Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps Women's Army Auxiliary Corps | |
---|---|
Active | March 1917–April 1918: Women's Army Auxiliary Corps April 1918–Sept 1921: Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Branch | British Army |
Type | Women's administrative corps |
Size | 57,000 passed through corps |
Commanders | |
Ceremonial chief | Queen Mary (Patron) |
The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), known as Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC) from 9 April 1918, was the women's corps of the British Army during and immediately after the First World War. [1] It was established in February 1917 and disbanded on 27 September 1921.
The corps was formed following a January 1917 War Office recommendation that women should be employed in non-combatant roles in the British Army in France. While recruiting began in March 1917, [2] the corps was only formally instituted on 7 July 1917 by Lieutenant-General Sir Nevil Macready, the adjutant-general, who appointed Dr Mona Chalmers Watson the first chief controller. [3] More than 57,000 women served between January 1917 and November 1918.
The corps was established to free up men from administrative tasks for service at the front. It was divided into four sections including cookery, mechanical and clerical. [4] Nursing services were administered separately, although an auxiliary corps of the Royal Army Medical Corps was set up to provide medical services for the QMAAC. [2]
On 31 March 1917, women in the WAAC were first sent to the theatre of war in France, at that stage just fourteen cooks and waitresses. [5] Helen Gwynne-Vaughan was the chief controller overseas, and Florence Leach was the controller of the cooks. In 1918, women doctors (attached to the QMAAC) were first posted to France. One such was Dr Phoebe Chapple, who was awarded the Military Medal for tending the wounded regardless of her own safety during an air raid on an WAAC camp near Abbeville in May 1918. [6] [7] In all, five military medals were awarded to members of the QMAAC, all for brave conduct during air raids or shelling in rear areas. [8] [9] . Seventeen women were also deployed as "Hush WAACs" with the military intelligence codebreaking team in France. [10]
A total of 17,000 members of the corps served overseas, although never more than 9,000 at one time. [3] In April 1918, nearly 10,000 members employed on Royal Flying Corps air stations, both at home and in France, transferred to the Women's Royal Air Force on the formation of the Royal Air Force. [2]
Demobilisation commenced after the Armistice in November 1918, and the corps was disbanded on 27 September 1921. The last surviving QMAAC veteran was Ivy Campany, who died in 2008. [11]
Instead of standard military ranks, a specific grading system was authorised by Army Council Instruction No. 1069, 1917. All insignia was worn on epaulettes except that for forewoman and assistant forewoman, which was worn on the right upper arm. [12]
Most of the service records were destroyed in a German air raid in September 1940. Those which did have suffered fire and water and mould damage. The National Archives digitised these to prevent further damage and they can be searched and viewed online. [15]
The Women's Royal Naval Service was the women's branch of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. First formed in 1917 for the First World War, it was disbanded in 1919, then revived in 1939 at the beginning of the Second World War, remaining active until integrated into the Royal Navy in 1993. WRNS included cooks, clerks, wireless telegraphists, radar plotters, weapons analysts, range assessors, electricians and air mechanics.
The Women's Royal Army Corps was the corps to which all women in the British Army belonged from 1949 to 1992 except medical, dental and veterinary officers and chaplains, who belonged to the same corps as the men; the Ulster Defence Regiment, which recruited women from 1973, and nurses, who belonged to Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps.
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 World War II. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 181,000 at its peak strength in 1943, with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.
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Dame Helen Charlotte Isabella Gwynne-Vaughan, was a prominent English botanist and mycologist. During the First World War, she served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and then as Commandant of the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) from 1918 to 1919. During the Second World War, from 1939 to 1941, she served as Chief Controller of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS).
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Alexandra Mary Chalmers Watson CBE,, known as Mona Chalmers Watson, was a British physician and head of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. The first woman to receive an MD from the University of Edinburgh, she helped found the Elsie Inglis Hospital for Women, was the first president of the Edinburgh Women's Citizen Association, a staff physician and later senior physician at the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, and co-edited the Encyclopaedia Medica with her husband, Douglas Chalmers Watson. At the time of her death in 1936, she was president of the Medical Women's Federation, having been elected May 1935.
Phoebe Chapple was a South Australian medical doctor, decorated for her heroic service in France during World War I.
Emilie Hilda Dalton, was an English army officer and teacher.
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