experiences during
Change can have all sorts of aspects to it. For the war. In the opposite column summarise the
example a change can be good (winning the lottery) nature of the changes that occurred in this area.
or bad (being injured). It can be permanent (leaving One example has been done to help you.
school) or temporary (having a holiday).
Source 1 Source 3
63
UNIT 3 investigation 3
Source 5 Source 8
Source 10
64