As American participation grows in every theater of the war, the call is for man power. That ultimately means woman power. The extent to which the woman power of America can be mobilized and utilized will determine to a large degree the number of fighting men and the amount of their equipment.
The British, with two years more of war experience behind them, have demonstrated the extent to which women can replace men. Take the Royal Navy for example. The Navy—that 100 per cent masculine world, dominated, supposedly by blustering admirals! Yet tens of thousands of slender, well-mannered girls have stormed that fortress of masculinity and are doing the work that men used to do. If you could visit any port in England today, you would see to what a large extent the British Navy depends on women to do its work.
The Women’s Royal Naval Service, or “Wrens,” as they have been called in two wars now, have no military status such as the auxiliary service to the British Army enjoys. However, they have direct participation and large responsibility in almost every naval matter and the consciousness of their indispensability is of more importance to them than their technical status. Each and every Wren is doing a full-time man’s job and thereby releases a man for duty afloat. A Wren is a one-for-one replacement.
To understand what the Wrens have meant to England, one must visualize that island threatened on three sides by Nazi-controlled Europe and separated from it by narrow strips of sea, the fourth side being the “life line” to America. Every seaman from this beleaguered island is on the high seas, in fighting units or in convoys bringing food or munitions to the scenes of battle. And to the women of their island, the British seamen have left the naval duties at home.
Right now, every office duty and every shore duty which does not require sea experience, or involve policy or knowledge of strategy, is likely to be filled by a Wren. Although Wrens are not serving on striking units at sea, Admiral Sir Percy Noble recently expressed the belief that “Wrens will be on His Majesty’s ships before the war is over.” Edging close to that prediction are the many harbor craft which are manned by Wrens. At a naval base in Wales, three Wrens form the crew of a motor yacht which ferries officers from the base to their vessels riding at anchor in the roads. These Wrens can claim they actually go to sea. So can Third Officer Agnes Traynor, W.R.N.S. who is one of several women to command fleet mail boats with rough sailors standing by for orders. They go out in all weathers to deliver mail to warships lying at anchor. One day a mine sank a boat right in front of Mrs. Traynor but undaunted she ran through with the mails.
One of the most important Wren jobs is in Navy Communications. This work includes coding, ciphering, wireless operator, and signalmen’s duties. All naval ports in the British Isles, particularly the large ports such as the Nore, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Liverpool and Rosyth, and a number abroad, are chiefly staffed by Wren Communication personnel who carry out the many and varied communication duties. It was to the Wrens of the Singapore Communications Branch that the news came first of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. In fact, during every historic naval battle of this war in which English vessels have taken part—Battle of the River Plate, sinking of the Bismarck, Battle of Matapan, etc.—there were Wren officers ciphering and deciphering the messages to and from the ships while they were in action.
One Wren officer at her duty station was the first to receive the news of the sinking of her husband’s ship. She told no one but continued with her duties in the finest tradition of calm and fortitude.
Ever since the beginning of the war, Wren officers have had the routine of coastal and ocean convoys at their finger tips. These Navy girls keep watch, day and night, in the control-room, doing the full duty of naval officers, responsible for the originating and sending off of signals. Each coastal convoy may mean as many as seventy signals. How many American convoys steaming eastward realize that the dot-dashes which guide them to an English port come from the nimble fingers
of a girl in Navy blue?
Wrens do the plotting so that, at a glance, the charts give the position of every unit around the British Isles. The girls work side by side with their brother officers and ratings, fitting easily and naturally into the smooth efficiency of the Silent Service. Watching them, one feels that they must always have been there—an integral part of the great machine which feeds and guards a nation.
Besides the girls who are the communication cogs in the control of big ships, here are the girls who run small stations dealing with the auxiliary vessels which make up so large a part of any nation’s naval strength. In small offices on piers sit the radiotelephonists, earphones on head, sending and receiving messages in code. Out in the haze of the sea, ships are depending on them. In other offices at ports sit Petty Officer Wrens who deal with the trawlers when they come ashore, issuing ration cards, leave tickets, and transfer orders. At first, these girls were jocular curiosities to the seafaring men, but now they have won their complete approval. There are also Wrens who keep the shipping logs of all vessels entering ports, interviewing masters, collecting the necessary details about cargo, etc.
The transport division includes truck drivers and dispatch riders-girls who are expert drivers and have “clean” licenses. It is no longer out of the ordinary to see a girl jump down from the driver s seat of a naval truck or to see a long line of trucks in a cross-country convoy with a girl at each wheel for hours of hard driving. And nothing seems more natural than that motor bikes should be “manned” by girls. During the intense bombing of Plymouth, a Wren dispatch rider had her motorcycle blasted out from under her. She picked herself up and ran three quarters of a mile to deliver her message to a naval post. Then she volunteered to go out again.
There are more Wrens in the domestic category than in any other. The work is hard, the hours are long, and the pay is less than they would receive in civilian life, but even in this unromantic job the Navy makes the women feel their importance. Navy cooks are noted, in English Military circles, for their good cooking and the Naval Cookery School with hundreds of years of tradition and experience behind it has opened its doors to training women. When this war is over, these Wren cooks will have the training and experience necessary for becoming the cafeteria and canteen cooks of the future.
Wrens show up in 60 categories of naval service and every day new jobs are opening up for them. Early in the war, they were meteorologists, wireless mechanics, plotters, parachute packers, cinema operators, degaussing recorders, photographers, and radio operators. Added to that, they now work with the Fleet Air Arm, checking the fittings on planes and doing all the jobs of air mechanics. Only recently they have begun to work on the maintenance and repair of ships and aircraft at naval bases. They now clean ammunition and engines and strip down light machinery. In gunnery stores they service guns and a crew of four is able to load 9,600 rounds a day. One of the most skilled jobs is that of assessing films made during operations and evaluating the effectiveness of the operations. They assess the films from cameras synchronized with the guns and so judge the effectiveness of the guns’ performance.
If a girl wants to be a Wren, she must be of British birth and nationality and so must her parents have been at the time of her birth. This regulation is peculiar to the Wrens and makes this service homogeneous and completely British. A girl can enter when she is 17½ years old and, if a woman has qualifications which are in demand in the Navy, she can enter as old as 49 years. Highest character references and a searching personal interview are required as well as a high standard of physical fitness. All these hurdles passed, another screening takes the form of a two-week probationary period. Every Wren serves this period, even Prime Minister Churchill’s favorite daughter, Mary, like all the others, did hard and dirty jobs in overalls while becoming acquainted with the discipline and customs and procedure of naval service. It is during this gruelling test that the officers judge the candidate’s fitness for the service. No examinations, no aptitude tests, but a searching interview by a good judge of character and a two-week probationary period.
Wrens can choose to be classed as “mobile” or “immobile.” They are immobile if they live near a naval establishment and can carry on duties while they live at home. This class is large at the ports. Wrens are mobile when they are ready to serve anywhere in the British Isles, and from this category are chosen all the officers and volunteers for foreign service. “Mobiles” live in W.R.N.S. quarters which, like the offices where they work, are all named after one of His Majesty’s ships. And the ship’s jargon is used according to tradition.
Contrary to the principle established in America, a very high percentage of the Wrens are the women-folk of the men at sea. Their connections with the fortunes of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy are very real. Each woman feels that she is a thread in the weft and warp of the old tapestry which represents the history of the British Navy—a history which goes back to the Norse invasions, back farther than the history of the Mother of Parliaments, back almost as far as the history of the Christian Church in England.
After a girl is accepted, she enrolls and promises to serve for the duration of the war. It is a solemn undertaking. Then she enters some special branch for training. She dons her neat blue suit over her white shirt and stiff collar with its black Navy tie. She puts on her sailor’s cap and black stockings with low-heeled oxfords. In general it is not a becoming uniform. Even the Duchess of Kent, who is their Commandant, cannot make the uniform glamorous. Besides the unbecoming uniform, the Wren dedicates herself to hard work, long hours, and few amenities of life. All recruits realize this Spartan existence but, in spite of it, there is always a waiting list of volunteers.
It is because of this waiting list that the Wrens can be very “selective.” Most of the girls accepted have been already trained for the categories needing recruits and after a few weeks’ additional training they can continue with their usual work. This is true for shorthand, typing, telephone operators, and clerks, etc. The training for the standard of work required in the Navy increases the girl’s efficiency so that when the time comes for her to leave the service, she will be better fitted for civilian work than when she left it. When ballet dancers, hairdressers, and untrained women are enrolled, they are given training in jobs for which the Navy needs recruits with due attention to their personal aptitudes and choices.
Although Wrens have been voluntary recruits, the National Service Act, which authorizes the conscription of women, makes it possible for the Government to "direct" women into the Navy's auxiliary service should any large intake become necessary.
The pay of the Wrens is two-thirds the men's pay, even though it is an acknowledged fact that the girls in many categories are more efficient than the men. The British Navy lags behind British industry in recognizing the "rate for the job." Immobile Wrens receive slightly less pay than their mobile opposites. Their pay is counted as being the full lodging but fourth-fifths of the usual provision allowance.
The Navy takes care of the Wrens in every way it does its men—medical and dental treatment, hospital and nursing care, compensation for disability (but this is not equal to the men's rate), dependent's allowance and three weeks leave per year with pay. Wrens have "compassionate leave" same as the men. When the senior officer receives a request for leave to coincide with serving husband, brother, or father, or when next-of-kin is in difficulties, it is granted whenever possible. When married Wrens have babies, they resign their service but they are eligible for re-enlistment after passing a medical examination.
There is one regulation which differentiates the Navy men from the Navy women. Wrens are not subject to Navy discipline. Their contract is a civil one. But it suits its purpose. The esprit de corps which has been developed makes the unwritten laws as weighty as the written. “Service in the Navy," says their Director, must come from the heart, and when that is not the case, the girl is 'allowed to leave the ship’.”
Something of the same spirit has kept the question of saluting out of the sensational headlines. Wrens salute all Navy officers of flag rank and all their own officers. Navy ratings salute Wren officers. Wrens, as in all the English services, call their superior officers “Ma’am.”
Wren officers are always chosen from the ranks after having proved themselves “officer material.” The Navy takes the training of its Wren officers very seriously in view of the important work they do. At the Royal Naval Training College at Greenwich, Wren officers study with their brother officers subjects such as History of the Navy, Naval Law under a Deupty Judge Advocate of the Fleet, Progress of the War, and Organization of the Admiralty. Wren officers are enrolled for the Staff Officers Course and on completion they are appointed to posts generally filled by Junior Naval Officers.
The great majority of Wrens live in “quarters,” which vary in excellence. The W.R.N.S. is auxiliary to the requirements of the Navy and based on the strategical or technical necessities of the Navy. Occasions arise, therefore, which impose on the Wrens living conditions that are not up to desired standards. It is a matter of pride with them that these conditions, whatever they are, are accepted as far as necessary, as a soldier accepts the rigors of war. Women serving in the Wrens quite generally accept a lower standard of accommodation than civilian workers.
Life in quarters is said to be the embodiment of democracy. On duty, Wrens are, of necessity, separated into their categories of work, but in their quarters all are equal and as everyone has to enter as a rating and earn her promotion to officer rank, the daughters of admirals and of dockyard laborers eat and play together. “Each is judged, not on her family background but on the contribution she as an individual makes to the community life.”
The acknowledged high efficiency of the Wrens is attributed to the fact that the organization grew slowly. At the start, each Wren was chosen for a particular job in which she was already proficient and individual selection was possible. It was this careful selection during a slow, steady growth which resulted in an organization which by common consent is considered highly efficient. The standards once established, subsequent large intakes were molded by the existing organization.
From my personal observation of the drafting of girls into all three of the women’s services in England, it is my opinion that much of the success that the Navy has made of its Wrens lies in this fact. Each and every woman in the uniform of the British Navy is sure of three things: first, that her beleaguered country needs her and she automatically gives it loyal service; second, that however onerous her job may be, it is essential and significant and her response is efficiency; and lastly, that by her service a man is released for duty afloat. These women are not playacting and in the knowledge of this lies their unassuming assurance and complete lack of self-consciousness. They are an integral part of the British Navy.