Mum’s Army: The long battle for recognition
It wasn't just men who responded to the call to join the LDV
It was not just men who responded to War Minister Anthony Eden’s broadcast to join the Local Defence Volunteers (which we’ve spoken about before), better known by many of us as the Home Guard or Dad’s Army.
Women too were among those who were reporting to local police stations within minutes of Eden’s appeal.
However, it had never been the Government’s intention that women should enrol. A strange concept given that many women were already working in munitions, or in civil defence, and others were enlisting in the women’s armed forces.
In June 1940, the Government went as far as to announce that women could not be enrolled into the ranks of the Home Guard. Yet in the same month the Upper Thames Patrol was established, and, as male recruits were thin on the ground, it readily accepted women.
Also, many Home Guard units gratefully accepted offers by local Girl Guides units to run messages for them.
The Government even rejected the valid arguments put forward by none other than the C-in-C Home Forces, General Sir Edmund Ironside, as to why, given the then parlous state of what was left of the regular army in Britain, women should not only be allowed to enrol in the Local Defence Volunteers, but also armed.
Even so, many Home Guard units were sympathetic and enrolled women in support roles such as drivers, and messengers.
In November 1941, the Government forbade the women from carrying weapons even though many were excellent shots. They were given the unfortunate title of ‘nominated women’ but were not issued with uniforms, their only evidence of membership being a small brooch.
There were a few exceptions. The women of the Air Ministry Auxiliary Section in London were each issued with a navy-blue boiler suit, a navy-blue fore-and-aft forage cap, the two ornamental buttons on the front of which could be unbuttoned when the weather was poor to let down ear flaps.
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The ensemble was finished off with the wearer sporting a steel helmet and a general service respirator complete with haversack carry bag. More importantly, and in contravention of the Government prohibition on women carrying weapons, they were armed with rifles.
By the end of 1942 it is estimated that 50,000 women were unofficially serving with the Home Guard.
Not to be outdone, the independent Women’s Home Defence Corps (WHDC) came into being and some Home Guard units were willing to provide them with training.
By the beginning of March 1943, it was estimated there were more than 200 units with a combined strength of around 30,000.
Many had received weapons training, though they were realistic in their aims of being allowed to take over support roles such as drivers, clerks, telephone operators, wireless telegraphists, messengers, cooks, and first aid providers, thereby releasing men for combat duty.
With the Secretary of State for War expected to make a statement in Parliament, Miss G Courtney, secretary of the Mayfair section of the WHDC told the Daily Mirror.
“In the meantime, many of our ranks are getting tired of waiting for official recognition and are joining other women’s services. It seems a waste of time for them to change when they are already banded together in organised groups. We have been promised that attention will be drawn to the matter, but it is still under consideration.”
Miss Courtney had an ally in Dr Edith Summerskill, Labour MP for Fulham West. Summerskill, who was handy with a shotgun and an active campaigner for equal rights, hounded the Secretary of State for War and the War Office alike, urging official recognition and for all the women to be fully integrated into the Home Guard.
Another advocate for women to serve in the Home Guard was Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan. During the Great War she was appointed Controller of the newly raised Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and in 1918 became the first Commandant of the Women’s Royal Air Force.
She returned to the military in 1939 as Chief Controller of the ATS and was soon appointed to a similar role with Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps.
In April 1943, the Government finally relented allowing women into the Home Guard though still in support roles, and their official ‘uniform’ was upgraded from a small brooch to a badge.
Some women went ahead and kitted themselves out with an unofficial uniform at their own expense. However, Summerskill and Dame Helen continued to campaign for full recognition and the issuing of proper uniforms.
At the standing down of the Home Guard in 1944, Summerskill and Dame Helen received a letter of thanks for the women’s contribution from King George VI.
