The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLA were commonly known as Land Girls. The Land Army placed women with farms that needed workers, the farmers being their employers. The members picked crops and did all the labour to feed the country. Notable members include Joan Quennell, later a Member of Parliament; John Stewart Collis, Irish author and pioneer ecologist; the archaeologist Lily Chitty and the botanist Ethel Thomas. It was disbanded in 1919 but revived in June 1939 under the same name to again organise new workers to replace workers that served in the military during the Second World War.
The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps) (FANY (PRVC)) is a British independent all-female registered charity formed in 1907 and active in both nursing and intelligence work during the World Wars. Its members wear a military-style uniform, but it is not part of the Regular Army or Army Reserve; members do not train at Sandhurst, nor do they hold a commission.
The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs, was the female auxiliary of the British Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 181,000 at its peak strength in 1943, with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.
The Friends' Ambulance Unit (FAU) was a volunteer ambulance service, founded by individual members of the British Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), in line with their Peace Testimony. The FAU operated from 1914 to 1919, 1939 to 1946 and 1946 to 1959 in 25 countries. It was independent of the Quakers' organisation and chiefly staffed by registered conscientious objectors.
The National Socialist Motor Corps was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that officially existed from May 1931 to 1945. The group was a successor organisation to the older National Socialist Automobile Corps, which had existed since April 1930.
The Auxiliary Territorial Service was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 February 1949, when it was merged into the Women's Royal Army Corps.
The Royal Voluntary Service is a voluntary organisation concerned with helping people in need throughout England, Scotland and Wales. It was founded in 1938 by Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, as a British women's organisation to recruit women into the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) services to help in the event of War.
St Andrew's First Aid is a charity based in Scotland. Founded in 1882, St Andrew's Ambulance Association was Scotland's first ambulance service. From 1967, the St. Andrew's Scottish Ambulance Service was the sole contractor for the provision of the ambulance service, until 1974, when the National Health Service (NHS) was reorganised and St Andrew's ambulance role was absorbed into the Scottish Ambulance Service. The St Andrew's association continued as a provider of first aid services and training, changing their trading name.
The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) was a voluntary unit of civilians providing nursing care for military personnel in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. The most important periods of operation for these units were during World War I and World War II. Although VADs were intimately bound up in the war effort, they were not military nurses, as they were not under the control of the military, unlike the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service, and the Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service. The VAD nurses worked in field hospitals, i.e., close to the battlefield, and in longer-term places of recuperation back in Britain.
The Royal Canadian Army Service Corps (RCASC) was an administrative and transport corps of the Canadian Army. The Canadian Army Service Corps was established in the Non-Permanent Active Militia in 1901 and in the Permanent Active Militia in 1903. The Canadian Permanent Army Service Corps was redesignated The Royal Canadian Army Service Corps on 3 Nov 1919.
The Canadian Women's Army Corps was a non-combatant branch of the Canadian Army for women, established during the Second World War, with the purpose of releasing men from those non-combatant roles in the Canadian armed forces as part of expanding Canada's war effort. Most women served in Canada but some served overseas, most in roles such as secretaries, mechanics, cooks and so on. The CWAC was finally abolished as a separate corps in 1964 when women were fully integrated into the Canadian armed forces. The headquarters of the CWAC was based in Goodwin House in Ottawa.
The Mixed Service Organisation (MSO) was a civilian arm of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) which employed displaced persons as drivers, clerks, mechanics and guards. Originally formed as Watchman and labour units in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War the MSO employed citizens of Eastern European nations occupied by the Soviets. These former prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates and forced labourers were left in western sectors of occupied Germany at the end of the war and chose not to return to their countries of origin. Whilst some displaced persons only worked with the organisation for a short time others stayed until retirement age. The MSO was organised in a structure similar to British Colonial Units, with a British Commanding Officer and senior Non-commissioned officers operating over a 'native' officer and NCO structure. Whilst the Transport Service was disbanded in the late 1980s the MSO Guard and Labour Services continued into the 1990s using guest labour from Turkey, Pakistan and other Non-EU Countries. There was also a contingency of ex British soldiers, most of whom were married to German girls, unemployed northern English men from Liverpool and Manchester a Scot as well as a sole French foreign legionnaire prior to its disbandment.
The Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit was an Anglo-French volunteer medical unit which served initially with the 4th French army in Lorraine, eastern France, during the Second World War from February 1940 until it was forced to retreat on 9 June ahead of the German advance. Its official French designation at that time was Ambulance Chirurgical Légère de Corps d’Armée 282. The unit made its way across France via Bordeaux to Arcachon from where it was evacuated back to Britain, arriving at Plymouth on 26 June. The unit re-grouped and re-equipped in Britain before sailing on 20 March 1941 for the Middle East, landing at Suez on 2 May. Under the designation of HCM 3 Ambulance Hadfield-Spears, it was attached to the Free French forces in the Middle East, North Africa, Italy and France before being dissolved in Paris in June 1945 on the order of General Charles de Gaulle.
The Women's National Emergency Legion (WNEL) was an Australian female auxiliary and training organisation of the World War II-era that was based in Brisbane. It was established in 1938 and provided volunteers with training in first aid and other skills which were seen as being relevant to Australia's war effort. Following the outbreak of the Pacific War members of the organisation were attached to the US military units in Australia as transport drivers and clerks. They also undertook mine watching and other tasks. The organisation ceased to exist in or about 1947.
The Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Services (SWH) was founded in 1914. It was led by Dr Elsie Inglis and provided nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, cooks and orderlies. By the end of World War I, 14 medical units had been outfitted and sent to serve in Corsica, France, Malta, Romania, Russia, Salonika and Serbia.
American Red Cross Motor Corps was founded in 1917 by the American Red Cross (ARC). The service was composed of women and it was developed to render supplementary aid to the U.S. Army and Navy in transporting troops and supplies during World War I, and to assist other ARC workers in conducting their various relief activities. The diverse character of the work included canteen work, military hospitals, camps and cantonments, home service workers, outside aid, office detail, other ARC activities, and miscellaneous services, such as the 1918 flu pandemic.
American Ambulance, Great Britain (AAGB) was a humanitarian organisation founded in 1940 by a group of Americans living in London for the purpose of providing emergency vehicles and ambulance crews to the United Kingdom during World War II. The idea for the service came from Gilbert H. Carr during a meeting of The American Society in London shortly after the Dunkirk evacuation.
The Women's Reserve Ambulance Corps was a volunteer aid organisation set up in the United Kingdom in 1915 during the First World War. Its members worked to direct people at stations, transport hospital patients and render assistance during German bombing raids. The corps sent personnel to the Dardanelles during the Gallipoli campaign and arranged the first all-female ambulance convoy to the British Army on the Western Front. The corps became a founding member of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in 1917 and continued in existence until September 1919.
