Compilation Women at War: 100 Years of Service

It's 100 years since the first pioneering women

joined the British Armed Forces.

Today, women serve alongside men,

together in combat on the front line.

If you can do it and you want to do it, you should be able to.

To see how much things have changed...

-Love it!

-How do I look?

..five well-known faces revisit either their own...

Morning, ma'am. I'm the captain of the HMS Puncher.

You called me ma'am, how sweet.

..or a family member's military past.

They just got stuck in.

It was exciting.

Always intense.

From defending land...

-..sea...

-I don't want to go that way.

..and air, these are the extraordinary stories

of a century of women at war.

Go!

Today, over 15,000 women serve in the Armed Forces, and their careers

can be the same as those of the men they work alongside.

It's a far cry from the opportunities open to the women

who first had the chance to formally serve their country

with the creation of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in 1917.

So now, five well-known faces with a link to the forces

are learning about the contribution women have played

in the years since then...

Morning, Sav!

..and understand better how that's proved crucial to Britain's

military successes both at home and abroad.

-March!

-Quick march!

June Brown gets hands-on with a ship to see how women's roles

in the Royal Navy have changed since her own days as a Wren.

Am I all right steering over here?

Yeah, if you turn the wheel round to the right, yeah.

Do a U-turn!

Pam Ayres, who once served with the Women's Royal Air Force,

is brought up to date by those now defending our skies,

and takes to the air herself.

Nicky Campbell discovers more about his mother's work

as a radar operator...

-It's an impressive system for the 1940s.

-It was that.

..and watches as she finally receives recognition

for her role fighting Nazis in World War II.

I'm delighted. I never thought I'd ever see it.

Edward Fox is in awe of a woman who built the plane that won the war -

a Lancaster bomber.

-It's an extraordinary sight, isn't it?

-It is, it's so big.

-It's so big.

-Yes.

And Dame Kelly Holmes, a former army personal training instructor,

joins the latest army recruits training for action.

I think if a guy can do it, then a girl can do it too.

I'd be with you on that, I have to say.

Oh, wonderful. You are wonderful!

EASTENDERS THEME PLAYS

She's one of our best-loved screen actors.

You've got to see a doctor.

I mean, we can't do no more on our own.

-No!

-You've got to, Nick.

Yet over 70 years ago, June Brown took on a very different role,

as a recruit in the Women's Royal Naval Service

during the Second World War.

I knew I'd be called up when I was 18,

so I thought to myself,

"Well, if I volunteer, you know, then I can choose

"which service I go to."

I didn't fancy the uniform of the WAAF or ATA because it wouldn't have

suited my complexion, and anyway, the Wrens, well,

that was the senior service, you see?

Here is a rather lovely poster of the Wren.

In fact, has she got a beret on?

Because that's what I had.

But, you see, really rather smart we were, weren't we?

With a different salute -

that salute, not your hand turned round like the army.

Quite special, we were.

And June isn't the only woman who felt this way when signing up.

The job we were doing, which definitely helped

the defence of the country,

did make us feel we were trailblazers, in a way.

You know, we were very keen to be able to take action and win the war.

I feel lucky to have lived through that,

and I'm always so, so glad that I decided to do it,

because I wouldn't have been called up,

the job I was doing, so I've always been pleased that I did.

It was a marvellous experience for me, wonderful.

The best thing that ever happened.

To be away and to mix with other girls and be independent,

and to give orders!

As a corporal, I was a bit laid-back,

but we got through it anyway.

The wartime atmosphere was that you did your bit,

if you see what I mean?

And that's what you went in to do, yes.

Woman first joined the forces following massive troop losses

on the Western Front during World War I.

The War Office set up female-only branches of the army,

the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.

All were disbanded when the war was over,

but were quickly re-established after the start of World War II.

And by the time June became a uniform recruit in the 1940s,

Wrens worked in nearly 200 different roles.

After her basic training, June became a cinema operator,

playing training videos to troops about to embark on operations.

Navy veteran Eddie Gaines watched the kind of films that June showed

during the war.

-FILM FOOTAGE:

-All vehicles are waterproofed

and these lorries should be able to drive through

two or three feet of water.

Let's get it sort of... Where's it gone?

He joined up aged 18 and worked on landing vessels used to take troops

ashore during battle, seeing action in Normandy and in the Far East.

I showed these films to train the sailors.

-Guys like me.

-Yes.

So, things like how to survive at sea, how to survive in the jungle.

I used to sit in my little box with a little window and show

training films like that, and then they'd pass me through their tobacco

and their papers and I'd make them ticklers.

-Ticklers!

-Yeah, roll-ups, you see?

So I never watched the films, I was too busy making them cigarettes.

Where did you go after your training?

I went to HMS Armadillo, which was up in Scotland.

-Near Dunoon.

-Yes, near Dunoon.

I did training in Dunoon.

-Did you?

-In Combined Operations, yeah.

I used to go dancing in Dunoon.

I think I danced with you once.

-You might have done!

-Yeah.

What kind of time did you have there? Did you enjoy it?

I feel very guilty about it because other people had a very nasty time

-in the war.

-Well, no, everybody...

You had to make, you had to do what you had to at the time,

but it didn't mean to say you've got to be miserable.

Eddie and June are here to watch a rare surviving example

of the kind of World War II training film June used to show.

-FILM FOOTAGE:

-The coastline is divided into sectors on the map.

These are usually no more than 3,000 yards in length.

Suitable sectors are subdivided...

But the films could never fully convey the chaos and horror

of a genuine war scenario, as Eddie was to witness

during the 1944 D-Day landings.

And as you went out of the harbour, you'd never see another sea like it,

a great armada was coming up the Channel, all heading east.

-Yeah.

-There, there was a five-mile wide channel

that had been swept by minesweepers.

-Ah, yes.

-And we had to go to the American beach of Omaha Beach.

Tasked with getting American troops onto Omaha Beach,

Eddie witnessed first-hand the terrible losses

that took place there.

The idea then was to remove the beach obstacles.

Most of the killing went on on the beach there.

-A killing zone.

-A killing zone.

-Yes.

We would drop the ramp on bodies.

It was terrible. In fact, I...

At the time, I always used to think that...

..my whole life was a bonus because I got away with it.

I was thinking, Eddie, was the part I played in it as a cine op

of any value, do you think?

It was fantastic.

Jobs like that, like you did, released men.

-Yes.

-Like myself, to go and...

-Yeah, that was our function, really...

-Yes.

..to take the place of the men so they could fight.

And it was done well.

All the things that you and a great host of ladies...

They all came in and did all their effort.

It was nothing compared with what you did.

Every man appreciated the big effort that the women made.

Talking to Eddie has made me feel quite humble, in a way.

I'm glad that we were able to support them,

but what we sent them out to was not very pleasant.

It has affected me quite a lot, quite honestly.

I watched that film and, oh, it seemed so simple, didn't it?

But it doesn't happen like that.

Plans go awry.

The service and support of the Wrens proved vital over the course of

World War II, and four years later the Wrens were made a permanent part

of the Navy.

By 1990, women were serving alongside men at sea,

and three years the later the Wrens disbanded

and merged with the Royal Navy.

Today, women are a vital part of ships' companies.

And to see this modern force first-hand,

June's been invited aboard HMS Mersey, moored on the Thames.

She wants to compare her wartime experiences with those of women

serving in the Royal Navy today,

and she's anticipating a very different landscape.

It's very interesting to me what is happening in the services now,

because the jobs are going to be a great deal different

from the ones we did.

So it will be very interesting to see how it's changed,

not that I like change!

So there you go, if you come in here, this is my cabin.

-Oh, there's double bunks...

-Yeah.

-..so you can have a visitor.

-So on...

-And quite a spacious loo and shower.

-And a shower as well.

So on Mersey, you'll get the maximum of two people per cabin,

so you'll just have one cabin mate throughout your time on board.

Sub-lieutenant Howes is one of four women

on the mixed crew of this offshore patrol vessel.

So this is the bridge.

This is where, day to day, we navigate the ship from.

For me, I'm in the watch rotation, so I do bridge watches.

-Yeah.

-So in 24 hours, I'll be on the bridge for eight hours.

-Are there many romances on board?

-No, definitely not.

There, you see, that's amazing.

But it's almost as if you treat them as chaps

and they treat you as chaps.

Just colleagues, really, we all treat each other, you know...

I don't mind if I'm on watch with a male officer or a female officer,

you know, it's just work at the end of the day, really.

The women serving in today's Royal Navy

can take up every role on board ship.

-What's this?

-This is our 20-mil gun.

They'll fit their shoulders in there.

Shoulders, both shoulders?

Yeah, then you put your hands on there, just on there.

What happens with this hand?

That's your squeeze. That will shoot it, it's the trigger.

-Oh, it's a very complicated gun, isn't it?

-I know.

And it's a very big gun.

Now, June is about to get a taste of what current servicewomen can do,

as she's invited to steer a naval vessel along the Thames.

Morning, ma'am. I'm Oliver Rowan, I'm the captain of HMS Puncher.

You called me ma'am, how sweet.

-I'd rather be a ma'am...

-Ma'am, yes.

-..then I'd be the Queen!

That is very true.

Captain Rowan explains to June just how much things

have now changed.

Why are we swaying?

Oh, of course, we're on a boat.

We've currently got five female captains of the ships,

who do exactly the same jobs as us,

and obviously in today's Navy

they're pushing through and we've got

commanders of all sorts of ships,

all different backgrounds and experiences.

So when you first were in the Navy,

it was a completely different environment.

-Now we work side by side.

-Yes.

73 years after she left the Wrens,

the controls are now firmly in June's hands.

So we've got the engines just here,

-where we can control both of the engines.

-Yeah.

So we've got the positions of slow astern and slow ahead.

So you can see now the ship's head is turning slowly.

So we'll just let us come left of the buoys.

Am I all right steering over here?

-Yeah, that's absolutely fine.

-I don't want to go that way.

If you turn the wheel round to the right, yeah,

just keep coming further round.

Once we get to the end, we'll turn all the way round.

-Right.

-Yeah.

-Do a U-turn!

When I started this programme,

I had a certain prejudice against the Navy being one,

that women and men were just the Navy.

I just couldn't see that it could happen.

I suppose being offered a drive of this patrol boat

made me realise that I would have been perfectly capable

of doing this when I was young.

But close-combat roles were out of the question for women

in the military until 2016,

even if the women who served before then

would have considered themselves more than capable.

Women have always proved in hard times

we are equally as tough as the men, if not tougher.

I would have liked to have been a pilot on the front line, yeah.

I was always told that, you know,

you have to be twice as good to even be considered as an equal.

It's all about what's inside you

as an individual and the heart and soul

you put into training and determination.

Today, approximately 15,000 women choose to serve in the Armed Forces,

but during wartime the numbers swelled,

not simply because of volunteers, but thanks to conscription.

Many women, like June, chose to join the war effort

before receiving the official call.

And that the same time June chose to join the Wrens, Sheila Campbell,

mother of broadcaster Nicky Campbell,

couldn't wait to sign up to the Women's Auxiliary Air Force,

or WAAF.

-Much to my parents' fury.

-Really?

They were furious, because I was reserved

and I should have finished my degree.

They went to their lawyer and tried to get me out of my volunteering

for the WAAF and joining up

but they couldn't, so I travelled off to the WAAF.

Did you feel that you were part of a cause, defending the country,

-helping the effort against Hitler?

-Yes, definitely.

And the excitement of it all and being with a group of others.

It was exciting, always exciting, always intense,

and one played hard in between.

When you were off duty, you went to dances, you went here and there,

you went out drinking.

Nicky is about to find out about his mother's role as a radar operator

in the WAAF, and is starting with a diary kept at the time.

What was great, Mum gave me this book

which was a record of where she was and what she was doing

before the war, during the war and beyond, which was kept,

unbeknownst to her, by her mother.

And so this is actually, from a family point of view, invaluable.

So where was she, 31st of May 1944?

"Posted to Beachy Head, then Sussex."

"D-Day, the sixth of June..." There it is written down there.

Screaming from the page, leaping out,

"D-Day, sixth of June."

Sheila was on duty in the operations room

on the day of this decisive Allied invasion.

I shall never forget it.

I mean, one was aware of what one was doing,

you know, just bombing a little ahead of the troops

and praying that you got your measurements right

and that the troops weren't going to be hit by you.

-ARCHIVE FOOTAGE:

-Bombing behind the lines and supplying cover

for our advancing armies are only an indication

of the many jobs assigned to the air forces.

To better understand the part his mother played in the war,

Nicky's on his way to a radar museum.

Sheila's primary role was tracking enemy aircraft

entering British airspace.

Their intelligence was used to sound warnings

and to scramble defensive planes.

For WAAFs like Sheila,

the threat of attack from a German bombing raid was very real.

730 members of the WAAFs were killed during the war by German bombs.

George Taylor is a volunteer at the museum

and used to work as a radar operator during the Cold War.

This is an amazing bit of technology,

and is this what my mother would have been looking at?

-Yes, correct, here on the eye scope.

-Yeah.

So when a raid's coming in, what would the atmosphere

have been like in a place like this?

Well, they would just say, "Another raid coming in,

"strength so-and-so, height so-and-so."

And that would be it, and then you'd concentrate on the next one.

-Professional?

-It's no good getting panicky.

This is a scenario that people will recognise from the movies, I think.

-Yeah.

-So how did it exactly work?

You'd have about 15 WAAFs round a table like this and they'd all be

getting information in from different radar stations

and plotting it on this table.

So Mum is gathering the data, and then the data is being passed

-over here, which informs this process?

-Yeah.

-ARCHIVE FOOTAGE:

-When next you see a plane in the sky,

think of these people down in the operations room.

They can see it too, right here on these plotting tables.

These tracers, they would be moving three or four times a minute.

-Do I move these arrows?

-You move these arrows.

-Like that?

-Like that, that's right.

It's an impressive system for the 1940s.

It was that. Yeah, yeah, I can just remember it.

The work of the aerial intelligence teams provided key turning points

in both world wars.

As well as defending British skies,

their job was also to plan attacks on the enemy.

Assisting the so-called Spies in the Sky,

they were able to research locations,

spot targets and track enemy movements.

But, as Nicky's mum Sheila recalls,

some of their work came at great human cost.

Winds changed, and perhaps our accuracy

and our measurements wasn't as perfect.

In February 1945, during the bombing of the German city of Dresden,

over 25,000 civilians died.

And the thousand bomber raids, they just flattened everything.

What did you think about that, people dying?

That's the thing. The fact that people were involved

or lived in some of the places we were bombing,

we didn't think about it.

-Didn't you?

-No.

-You never discussed it?

It would have been difficult to carry on, in a way.

You know, to do the job...

You couldn't entertain the thought, no?

When did you start thinking about that?

Not till way after the war.

It's all such a long time ago.

She has spoken about her mixed feelings about what...

she was doing ultimately led to,

and the disconnect

between having a board in front of you or a radar screen

in front of you, and people being incinerated.

There's huge controversy about some of the bombing

that we did in Germany, and I think any right-minded person

can understand both sides of the argument.

How much was necessary, how much was proportionate,

how much was stuff that happens in war?

Like many people who serve their country through war,

Sheila Campbell has mixed feelings about some of the things

she was tasked with.

But she had a job to do serving her country,

and her role in the WAAF and the Allied victory

has always been a source of great pride and personal satisfaction.

Group Captain Gus Wells has invited the Campbell family

to the RAF Museum in Hendon, to thank Sheila for the contribution.

-Hi.

-Hello, family. Hello, how are you?

-Hi!

And it's his privilege to invest Shelia

with the war medal she never received,

in recognition of the service to the WAAF during World War II.

On behalf of the Royal Air Force, it's a pleasure,

and actually a privilege as well,

to be able to present you with this long overdue 1939-45 medal.

The work that you and your contemporaries did

throughout the war is very much part of our heritage

and it guides what we do today,

so you really are an inspiration to us all.

Thank you very much indeed.

-Oh, my goodness!

-THEY CHEER

At last!

How lovely. Thank you so much.

That's all right, it's all our pleasure, it really is.

Wonderful, I'm delighted.

I never thought I'd ever see it.

And no-one could be more proud than Sheila's granddaughter Isla.

She was such a pioneer for what she did in the war.

Even though I've studied it at school,

I didn't realise how much they really affected the war effort,

and, you know, without them it could have been a different story.

She's really inspirational.

Sheila is delighted to have her family by her side

as her contribution to the war effort is recognised.

But while she's earned her place in history,

she's not alone in facing opposition from her parents when joining up.

My father was in the First World War and he understood perfectly

why I wanted to join up.

My father was absolutely livid.

I won't tell you what he said, but he was very angry.

It took him a while to speak to me after that.

They didn't want me to be a balloon operator,

because they thought that was...

That you needed muscles, and they didn't want their daughter

with big muscles.

I won't tell you exactly what my father said,

because it was probably quite rude.

But the others were fine,

because my stepmother was in the WAAF

during the Second World War as well.

Initially my parents were a little bit concerned,

but fully supportive of all the way through my career.

I wouldn't have been where I am now if it wasn't for their support.

Throughout the 100 years of women's service,

the role of the military has changed

according to the demands of the conflicts it's faced.

In 1965, 20 years after the end of World War II,

poet Pam Ayres joined a very different air force

from the one in which Sheila Campbell served.

One day I saw an advert for the Women's Royal Air Force,

and it was very persuasive.

And it said, you know,

"Life of excitement, join the Women's Royal Air Force."

I hoped for cheap travel...

Well, free travel, let's not mince words.

And I hoped to see the world and meet different people

and break out and do the things that young people wanted to do.

During her service, Pam also discovered a love of performing

that eventually made her into

a household name in the 1970s.

I'm like a Cheshire cat, I'm good with a grin.

But before that career blossomed,

Pam worked in aerial intelligence,

analysing the photography taken by RAF surveillance planes.

You would have to identify where it was and the scale of it.

That was very hard.

Pam was what's known as a plotter,

first in the UK and later in Singapore and Germany.

So she's on their way to RAF Marham in Norfolk to see how the role

she didn't always relish has changed.

I'm not particularly looking forward to seeing all that equipment again,

and all that stuff that made me so miserable.

I dare say, you know, it will be much more modern now,

but oh, God, I hated it.

Marham is home to the RAF's Tornado GR4 Force,

and one of the intelligence, surveillance

and reconnaissance wings.

Pam's meeting two of almost 5,000 women serving in the RAF today,

each one tasked with a vital defence role.

As she did, these analysts have signed the Official Secrets Act,

so access to their work is strictly limited.

Now, this all looks a little more sophisticated

than the kind of equipment I was dealing with in the '60s

when I had a pen and a bottle of etching ink

and a sheet of acetate, basically.

If I'd only had all this stuff.

Now, what's this? What are these for?

They look really serious.

They will turn the imagery 3-D,

so you'll be able to see it in stereo.

-Can I put these on? Does it matter which ones?

-No.

OK. Right.

THEY LAUGH

Oh, wow, look at this!

SHE GASPS

You see, you feel as though you're in an aircraft.

You feel as though you're looking down out of an aircraft vertically,

and the tops of the trees seem so close,

and the aircraft seem so far away.

No, I mean, this is also much more sophisticated

than the work I was doing.

I was just trying to record what photography we had,

whereas you're looking to see

what's in it, aren't you?

We're looking at an airfield here, and we could get asked a number

of questions as to whether the airfield's serviceable,

as to what aircraft are at the airfield.

And then we would just look around...

..the airfield to see if there was anything of note.

Today, the RAF are supporting missions in the Middle East,

and in recent years, it's provided aerial surveillance

in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

This is so interesting for me, really.

There's something tremendously optimistic about it,

because I'm enjoying looking at this.

I just like wearing glasses because I feel cool.

This year, the RAF became the first branch of the military

to open every single role to all those serving.

100 years ago, when women first joined,

it was a very different picture.

Yet every single servicewoman who played a part

in the First and Second World Wars

paved the way for the next generation, like Pam.

Especially pioneers like Joy Lofthouse.

She was one of only 166 females in non-combat flying roles

during the war.

-I'm so pleased to meet you.

-It should be the other way about.

-Pleased to meet you.

-No, not at all!

I feel a complete fraud, because I was in the air force

as an air photography plotter, but you were the real McCoy.

You were a pilot.

Throughout the war, women in the WAAF were restricted

from aircraft duty.

It was deemed unacceptable by the RAF.

But that changed, thanks in part to the stand

commercial pilot Pauline Gower made

when she formed the Air Transport Auxiliary.

Joy was one of those women for whom Pauline paved the way.

We did all the non-operational flying to allow the Air Force

to do the operational work.

I flew all single-seater fighters, and what they called light twins.

I wasn't allowed to fly anything fast

like a Mosquito or anything.

But what you call light twins,

which is an Oxford and an Anson and things like that.

What was your favourite aircraft to fly?

Oh, the Spit, obviously.

It was still in everyone's mind as having won the Battle of Britain.

Yeah.

Were they held to fly? Are the controls difficult?

You only have to know the take-off speed and the landing speed, really.

Really?

You seem very modest about what you did, Joy.

I'm sure most people would think you were absolutely heroic to go up

and deliver these aircraft on your own,

but you seem quite modest and self-effacing about it.

Well, all women did something, and a lot of the women, you know,

who were in the Battle of Britain, they got bombed and everything.

So it was dangerous just to be around then.

-I suppose so.

-So it didn't really matter if one was in

a more or less dangerous job.

And you were young, nothing was ever going to happen to you.

-No, I know. You feel invincible.

-Nothing was going to happen.

Absolutely.

Joy, do you think World War II gave opportunities to women

that they wouldn't otherwise have had?

It was the first foot in the door, if you like.

Yeah, I think it probably was.

It was probably the first foot in the door.

-Otherwise, it was back to the kitchen sink, you know?

-Yeah.

Alongside their male colleagues,

the Air Transport Auxiliary Service delivered over 300,000 planes

to airfields across the country.

What she did in the '40s, and what women like her did,

was to take on these ground-breaking jobs,

and that began the process whereby today

all those things are now open to modern women,

and I think you can trace it back to women like Joy

in her Spitfire.

The war ended, and with it the ATA became redundant and was disbanded.

After the war, some woman did get to fly as volunteers for the WRAF,

but it wasn't until 1989 that the opportunity

to fly military aircraft was reopened to women.

And after 1994, when the WRAF merged with the RAF,

another milestone was soon reached.

This morning, the service's first woman trained to fly combat missions

took to the air.

As part of 617 Dambusters Squadron,

Flight Lieutenant Jo Salter set off from RAF Lossiemouth in a Tornado.

I think it's very important that children

who are going through school, especially girls,

have the opportunity to see that everything is open

in this day and age.

Women like this flight lieutenant have taken up that call to arms.

Qualifying as a pilot in March,

she is now undergoing training that will enable her

to offer front-line support in the Puma helicopter.

What is it that attracts you?

Why did you want to fly that particular aircraft?

I love flying helicopters, so I'd always wanted to go...

Always wanted to end up flying helicopters.

I like that you're flying low level a lot of the time.

So I like that you're in amongst it

and you're doing something that's very involved

with people on the ground.

It's such a contrast.

I was in the Women's Royal Air Force from '65 to '69,

and the idea of a female pilot was far off into the future.

Yeah, it's still unusual.

But there are no barriers to it, so I think if you want to do it,

you can do it, and I think that's how it should be.

-Indeed, yeah.

-So rather than saying, you know,

you have to have half women and half men,

and kind of, sort of, forcing it, I just think if you can do it

-and you want to do it, you should be able to.

-Yeah.

And I'm so glad it's changed from how it was when you...

-Yes, I know, I'm glad, too that...

-If you just give the opportunity...

-..these things are open to everybody who really...

-Absolutely.

..is prepared to devote themselves to getting into it -

that you would be able to succeed in it.

To get a chance to experience a job that was never on offer

during her time in the service,

Pam has been asked to join the Puma team as they practice landing

in confined spaces.

How do I look?

Many women like Pam would say their military service,

whether in the Navy, Army or the RAF,

led to extraordinary personal experiences

which have shaped their entire lives.

I joined to travel because travel was something which,

when I was growing up,

you only did if you were rich and things like that.

So it was more for adventure.

It was in my mind to leave home.

I just wanted to get away, that's all, and do something.

So I went and signed on virtually the day I was 17 and a half.

You felt a bit like a pioneer, because before that, they...

They didn't accept women.

But there were thousands of us at that particular time.

The contribution of women extends beyond those who signed up to serve.

During World War II,

women were also conscripted to work in other roles on the home front,

as air raid wardens, bus drivers, nurses, and munitions workers.

As a child of the war,

it was something that actor Edward Fox witnessed first-hand.

The conditions that women lived under during the war

is somewhat forgotten.

But of course it was crucial,

because they just got stuck into whatever needed doing.

And that was a commitment that women made

just as strongly for what they could do in a wartime situation

as men, who as men would say,

"We go to defend our country and to fight an enemy."

Edward's aunt Mary was one of millions of women

who enthusiastically took up the call to do their bit.

Mary was as tough as a man.

She was a bit like a very delicate, strict colonel.

But she would have no nonsense with anything.

She'd do anything.

Mary left London for rural Cornwall,

where women were needed in their thousands to help work the land.

Mary, being of the nature that she was, she embraced hard work.

Embraced anything that she could do to contribute to,

again, the war effort.

And farming, of course, was vitally important,

because the question of whether the country would have been able

to provide for itself with its own producing was crucial.

Mary died five years ago,

so to fully understand the contribution she made,

Edward's travelling to North Yorkshire

to meet ex-Land Girl Iris Newbold.

Like Mary, Iris gave up the relative comforts of the city in Hull

for the tougher outdoor life of the country.

Gosh.

You could be 25 years old.

-Oh, bless!

-You're beautiful!

-It's not bad for 92, is it?

-Wonderful.

You lived in this house during the war, did you?

-Oh, yes.

-Did you?

-Yeah.

-A lovely house to live in, too.

-It was.

-A bit basic?

Very - no gas, no electricity, no water.

For two years, I just stayed here, living in the cottage,

and working within a 12-mile radius of this village.

When you first came to live here,

-how old were you?

-18.

-18!

-Yes!

At its peak in 1943, 80,000 women in the Land Army worked on the fields,

and this is one of the farms on which Iris toiled.

When you first arrived, you were in very foreign land for you, really.

-Very much so.

-And everything that was going on

-will have been strange.

-Yes.

I can remember feeling bewildered.

Gosh, you know, I don't know...

I knew I was up to the job,

but whether I could do it well enough for them...

Because I'd had a weekend at an instruction farm,

and that was all the training I ever got.

Edward is meeting farming historian Mike Tyler to find out more about

the Land Girls and just how vital their contribution was.

The Land Army was very, very effective in mobilising volunteers,

bringing people, young girls, out.

And then saying, "Right, where do these girls need to go?

"Where can they make the biggest impact?"

My Aunt Mary was farming from that time, absolutely.

But I remember one of the things she said was,

"We used to plough right up to the edge of the cliff."

-Yep.

-To use every foot of land that they could.

-Yes.

If that million and a half acres of land

hadn't come back into production, if those pairs of hands

that the Land Girls provided hadn't been in,

the food would not have been on the plates,

and you would have quite seriously been looking at...

-Starvation.

-..starvation.

Iris's story, although she's younger than my Aunt Mary,

but they were doing exactly the same work together in the war.

And although they will have made light of it then, actually,

without the work of the Women's Land Army and the women's war effort,

there would have been a serious depletion in food production

for the nation.

Erm...

That's a remembrance worth having.

Although during World War I and World War II,

women weren't mobilised to fight on the front line,

over one and a half million were conscripted

into another vital industry, armaments.

Keeping up a supply of weapons and aircraft production

became vitally important.

Edward's arrived at the Lincolnshire Aviation Centre

to meet 92-year-old Joan Ray.

During the war, she worked in a factory in Doncaster,

riveting side panels for the Lancaster bombers.

-It's an extraordinary sight, isn't it?

-It is, it's so big.

-It's so big.

-Yes.

-That's a very good photograph of girls working,

because that could have been you,

couldn't it, really?

When you were doing the riveting, what did it entail,

and how did you do it?

Well, we had to go and pick these panels up and put them on a stand.

-Yep.

-And then you had to drill the holes in the panels,

and then there was two of you, one put the rivets in,

and at the other side of the panel,

the other lady would be knocking them down.

-Over 12 hours in a day, too?

-Some days, yes.

Did you feel that the work you were doing for the war effort

was vitally important?

Yeah, because we knew how serious it was, what job we were doing, yes.

And that everything that you and all the girls did

was contributing in its own way to winning the war.

Yeah, yeah.

That was the feeling, wasn't it?

Yes, of course.

To show Joan just how vital her contribution was,

Edward has brought her to meet Rusty,

a World War II pilot who flew one of the Lancaster planes

she helped to build.

I were a riveter on...

Were you riveting, were you? That's amazing.

A lot of us were only young girls, 17 and a half.

-Oh, I was an old man. I was 20!

-Oh, was you!

The general public these days have no idea

what went on in getting these aircraft built

and getting these aircraft ready.

If it wasn't for people like you doing the jobs that you did,

-and so reliably, we as aircrew couldn't have flown.

-No.

So, you know, your job was really just as vital as anybody else's.

Realising just what you did for us flying -

people, like, flying, not me personally -

there's a little something which might...

You may have dozens of these, but I hope you perhaps like it.

-It's...

-It's lovely, thank you.

That's lovely.

The Lancaster bombers that women like Joan carefully assembled

on the factory floor took on a life of their own once in the skies.

And Rusty wants to show Edward what being on board one was like.

Those little windows that you could look into the bomb doors...

-Yes.

-..and see if your bombs had fallen.

-Yeah.

One thing you don't get is that sort of...

It's very difficult to put over what it was like.

As a crew on operations,

you've got about, what, 60% normal flying, about 40% panic.

And some raids it was a lot like you were

in high adrenaline rate all the time.

Of the 125 crew who flew in Bomber Command during the war,

55,000 were killed, many of them in Lancasters.

When you first started on Operations,

you realised people were killed,

and you said "poor souls" and that sort of thing.

But later on, it happened so often,

you just accepted the fact that people were going to be killed.

-Yeah.

-And you didn't expect to live yourself.

-No.

-I was giving a talk to a school one day,

and one of the little girls said,

"How many dead bodies did you see?"

-Well, we didn't see dead bodies.

-No.

-All we saw were empty beds.

It's been a completely fascinating day being here,

but meeting Joan -

17 and a half years of age she was on an assembly line,

and Rusty, I mean, talking to Rusty is just wonderful.

But as he also was saying,

the aircrews would never have had aeroplanes to fly

unless they'd been made.

And they were put together panel by panel, rivet by rivet,

mostly by women,

or in a large majority by women, because it was very important

and very crucial to the war effort, and to winning the war.

So I've had a wonderful day.

Wonderful day.

I mean, two wonderful people.

Whether as Land Girls working in factories like Joan,

or in the forces,

every one of the women who served in the war

paved the way for today's generation of women,

inspiring them to take on more active roles in the military.

I think it's amazing what they did

and to see where we've come now

and to look back at that.

I'm really proud to be able to do the job that I do

because of what they did for us.

I think they were very courageous at a time where society maybe wasn't

fully supportive of them in that kind of role.

I can't imagine trying to forge my way as one of the first

pioneering females, you know, into the military

because I imagine it must've been really difficult.

And because of them, we're here now and we've got mixed forces.

It's just great, to be honest.

They've paved the way to where we are now,

and I'm sort of very proud to be serving

in their footsteps, really.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Kelly Holmes bringing it home for Britain.

Can she get there? One more...

Come on, Kelly Holmes!

It's gold! Kelly's won the gold for Great Britain.

Another woman who encapsulates the grit and determination needed

to face the realities of a life in the Armed Forces

is Olympian Dame Kelly Holmes.

Before she became one of Britain's greatest ever sporting heroes,

Kelly had a career with the Women's Royal Army Corps.

I felt that by going in the military

it had given me a bit of identity, something different.

I didn't want to stay just at home.

I wanted to feel that I could achieve something,

meet new people, travel, and possibly toughen up a little bit.

Kelly joined up at the end of the 1980s,

a decade that saw war in the Falkland Islands

and the Troubles in Northern Ireland

demanding strong military involvement.

It was a time of huge political and social change,

and as a result of amendments to employment practice,

the percentage of women entering the Armed Forces doubled.

But adjusting to life in uniform came with its challenges

for a young Kelly Holmes.

So I got my first beret when I joined the Women's Royal Army Corps.

I had a big Afro then,

so you can imagine trying to get an Afro into that little cap.

So, yeah, I never looked that cool, really, I have to say.

But I'll keep hold of that forever.

It's nearly 30 years since Kelly joined the force,

and today she's come to the army training centre in Pirbright

to meet its newest recruits.

She's eager to see just how different things are from her day.

Her first stop, the dormitories.

Show us your sleeves.

Do you still use starch, or are you not allowed?

-We're not allowed to use starch yet.

-OK. But we do the soap method.

Look at that, razor-sharp, that is. Razor-sharp.

But some things have changed.

When Kelly trained in the late 1980s,

she slept on a women-only base.

Now the boys are just one floor below.

What's your perception of women in the army?

-Do you think it's a good thing?

-Yeah, yeah, really good.

-Should, shouldn't?

-Something that I've noticed is

they're a lot more organised than we are!

You know, when the girls get told to, sort of,

do this over the weekend, do this, do this,

it gets to Monday, everything's done.

And we're all a bit like, "We forgot to do this."

And do you think it's good that women now

have a chance to pretty much do any role in the army,

where before they maybe didn't?

I think it comes down to the individual.

I think there's some women that are a lot stronger than some men.

That's a very mature approach.

Good luck for the parade, and good luck for your careers.

-ALL:

-Thank you.

-All right, take care.

Very nice.

Kelly qualified as a physical training instructor in 1991.

A year later, the women's service merged with the army.

For Kelly, it meant additional training, this time alongside men.

When I did mine, There was around 30 of us.

There was about 25 guys and five women.

I was the only woman that passed,

and there was only two or three guys that passed.

Very, very hard. And there was no concession for women,

which I think is right. But that meant, you know,

it was pretty tough to reach the standards.

And I just made sure I trained really hard to pass it,

because it was something that I wanted to do,

and also I wanted to prove I was as good as the guys.

To find out how much of her own training Kelly still remembers,

she's back in the trademark blue jacket of an army PT instructor.

Can everybody see the tree line over there?

-ALL: Yes, Sav.

-Go get me a leaf and bring it back.

Let's go. Off you go.

Don't be last!

Keep moving. Get rid of your leaf, get rid of your leaf,

get rid of your leaf, get rid of your leaf. Good effort.

Show me your leaf. Keep your feet moving.

Keep your feet moving, that's good. Going to start off by jogging.

Yourself... Peel off, everybody else follow on.

Let's go. Nice little square.

I love this. I love being back.

No, it's really cool.

I think you've got to have a lot of guts as a young girl

coming in the military now.

You know, perception of military, perception of females,

would they come out butch, what do they look like?

You know, these girls are breaking the mould,

and I feel that's brilliant.

That's good, well done, keep your bums down.

Kelly's full of admiration for these young women,

and she's even more impressed with

how their basic training has changed.

Because now, unlike in her day, over a 14-week period,

they'll experience the same gruelling training

as any male recruit.

Hard, fast and aggressive, let's go!

Go! Let's move!

Move!

Learning to fight...

Ready? Fire.

OK, rifle fire's away,

rifle fire's right, rifle stops.

..and survive on the battlefield.

What I'd like you to do in your pairs, work out where you are.

What's nice is that you're seeing the men and the women side by side.

I just love their attitude and positive thinking

around the fact that we just want to be the best we can be,

we don't want to be discriminated against.

But more heart-warming was the men saying

women should be given as much opportunities.

I thought that was great.

Before Kelly became an army physical instructor,

she trained as a heavy goods vehicle driver.

I used to drive these.

Double the clutch and all of that.

I was lucky I'd passed my driving test

before I joined the military, though, so I had one step ahead.

As far back as the First World War,

women were recruited as mechanics and drivers.

But fast forward 70 years,

and they're now in training to take control of

the army's most powerful piece of kit, a tank.

Something Kelly would have jumped at had she been given half the chance

during the time she served.

-I'm so excited about this bit.

-That's good.

-Obviously in my era, women didn't drive tanks.

-That's correct.

But now we've got sort of the first generation of women coming through.

-What do you think about that?

-I think it's a good thing.

We need to move with the times and everything else,

and as long as they can do the job,

they're more than welcome to have a go.

-OK, so, do you want to show me round?

-Yep, certainly. OK.

He's part of the team that will be training the new recruits to operate

the Challenger 2 tank.

So you could be on these for a long time, right, if you're out?

Yep, you can be in these for up to about ten to 12 hours.

So what happens in terms of, I mean, practical stuff?

We do have a toilet onboard, and we also have a kettle as well,

-which we can put our rations into.

-So excited.

You know, this is a tank. This is a Challenger 2 tank!

We're standing on top of it. I mean, really!

And just hats off to all the guys and then eventually girls

that are going to be using these in those situations.

-Main up?

-Yep.

-Guns live.

Each tank requires a four-person crew...

Everyone good?

..a driver, a weapons loader, a gunner,

and today, Kelly Holmes as commander.

The tank can reach a top speed of up to 31mph,

and with a combat weight of a hefty 70 tonnes,

it's not wise for any enemy infantry to get too close.

The main armament on the tank can hit the target

from up to 5km away.

Kelly, lean forward.

If you lean forward, Kelly, we'll get it to flop over!

KELLY LAUGHS

Kelly has fulfilled a lifelong ambition

to command a Challenger 2 tank.

It was really good. It's just fascinating.

There's four people in there. If you've got one woman, three guys,

and you are in a confined area for a long time, I mean,

you're always going to have banter, but at the end of the day,

I think as we've discovered through doing this programme,

if you want to do the job, you go there to do the job well,

and that's what you think of first and foremost.

And your crew are your crew,

it doesn't really matter whether they're male or female.

I can see a lot of women wanting to do that.

It was a lot of fun, I have to say.

It broadens your mind.

You stick up for yourself.

You start being independent,

and them sort of things.

I mean, in the three years that I was in the forces,

I did everything I wanted.

And it was fantastic.

I enjoyed every single minute of it.

I just wanted to make something of myself.

I didn't want to just stay at home and say I'd just get a job

in a factory. I'd done that, and, you know,

I wanted to make something of myself.

From Land Girls to nurses, from radar operators to drivers,

every woman who has served has played a crucial part

in the contribution women have made to

Britain's Armed Forces over a century of service.

I suppose looking back, being in the Wrens did enrich my life in a way.

I never really realised it.

There was a freedom about it.

And comparing it with today,

they also find that it enriches their lives,

these people who are no longer Wrens,

who are just part of the Navy.

It did enrich my life.

We were cosseted. We were kept in a safe environment.

But these women are out on the front line,

and I feel a tremendous admiration for them.

To be here and to see Mum get her medal,

I feel that she kind of represents so many women

and what they did and what they believed in,

and how their role in the Armed Forces

has became absolutely indispensable.

I don't think the desire to serve,

the sense of commitment to duty has changed today.

So of course I admire the women service personnel here,

who none of them will speak about what they've done, particularly,

but who will have done very remarkable things

in very difficult and dangerous circumstances.

And I feel nothing but huge admiration...

..for them.

To go, "Do you know what? I can do anything I want to do."

And that, I think, is something that

you're just pleased that society's moved in the right direction.

It just gives us a chance to be who we want to be

and to work as hard as we can, and to be proud of what we achieve.

Come on!