Collette Drifte

Women in the Second World War explores the experiences of women who served in the armed forces, or complimentary services. Using interviews, anecdotes, memoirs and/or accounts from the women (or, where appropriate, their children), the book tells the women’s personal accounts of what their lives were like and what particular experiences they had while serving.

They were all ordinary British women, and tell here in their own words their experiences on active service.

Their accounts cover the whole spectrum, from famous battles, such as Monte Cassino, to being shipwrecked by a tornado, to simple acts of kindness, which in themselves seem nothing, but at the same time meant something very special to those young women, and were fondly remembered, even sixty years afterwards.

The huge variety of services and experiences featured in the book reflect how widely spread the women’s contribution to the war effort was, from tilling the soil below, to servicing the engines of aircraft about to take off to the sky above, and everything in between.