Victoria's Cross by Gary Mead

Author:Gary Mead
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books Ltd

Not many women who seemed promising enough from SOE’s point of view to be worth interview would be likely to quail at the thought of a singularly nasty death, perhaps preceded by outrageous torture, if caught; and fighting enthusiasm can be quite as strong in one sex as the other.34

Selwyn Jepson, the recruiting officer for F [French] Section of SOE, faced stiff opposition to the recruitment of women, on the basis that under the Geneva Conventions women were not to be regarded as combatants, a variation of the argument put forward twenty years previously by Admiral Everett.35 Jepson evaded that obstacle by arguing that although women were not strictly permitted to fire guns, in reality some did: ‘I discovered that the anti-aircraft units always had ATS [Auxiliary Territorial Service] Officers on their strength and that when it came to firing an anti-aircraft gun the person who pulled the lanyard that released the trigger was a woman.’36

General Sir Frederick Pile, Commander of Air Defence in Britain, was an enthusiast for uniformed women of the ATS being permitted to fire guns, particularly as, in his estimate, Britain’s air defences were short of more than 1,000 officers and almost 18,000 other ranks during the Blitz in late 1940. By the middle of 1941, combing-out of men serving in home defence capacities saw 30,000 searchlight operators being removed from Air Defence, posts that were filled by women, who could thus be killed or injured fighting for their country. Officially, women remained non-combatants – an artificial distinction that fooled no one, least of all the women themselves. Pile commented that ‘there was a good deal of muddled thinking which was prepared to allow women to do anything to kill the enemy except actually pull the trigger’.37 This artificial distinction between combatant and non-combatant status meant that women working on anti-aircraft batteries were ineligible for the service medals their male colleagues could receive; they were also paid a third less. By June 1945 there were more than 190,000 ATS members, more than 6 per cent of the total British army; the statistic was even higher for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members formed almost 14 per cent of the Royal Air Force.38

SOE agents were well aware that the Geneva Conventions offered no protection against the Gestapo. Wearing military uniform was obviously impossible behind enemy lines, thereby ensuring SOE agents were at much greater risk than any uniformed combatant, particularly after Hitler issued his ‘Commando Order’ following the Dieppe Raid of August 1942, which instructed that ‘all sabotage troops will be exterminated, without exception’. Women SOE operatives were largely drawn either from the WAAF – the Royal Air Force, more willing to accept women than the army or Royal Navy, regarded the WAAF as an integral part of itself – or from the FANY. They were generally employed as wireless operators or couriers, but SOE training made no distinction between men and women; it emphasized aggression and daring,39 and included ‘weapons handling, unarmed combat, elementary demolitions .

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